Chapter 3

EARLY LIFE (CONTINUED)

I

In the second half of the eighteenth century some enthusiasts at Leipzig had founded a series of concerts, with a very small orchestra, which were given in "Apel's house"; in 1781 they migrated to the Gewandhaus, and by this name the concerts were afterwards known. In still later days Mendelssohn became conductor, and for brilliance and neatness the concerts were famous throughout the world; then Reinecke came and they became the most slovenly in the world--in this fine quality of slovenliness not even our London Philharmonic Society could hope to rival them; also, as Reinecke was an acrid reactionary, no modern music could get a hearing there. However, that did not greatly matter; and the world owes the Gewandhaus concerts an everlasting debt of gratitude.

Richard, we know, had never heard of Beethoven, had never heard a bar of his music. At the Gewandhaus the symphonies were regularly played, and to one of the performances he went, contented, with his head full of his play, not dreaming of what was to happen to him ere the morrow. Here are his own words: "I only remember that one evening I heard a symphony of Beethoven's, for the first time, that it set me in a fever, and on my recovery I had become a musician." This is from one of his stories, but it describes with sufficient closeness what actually happened. We know that saturated solutions of some salts at a touch solidify into a mass of crystals, and as far as intentions were concerned this, figuratively, happened to Richard: his purpose was instantly set--he would be a musician--nay, he felt he _was_ a musician. As to his proceedings, however, a better simile would be that of a liquid into which you drop a little of another liquid and immediately a violent commotion with much heat is set up. Beethoven's music touched his young being, and a fermentation began which drove him forthwith to make himself a perfectly equipped technical musician. Almost like Teufelsdröckh and St. Paul, he was "converted" in the twinkling of an eye.

The change was astounding; but Wagner was an astounding genius. The bald fact is that he was musical as well as dramatic; hitherto the dramatist in a favourable environment had grown and flourished while the musician lay latent waiting his time; but the moment the spirit of Beethoven spoke to his spirit the musician sprang up and responded. Weber had been his musical god, but he was now set a little lower, and Beethoven took his place. When he started to compose seriously it was Weber and not Beethoven he copied, but that is easily explained: Wagner, like Weber, wrote theatrical music for the theatre, whilst Beethoven wrote only utterly untheatrical music for the theatre, and it was from Weber and not Beethoven he had to learn his art of theatre music. But it was from Beethoven and not from Weber that the impulse to, compose came. He had heard, probably, all Weber's operas without any desire to go and do likewise; but having heard Beethoven's symphonies, and the incidental music to _Egmont_, he at once realized that his tragedy would be incomplete without music, and he resolved to write it. Carlyle, overlooking the trifling fact that there is such a thing as the technique of the novelist's trade, and believing in the omnipotence of the human will, set out to write a work of fiction; and we may imagine his disgust and the sincerity of his objurgations when the brute of a novel obstinately refused to be written.

When the incidental music to--whatever the name of his play was--obstinately refused to be written, young Wagner may have said something, though it is not on record; but having a finer instinct than Carlyle he perceived the necessity of acquiring the technique of his new trade. So he got possession of Logier's _Method_; in a few days made a complete study of it; then he set to work in earnest --with, alas! no more satisfactory fruits. Something that might serve, however, was achieved, and the ambitious composer went on to a fresh struggle. He had heard Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony, so, taking Goethe's _Laune des Verliebten_, he started a kind of fantasia, concocting words and music together. An account of Wagner's youth would be incomplete without some mention of these brave doings; they show clearly how strong the instinct which led him on to the _Ring_ was in him at this early time--to what an unusual degree the child was father of the man. But to take seriously his tragedy and these first musical attempts, made at the unusually advanced age of sixteen, even if I had seen them--which I have not: I do not know whether they are in existence--would be preposterous.

Richard began to see that he could make no headway, and he persuaded his family to let him take lessons from Gottlieb Müller, who must have been a bad teacher for such a boy. Nothing was learnt. Richard was told he must not do this and must not do that, and he was not told what he might or should do; in the end both he and Müller grew disgusted and the lessons were abandoned. I dare say Müller was in a humdrum way a good coach; he could have prepared candidates for our absurd academic examinations; but for an artistic genius, bursting with inarticulate ideas and inchoate purposes he was worse than useless. So Richard had to muddle along as he best might, while his good relatives doubted whether he would ever be able to do anything at all, until by good fortune he tried Theo. Weinlig. Weinlig saw what was wrong and what was wanted; instead of Müller's "you must not do this or that: it is against 'rule,'" he explained matters and showed Richard that if he once learnt the tricks of the trade he would be able to compose just as he liked; in six months Richard had become an expert contrapuntist and could fugue it with students who had toiled for years. "Now," said Weinlig at the last, "you will probably never want to write a fugue, but the knowledge that you can will give you confidence." According to the late Mr. Dannreuther his words were, "You have learnt to stand on your own legs." So it came to pass that Richard's ambition was fulfilled: he was a musician.

In the life of a being so extraordinary as Wagner it is not surprising that he took many steps, each of which seemed the most momentous in his career; but I think on the whole we must reckon this one, from the amateur enthusiast to the fully equipped professional musician, the most important. How long he would have been about it but for Weinlig's timely aid cannot be said. He was steeping himself in Beethoven. He could not play the piano, but he could read scores: Heinrich Dorn declared that he copied those of the overtures with his own hands. He arranged the Ninth Symphony and offered it to Schott, who declined it, of course. Another arrangement, for four hands, was afterwards accepted by Breitkopf, in exchange, it would seem, for a copy of the full score of the same work. Possibly he had borrowed the copy he worked from--or thumbed it until it fell to pieces. Dorn said he never came across such a Beethoven enthusiast, and he felt sure something would come of it. We know something did come of it. Weinlig had taught him the principles of musical form as well as harmony and counterpoint, and thus made the grasping of the plan of each masterpiece an easier task; and to Weinlig the world owes a huge debt of gratitude. Richard acknowledged the debt; and after Weinlig's death in 1842 he dedicated _The Love-feast of the Apostles_ to his widow.

II

Richard, when he was some years older, said bluntly he cared little for his family; and some of the Wagner-mad Bayreuth host point out that the family did little for him and did not understand him. One might ask why they should be expected to do much: they had plenty to do in looking after themselves. But no questions and no appeals to sweet reasonableness are needed, for the very patent fact is that his family helped him to the uttermost limit of their means. Geyer first, his widowed mother afterwards, then Rosalie and his brother Albert, without a doubt Louise--all did their best to make his young existence comfortable and happy. He got a much better education than in that epoch fell to the lot of the average student belonging to a family of such straitened means; when he wanted lessons in music he got them, and if the family did not pay for them I don't know who did. He was fed, clothed and apparently provided with pocket-money to hold his own with his fellow-students until at the age of twenty he began to earn a little money for himself; and it was Albert who gave him his first appointment. Long after then he drained their resources and the resources of the families into which his sisters had married. Wagner, as I have observed, was a spoiled boy and was made utterly selfish; and as years went on and he came to think music the salvation of Germany, and himself the salvation of music, by a simple logical process he arrived at a conclusion which justified his selfishness--namely, that it was every one's duty to support him, for to support him was only to help art and the fatherland. It is all very charming, and it makes one rather glad not to be a German. Without Wagner's colossal egotism he never could have got through the difficulties he had to face, and his selfishness is the defect of his quality; but it is pitiable to find writers--Glasenapp, Ashton Ellis, Chamberlain and Wolzogen--sunk so low in abject flunkeyism as to glorify the defect as the quality.

In 1829 a court theatre, as has been said, was opened. Rosalie came as a leading lady, and one Heinrich Dorn came as musical director. Dorn was nine years older than Richard at a time of life when nine years make an immense difference; but the elder, certainly through the influence of Rosalie, from the beginning took a keen interest in the younger. He played Richard's music at the theatre--to his own confusion on at least one occasion. Richard had composed an overture in six-eight time with a fearful stroke of the drum, a _Paukenschlag_, every fourth or fifth bar; Dorn played it; the audience grew mirthful. That is all. What the motive was for the drum-strokes I cannot guess. Still, Dorn did not give him up, and performed other and, let us hope, less ludicrous efforts. Presently I shall devote a page or two to the compositions prior to his first professional engagement; but first let me set down a few of the needful facts of his outer life.

The Paris revolution of 1830 set all youthful Europe in a ferment. The students of Leipzig university were not behind, and though Wagner did not yet belong to the sacred circles he mixed much with them, hearing them talk and doubtless doing not a little talking himself. At one stroke, he says, he became a revolutionist; and, within his own meaning of the word, a revolutionist he remained all his life. When we deal with the period during which his revolutionary ideas got him into serious trouble it will be time to discuss his views: for the present we need only note that the conduct of the Leipzig students in various riotous scenes that took place filled him more than ever with admiration for them, and with a determination to enrol himself amongst them as early as possible. He had quitted the Nicolai and gone to the more congenial Thomas school; but he would not wait to finish his course there. On February 28, 1831 he had his wish and matriculated. He was, I say, spoilt in everything. Most German musicians who received any education worth speaking of at that time got it because of the ambition of infatuated parents to see their children turn out successful lawyers or win high official positions, for Germans have a touching trust in their government and its power of providing for their children. Richard, however, had no taste either for law or officialism--he knew indeed that lawyers and officials are the parasites and curse of our civilization. He had evidently taken to heart his Uncle Adolph's admonitions--"Remember how wide was the culture of C.M. von Weber," etc.; and he entered the university with the intention, as he imagined, of acquiring some of that culture. But I fancy he deceived himself. As a schoolboy, as we have just noted, he aspired to the glory of studentship; having won to that he seems to have rested content. Certainly he did no work, attended no lectures. His days and nights were devoted to two things, composition and politics. With Apel and others whom he used to meet at a café he denounced governments, police officials and the rest of it; at home he composed overtures and finally a great symphony in C major. It is hard to say which of his two occupations he took the more seriously.

The artist was growing up strong within him; but the injustice and robbery he saw perpetrated on every side of him, the wholesale theft of Poland by Russian officials--by which I mean the Tsar, his ministers, his generals, soldiers, subservient judges and police--set his blood aboil; and I suppose that, like other boys of his years, as well as many grown men, he fancied his talk would do something to put the world and society right. But in no picture of his life at this time that I have come across is there any hint of the poetic atmosphere in which he should have lived. Surely in those days before his health broke down, with his fervid imagination, his intimacy with the masterworks of music and poetry, he must have drawn in a richer air than the reek of a Leipzig café, his inner vision must have seen a diviner light than the common light of the stodgy Leipzig streets, with his inner ear he must have heard a music sweeter than the hoarse arguments of students half-filled with lager-beer. In the accounts of this time there is not--to use the phrase colloquially--a touch of romance. Even his letters are stodgy. My surmise is that just as in his boyhood the musical part of his nature lay latent and unsuspected until Beethoven's music awoke it, so now the poetic part lay fallow awhile, and he worked away at the technical side of his music, mastering form and conventional development of themes, and in his leisure spent his excess of energy in talking politics and metaphysics. The C Symphony of the period can now be seen by all and has often been played; and it supports my view very forcibly. When I say there is no hint of Wagner in it I do not mean that the phraseology does not resemble that of the later Wagner--one could hardly expect that; I do mean that from _Die Feen_ onward there is always atmosphere, always emotion and colour, in his music; while the symphony is as bald, as unpoetical, as any mean street in Kennington. I do not doubt that he had his poetic dreams, because with such a nature he could not help it; but he must have been temporarily indifferent to them, absorbed in mastering the purely technical part of his business. If we compare the letters of the time with, say, Keats's and Shelley's, it is startling to find him enthusing over the affairs of the parish and seemingly turning his back on the great thoughts of life, on life's colour, romance, poetry--call it what we like. About the Poles he is enthusiastic and fiery enough. Hundreds of these heroes passed through Leipzig, living on charity as they went to their new homes in all quarters of the globe--where many of their descendants live on charity to this day. Richard wept over their griefs, and got the idea for a "Polonia" overture; and his ardour was sufficiently hot to last out until 1836, when he wrote the work at Königsberg. Or it may be that he had forgotten all about the Poles till he got into the vicinity of their dismembered country. Richard himself confesses to leading a dissipated life during this period; but probably he exaggerated when in after years he began to realize the brevity of life and to regret wasted hours. His guide, counsellor, friend, and, I doubt not, inspirer of most of his great achievements, Praeger, tells a fine story of this part of his life; and one can have no hesitation in calling it a pack of lies. On the other hand, forger though he was, Praeger is quite as worthy of credence as those writers who want us to believe that Wagner as a boy of fourteen had a fully developed character and clearly foresaw the _Ring_ and _Tristan_ as things before him, only waiting to be accomplished. Richard was still a boy, impulsive to the point of madness, a hotheaded fanatic, with his character still in the making, his artistic purposes neither defined nor capable of being defined. He was not yet a great man. But he had the makings of a great man in him; and in the meantime it is much that he gained the affection of most of the people he came across. In fact it was as true now as ever it was in later life that of those with whom he came in contact most became his friends and the rest his enemies: few could disregard him or remain indifferent.

His apprenticeship was by no means run out in 1832. He had written and heard performed some overtures, and he set to work and completed the big Symphony in C major, "in the style of Beethoven"; and this done he went for a holiday and to gain some little experience in Vienna. That he could afford such a trip, when at the age of nineteen he could not contribute a penny to the household expenses, bears out what I have said about the assistance he received from his family. He contributed nothing, and, considering his headstrong temper, only a courageous or reckless man would have prophesied that he would ever be able to contribute anything. However, to Vienna he went, and heard _Zampa_--many more times than he wished. He heard Strauss' waltzes and liked them; he saw Raymund's forgotten achievements and waxed eloquent about them too. He seems to have learnt nothing but a lively contempt for a frivolous people who had forgotten how lately Beethoven had died amongst them--only five years before; a people who danced and made merry and went philandering while every hour cholera was carrying off its tens and sometimes hundreds of victims. He himself was light-hearted and gay then; and having seen what there was to be seen he went back to Leipzig _via_ Prague. Here he sketched _Die Hochzeit_; met Dionys Weber, who had known Mozart, and Tomaschek, who had at all events seen Beethoven; and made the acquaintance of Friedrich Kittl, a fat, double-chinned amateur, just blossoming into a full-blown professional musician, who ten years later succeeded Dionys Weber as principal of the Prague conservatoire.

He still had very much to learn. But an Overture in D minor was performed at the Gewandhaus concerts on February 23, 1832; a Scena and Aria were sung by one Henriette Wüst at a "declamatorium" in the Hoftheater on April 22 of the same year; a C major Overture was given at the Gewandhaus eight days later; on January 10 of the following year the C Symphony was played at the Gewandhaus after being tried by a smaller orchestral society; an Overture to a preposterous play, _King Enzio_, in which Rosalie took a part, had been played nightly while the piece ran. I don't know what the "Scena with Aria" may be; a "declamatorium" seems to be a fine term for a recitation or evening of spouting; the C major Symphony was the last work of Wagner's to appear on a Gewandhaus programme. At the same concert Clara Wieck--afterwards Schumann--played a piano-concerto by Piscio. Reinecke's malicious idiocy need rouse no bitterness now; but I may repeat that under his directorship these concerts earned the contempt of musical Europe as thoroughly as did our own Philharmonic Society. Until lately, when one mentioned either, every musician laughed: now both are trying to rehabilitate themselves, without much success. Both the Philharmonic and the Gewandhaus represented musical vested interests; musicians like Reinecke in Leipzig, and non-musicians like Cusins in London, owed their handsome incomes to the positions into which good-luck had thrust them; and we could hardly expect them to show their publics what much abler men were about. It was because Reinecke and Cusins (and with him J.W. Davison of the _Times_) knew Wagner to be a great musician that they "kept him out" by the simple plan of saying he was not a musician. It was not the truth, of course, and they knew it was not the truth; but it is too much to expect truth to be considered when solid incomes are at stake.

At the Gewandhaus--and also at Prague, where Dionys Weber ran through a Beethoven symphony as if it was a Haydn _allegro_--Richard got his first lessons in the art of conducting, by a method for which much may be said, that is, he first learnt here how the thing should not be done. He knew the ninth symphony by heart, and was also entranced by the blended loveliness and strength of Mozart's symphonies: played here, all the effects and points he could plainly see in the score disappeared. He knew better, even thus early, than to think the two great composers capable of writing the kind of academic stuff which looks like music on paper and when played sounds like anything you like excepting music. He saw that when an orchestra carelessly romped through a movement, paying no heed to expression, to nuances of colour, to tempi, it did not really play, interpret, the music; and soon his convictions bore very remarkable fruit.

At the theatre he learnt the final lesson needed to prepare him for writing operas of his own. _Masaniello_ in its way opened his eyes as much as Beethoven's symphonies had done. Not only the bustle, but the clean sweep of the thing from beginning to finish of each act, with brilliant climaxes in the finales, made him stare and gasp in amazement. Weber he admired; but Weber's power lay in the beauty and picturesqueness of his music: in _Masaniello_ the music made its effect because of the theatrical skill with which it was used. The same thing he felt in _William Tell_. These two men, Auber and Rossini, were masters of the art of writing effectively for the theatre. The drama of their operas was not particularly striking nor lofty, the music did not come near Beethoven's, Mozart's, nor even Weber's in beauty, but their mastery in writing theatre-music carried them through triumphantly. The problem was, then, to acquire their skill and use it for a high and noble purpose; and this Richard at once attempted to do. He planned and wrote the words of _Die Hochzeit_. He laid it aside because Rosalie disliked the plot; but immediately he proceeded to another opera, _Die Feen_, which he completed at Würzburg. The book of _Die Hochzeit_ is dated December 5, 1832, Leipzig. On January 10 of the following year his symphony was given; on the 12th he replied to his brother Albert--now singer, actor and stage-manager at the Würzburg theatre--accepting an invitation to stay with him; a few days later he set out, reaching his destination towards the end of the month.

III

Wagner had scarcely time to look around him before his brother Albert offered him the post of chorus-master. The salary was magnificent--£1 (of our money) per month for about six months in the year; the work was hard. We need only note with regard to it that he here heard, and in the process of drilling his choristers undoubtedly got to know very well, all the popular successes of the day. His own account is that he liked them; and it is significant that during this period he heard Meyerbeer's _Robert the Devil_. At the moment it does not seem to have affected his compositions; but in a very few years Meyerbeer's example, if not his music, had a most marked influence in shaping his career. For the present he worked at _Die Feen_, and as soon as the theatre closed and Albert and his wife went elsewhere to perform in the off-season--just as German, French, Italian and American singers come to Covent Garden now during the summer--he had plenty of time. By New Year's day of '34 the work was complete. Parts of it were rendered by some Music Union; but soon Richard left Würzburg, having gained much experience if not any money. He was offered a post at Zurich; but though that town was destined to be his home for years long afterwards, it evidently did not tempt him then, for he returned to Leipzig.

Here at once began one of those squalid intrigues which drive serious opera-composers crazy. Several of Richard's pieces had been played; he had occupied one responsible position and been asked to take another; he had the finished score of his opera; and he was young and by nature sanguine to the verge of lunacy. He thought he had only to call on the Intendant of the opera with his masterpiece and its production would be assured. He did call, and soon he received a promise that his work would be done. But Leipzig was now Mendelssohn's stronghold and no rival could be tolerated. One of the great man's friends and admirers, Hauser, determined that the work should not be done. He opined that Wagner did not know how to compose nor how to orchestrate; he found the music lacking in warmth. This from a worshipper of Mendelssohn seems a little amusing to-day; but it had a result bad for Wagner in 1834. Underground work went on; and while Wagner waited with what patience he could muster--and I expect that was not much--hoping every day to hear that rehearsals had commenced, his score was quietly put on the shelf. This experience falls to the lot of every writer of operas and is so commonplace an incident that I should do no more than barely mention it did not many followers of Wagner see in it the beginning of that "persecution by the Jews" of which we heard so much a few years ago. It appears to me nothing of the kind. The Jews did not at that date particularly single out Wagner for attack: merely they defended their vested interests exactly as the musical profession in England defended and still defends its vested interests. It should be remembered that he had quite as many friends as enemies amongst the Hebrews; and I never could understand how, to mention only two, two great conductors and intimates of Wagner, Mottl and Levi, could tolerate all the nonsense talked on the subject at Bayreuth. When Brendel published the notorious _Judaism in Music_ it is true many Jewish journalists began to libel Wagner: it is true also that some Jewish professors in the Leipzig conservatoire petitioned that Brendel should be dismissed; but these were the shabby acts of individuals, and far too many shabby acts were perpetrated by Richard's partisans for it to be desirable for _them_ to raise the cry of persecution. Perforce I must say a few words more on this disagreeable topic when I come to deal with the Meyerbeer-Rienzi episode; but I promise the reader to cut it as short as may be. Once for all, despite all protestations, despite Wagner's honest belief to the contrary, I dismiss the Jewish conspiracy theory as rubbish.

Richard's health was in no way injured by the breakdown of the negotiations. His letters of the period are as buoyant as could be wished. He had other schemes. At the Freemasons' concerts his _Die Feen_ overture made a hit. He heard Schröder-Devrient in Bellini's _Montechi e Capuleti_, and found to his astonishment that a great singer could create great artistic effects in music of no very high value. He had many friends, and amongst them Schumann and Heinrich Laube--the latter a free-thinking journalist whose utterances so scared the government-by-police, as tending to make people think for themselves instead of peacefully submitting to be governed, that he was put in prison. He was editor of a paper called the _Zeitung für die Elegante Welt_--- a curious title for a journal which frequently praised the democratic Richard. In the summer of 1834 he went for another holiday, this time to Teplitz, where he sketched _Das Liebesverbot_, his second opera to get finished and the first to be performed--performed, by the way, in a very unusual fashion. Obviously his spirits were not damped: obviously, also, the family which is supposed not to have assisted him assisted him to the extent, at any rate, of enabling him to take a holiday he could not pay for. He had as yet not earned sufficient for his travelling expenses from Leipzig to Würzburg and back, to say nothing of holiday trips. As on this trip he planned _Das Liebesverbot_ his thanks were due to his family for being able to begin that work. It is true he had Apel as a friend, but he had not yet formed the habit of borrowing right and left, nor is there any hint in his correspondence of Apel having paid his expenses.

I wish now to pass rapidly over two fresh adventures--the conductorship at Magdeburg and that at Königsberg; but first let me point out how the boy's was changing to a man's character. It is plain that he worked very hard at Würzburg, for the score of _Die Feen_ is a big one, and teaching his chorus must have occupied many hours a day. It is equally plain that he set to work with the greatest vigour on the new opera. Now, Nietzsche declared that Wagner by sheer will and energy "made himself a musician." That is pure nonsense; but it points to an important characteristic--namely, Wagner did not, even at the age of twenty, trust to inspiration alone, as with his hot and impulsive nature we might have expected, but also to unremitting work. For the remaining fifty years of his life the labours of each day were almost incredible.

IV

At this point the reader must be asked to bear in mind that the operatic companies with which Wagner was connected in these early days--until he left Riga in 1839 and set sail for Paris _via_ London--were unlike anything in existence to-day. Dickens in _Nicholas Nickleby_ and Thackeray in _Pendennis_ gave us pictures of the old stock theatrical companies, with all their good-fellowship, jealous rivalries, lack of romance and understanding of the dramatic art, and abundance of dirt. One has only to read Wagner's accounts of the enterprises at Würzburg, Magdeburg, Königsberg, and even at Riga, or to glance at his letters of the period, to see that these concerns differed in no essential from the companies ruled over by Mr. Crummles and Miss Costigan's manager. Life went on in an utterly careless way: the rehearsal for the day over, the company met in cafés or beer-gardens and stayed there until it was time to move, in view of the evening performance; any one who had a shilling spent it, while those who had no shillings accepted their friends' hospitality and hoped for the good time coming. Ladies quarrelled and then kissed; gentlemen threatened to kill each other in honourable duel and sank their differences deep in lager; one member left, another joined, some members seemed to go on for ever; the great times were always coming and never came. There was a company of this sort, the head being one Bethmann, that wintered at Magdeburg and in the spring and summer months played at Lauchstädt and Rüdelstadt; and Wagner got the position of conductor--the first real position he had yet held, for the Würzburg office, after all, was a very small affair. He now went out to conquer the world for himself; he became nominally self-dependent, though neither now nor in the future was he really so. He did the usual round with his troop, arriving at Magdeburg in October; and arriving there, he tells us, he at once plunged into a life of frivolity. This may be true, but we must again note the stupendous industry which enabled him to finish _Das Liebesverbot_ in so short a time. The most important event in Richard's life about this time was his engagement to Minna Planer. She is said to have been a handsome young woman; and, as impecuniosity is everlastingly an incentive to marriage, of course he married her. In the meantime he thoroughly enjoyed directing all the rubbish of the day, the season ended and he returned to Leipzig.

The next season barely began before Bethmann, according to custom, went bankrupt; the company disbanded, and Richard was left with a young wife and nothing to live on. An engagement at Königsberg proved no better; but at last the conductorship of the opera at Riga was offered to him, so off he went eagerly, never dreaming, we may suppose, of the extraordinary adventures that lay before him. Here in outward peace he was to remain until 1839, rehearsing and directing operas; but here also he was inspired with the first idea that showed he had grown into the Richard Wagner we all know. He toiled away at the theatre, nearly driving the singers crazy with the ceaseless work he demanded from them; and to his family, when they had news from him or of him, it must have seemed as though he had already one foot on the ladder and it was only a matter of time for him to climb to the dizzy height of Hofkapellmeister of one of the larger opera-houses. No one, however, who had only known Richard prior to this period could realize how rapidly the new environment was to form and ripen his character.

He was now about twenty-three years of age and a master of his trade. He had written two operas and saw little likelihood of either being played--for his advantage, at least. He had composed some instrumental things, but he knew that the theatre and not the concert-room was his vocation. He must have reflected that even writers of successful operas had died in poverty, either utterly abject, as Mozart died, or comparative, as Weber died. On the other hand Rossini had made a fortune and Meyerbeer was making one. What then? Well, Wagner wanted neither to die poor nor to die at all: all his life he claimed from the world luxuries as a right. He felt his powers at least equal to Rossini's and far superior to Meyerbeer's (though at this time he ranked Meyerbeer high). His artistic conscience was not so sensitive as it afterwards became: he actually liked the sparkling French and Italian stuff which was so popular. So, then, he would challenge Meyerbeer on his own ground! And as all the musical fashions had to come from Paris he would go to Paris and make a bid for fortune. Such must have been the process of reasoning which led Wagner to take his first great step in life.

For the present it is sufficient to say that out of Bulwer Lytton's novel _Rienzi_ he took material to weave a libretto that would afford opportunities for a great spectacular opera; and set to work and wrote two acts of the music. Finally he took ship from Pillau to London, bringing with him his wife and dog, with the intention of reaching Paris ultimately. And on that journey I must leave him for the present, pausing a little to consider the music he had composed up to this time (not including the incomplete _Rienzi_).