My Life, Richard Wagner [little readers .txt] 📗

way of temporary compensation, five poems by my friend Frau Wesendonck which I had set to music (consisting chiefly of studies for Tristan with which I was occupied at the time), so that he should at least have something on the market. The songs were accepted and published, but they seemed to have produced no softening effect on Schott's mood. I was obliged to conclude that he was acting on some one else's instigation, and I betook myself to Kissingen (where he was staying for his 'cure') in order to get to the bottom of it and shape my next moves accordingly. An interview with him was obstinately denied me, and Frau Schott, who was posted outside his door in the role of guardian angel, informed me that a bad liver attack prevented him from seeing me. I now realised my position with regard to him. For the moment I drew on young Weisheimer for some money, which he gave me most willingly, supported as he was by a wealthy father, and then set to work to consider what I could do next. I could no longer count on Schott, and had in consequence lost all prospect of an unopposed performance of the Meistersinger.

At this juncture I was much surprised to receive a renewed official invitation to Vienna for the performance of Tristan at the Opera, where I was informed all obstacles had been removed, as Ander had completely recovered his voice. I was genuinely astonished to hear this, and on further inquiry arrived at the following elucidation of the transactions that had been taking place on my behalf in Vienna during the interval. Before I left there the last time Frau Luise Dustmann, who seemed to take a real pleasure in the part of Isolde, had tried to clear away the real impediment to my undertaking by persuading me to go to an evening party, where she intended to introduce me again to Dr. Hanslick. She knew that unless this gentleman could be brought round to my side nothing could be accomplished in Vienna. As I was in a good temper that evening I found it easy to treat Hanslick as a superficial acquaintance, until he drew me aside for an intimate talk, and with sobs and tears assured me he could not bear to be misunderstood by me any longer. The blame for anything that might have been extraordinary in his judgment of me was to be laid, not on any malicious intention, but solely on the narrow-mindedness of an individual who desired nothing more ardently than to learn from me how to widen the boundaries of his knowledge. All this was said in such a burst of emotion that I could do nothing but soothe his grief and promise him my unreserved sympathy with his work in future. Just before leaving Vienna I actually heard that Hanslick had launched forth into unmeasured praise of myself and my amiability. This change had so affected both the singers at the Opera and also Councillor Raymond (the Lord High Steward's adviser) that at last, working from high circles downwards, it came to be regarded as a point of honour with the Viennese to have Tristan performed in their city. Hence my summons!

I heard at the same time from young Weisheimer, who had betaken himself to Leipzig, that he was sure he could arrange a good concert there if I could assist him by conducting my new prelude to the Meistersinger as well as the Tannhauser Overture. He believed it would make so great a sensation that the probable sale of all the tickets would enable him to place a not inconsiderable sum at my disposal after the bare expenses had been deducted. In addition to this, I could hardly go back on my promise to Herr von Guaita with respect to a performance of Lohengrin at Frankfort, although the Schnorrs had been obliged to decline to take part in it. After weighing all these offers I decided to put the Meistersinger aside, and try to earn enough by enterprises abroad to enable me in the following spring to take up and finish my interrupted work on the spot, unaffected by Schott's humours. I therefore decided at all costs to keep on the house at Biebrich, which I really liked. Minna, on the other hand, had been pressing me to send some of the furniture which I had kept, to complete her own establishment at Dresden, namely, my bed and a few other things to which I was accustomed, 'so that when I went to see her,' she said, 'I should find everything in proper order.' I did not want to act contrary to the established fiction which was to make the parting from me easier for her; I therefore sent her what she wanted, and bought new furniture for my home on the Rhine with the assistance of a Wiesbaden manufacturer, who allowed me fairly long credit.

At the end of September I went to Frankfort for a week to take over the rehearsals of Lohengrin. Here again I went through the same experience as I had so often done before. I no sooner came into contact with the members of the opera company than I felt a desire to throw up the undertaking on the spot; then the general consternation and the entreaties that I would persevere caused a reaction, under the influence of which I held out until I at last became interested in certain things for their own sake, and quite apart from any consideration of the wretched singers. The things that pleased me were the effect of an uncurtailed performance, and the employment of correct tempi and correct staging. Yet I suppose Friederike Meyer was the only one who completely realised these effects. The usual 'animation' of the audience was not lacking, but I was told later on that the subsequent performances fell off, so that the opera had to be curtailed in the old way to keep it going. (They were conducted by Herr Ignaz Lachner of Frankfort, a smart, sleek man, but a wretchedly bad, muddle- headed conductor.)

I was the more prostrated by the effect of all this because even the Bulows had failed to pay me their expected visit. Cosima, as I was now informed, had passed me by in haste on her way to Paris to offer her support for a short time to her grandmother, who was suffering from a tedious illness, and had now received a most painful blow by the news of the death of Blandine after her confinement, which had taken place at St. Tropez.

I now shut myself up for some time in my house at Biebrich, the weather having suddenly turned cold, and prevailed on my thumb to prove itself capable of writing down the instrumentation of some extracts for immediate concert purposes from the Meistersinger, which was now complete. I sent the prelude to Weisheimer at once to be copied at Leipzig, and also set the Versammlung dor Meistersinger and Pogner's Anrede for orchestra.

By the end of October I was at last ready to start on my journey to Leipzig, in the course of which I was induced in a strange way to enter the Wartburg once more. I had alighted for a few minutes at Eisenach, and the train had just begun to move as I was hurriedly trying to catch it. I ran after the vanishing train involuntarily with a sharp cry to the guard, but naturally without being able to stop it. A considerable crowd, which had gathered on the station to watch the departure of a prince, thereupon broke into loud outbursts of laughter, and when I said to them, 'I suppose you are glad that this happened to me?' they replied, 'Yes, it was very funny.' On this incident I based my axiom that you can please the German public by your misfortunes if by nothing else. As there was no other train to Leipzig for five hours I telegraphed to my brother-in-law, Hermann Brockhaus (whom I had asked to put me up), telling him of my delay, and allowed a man who introduced himself as a guide to persuade me to visit the Wartburg. There I saw the partial restoration made by the Grand Duke, and also the hall containing Schwind's pictures, to all of which I was quite indifferent. I then turned into the restaurant of this show-place of Eisenach, and found several women there engaged in knitting stockings. The Grand Duke of Weimar assured me some time afterwards that Tannhauser enjoyed great popularity throughout the whole of Thuringia down to the lowest peasant boy, but neither the host nor my guide seemed to know anything about it. However, I signed the visitors' book with my full name, and described in it the pleasant greeting I had received at the station, though I have never heard that any one noticed it.

Hermann Brockhaus, who had aged rather and grown stout, gave me a most cheerful reception when I arrived, late at night, at Leipzig. He took me to his house, where I found Ottilie and her family, and was installed in comfort. We had much to talk about, and my brother-in-law's remarkably good-natured way of entering into our conversation often kept us up fascinated until all hours of the morning. My connection with Weisheimer, a young and quite unknown composer, aroused some misgivings. His concert programme was in fact filled with a great number of his own compositions, including a symphonic poem, just completed, entitled Der Ritter Toggenburg. I should probably have raised a protest against carrying out this programme in its entirety had I attended the rehearsals in an undisturbed frame of mind, but it so happened that the hours I spent in the concert-room proved to be among the most intimate and pleasant recollections of my life, for there I met the Bulows again. Hans seemed to have felt it his duty to join me in celebrating Weisheimer's debut, his contribution being a new pianoforte concerto by Liszt. To enter the old familiar hall of the Gewandhaus at Leipzig was enough in itself to cause me an uneasy feeling of depression, which was increased by my reception by the members of the orchestra--of whose estrangement I was keenly conscious--and to whom I had to introduce myself as an entire stranger. But I felt myself suddenly transported when I discovered Cosima sitting in a corner of the hall, in deep mourning and very pale, but smiling cheerfully at me. She had returned shortly before from Paris--where her grandmother now lay hopelessly bedridden--filled with grief at the inexplicably sudden death of her sister, and she now seemed, even to my eyes, to be leaving another world to approach me. Our emotions were so genuinely deep and sincere that only an unconditional surrender to the enjoyment of meeting again could bridge the chasm. All the incidents of the rehearsal affected us like a magic-lantern show of peculiarly enlivening character, at which we looked on like merry children. Hans, who was in an equally happy mood--for we all seemed to each other to be embarked on some Quixotic adventure--called my attention to Brendel, who was sitting not far from us, and seemed to be expecting me to recognise him. I found it entertaining to prolong this suspense thus occasioned, by pretending not to know him, whereat, as it appears, the poor man was much offended. Recalling my unjust behaviour on this occasion, I therefore made a point of alluding specially to Brendel's services when speaking in public some time afterwards on Judaism in Music, by way of atonement, as it were, to this man, who had died in the meantime. The arrival of Alexander Ritter with my niece Franziska helped to enliven us. My niece, indeed, found constant entertainment and excitement in the enormity of Weisheimer's compositions, while Ritter,