Part 1

_Wagner_ AND HIS MUSIC-DRAMAS

By ROBERT BAGAR

NEW YORK _Grosset & Dunlap_ PUBLISHERS

Copyright 1943, 1950 The Philharmonic-Symphony Society of New York Printed in the United States of America

Foreword

This volume, concerned with Wagnerian excerpts most frequently performed in the concert hall, has been prepared primarily for the audience of the Philharmonic-Symphony Society of New York. Its object is to supply information in as concise and complete a manner as space will permit. It makes no boast about originality, particularly since the bulk of the material involved stems from any number of treatises on the subject of Wagner and his music.

Wagner AND HIS MUSIC-DRAMAS

No artist has known a fiercer urge to create than Richard Wagner. None has labored more mightily to indoctrinate mankind with his convictions. None has been more scathing in his contempt of reaction, of pretense, of outdated mannerisms. He wanted his works to be sagas of epic spiritual and moral power; and, whether or not he achieved his aims, he wrote music that is voluptuous and emotionally overwhelming.

In a way he glamorized human suffering or, at least, that side of human suffering expressed through the symbol of renunciation, which one encounters frequently in his operas. His librettos are filled with super-noble purpose, with superhuman aspiration. In _Der Ring des Nibelungen_ he created a world of divinities who are imperfect and humans who unconsciously strive toward perfection. It is not a new world, nor is it a brave one, except through the promise of humanity’s elevation. With _Tristan und Isolde_ he rises to metaphysical heights in his argument. The theme generally is again renunciation, the attaining of perfection and solace through it. One comes upon it again in _Die Meistersinger_, in _The Flying Dutchman_, in _Parsifal_, and so on.

Yet for an artist whose works so idealized all that is good and lofty and noble, Wagner did little in his own life that could possibly approach those superior motives. There is a distinction to be made, therefore, between Wagner the man and Wagner the artist.

Richard Wagner was born in Leipzig, on May 22, 1813, the son (allegedly) of Karl Friedrich and Johanna Wagner. The theory has been advanced that the composer’s real father was Ludwig Geyer, an intimate friend of the family, who married Frau Wagner about a year after her first husband’s death.

Even as a young boy Richard was tremendously fond of the theater. His mother, not particularly interested in it, threatened to hurl a curse on his head if he attempted to make a career of the stage.

In any case, when Geyer died several years later, Richard was sent to Eisleben to become apprenticed to a goldsmith. After a year of puttering around as a tyro goldsmith he returned to Dresden where the family now was. In that city he found many opportunities to express his dramatic urge.

Soon the family moved back to Leipzig and Wagner began to study with Theodor Weinlig, who was one of the authorities on counterpoint.

His early essays in music (composition now being his aim) were nothing to become excited about. But the musical life of Dresden and his intercourse with leading figures of the day worked their influence on him nevertheless. He spent nights copying Beethoven’s Fifth and Ninth Symphonies. He wrote an overture which Heinrich Dorn, director of the Leipzig Theater, liked well enough to perform, but it was poorly received. With characteristic suddenness he entered Leipzig University as a _studiosus musicae_, really a student with few privileges. But he plunged with great gusto into all sorts of student activity, which was, apparently, the real reason for his enrollment at the school.

One of his sisters, Rosalie, and his brother both followed the acting profession, and they gave him the benefit of their counsel, though no one knows how much of it he followed.

He wrote a symphony and then began work on an opera, _Die Hochzeit_, which he never completed. That was in 1832. In the same year he tried again, actually finishing a work entitled _Die Feen_. It was rejected, but Wagner, after one or two little pouts, regained his composure. He accepted an engagement as conductor at Magdeburg and in the course of his work he composed another opera, _Das Liebesverbot_, which, however, was given one performance.

At Magdeburg he met Minna Planer, a member of the operatic troupe, who later became his wife. When she left for Königsberg he followed her and obtained a conductor’s position at the theater in that city. Then came a succession of changes. The restless Wagner scurried about with the spontaneity of a gypsy. When things lagged in one place he quickly moved to another. So that we find him going to Riga, where he directed both opera and symphony, to London, to Paris. In the last named he thought he might finally awaken a musical public to his genius. But he suffered untold agonies. Poverty possessed him. He and his wife lived in constant economic turmoil. With all that he managed to compose two more operas, _Rienzi_ and _The Flying Dutchman_. Both were produced at Dresden under the sponsorship of Meyerbeer, then a dominant figure in German music.

All this time, though, he wrote a host of compositions, besides penning many articles on music for various publications, and his fame spread. His rebellious temperament got him into difficulty often enough, but he managed, most of the time, to slip out of it. However, in Dresden, where he officiated as a conductor of the Royal Opera, he clashed with certain musical authorities who would not brook his bold opposition to standard ideas. Yet still another opera came to the light of performance when _Tannhäuser_ was given its first hearing, again at Dresden, on October 19, 1845.

During the previous summer Wagner began work on the libretto of _Die Meistersinger_ while vacationing at Marienbad. He soon abandoned it, taking on the libretto for _Lohengrin_ instead. The following year saw the completion of the _Lohengrin_ score. In 1848 he joined a revolutionary movement that spread through Europe, launched by the French Revolution. When the disturbance was quelled some months later, he fled to Switzerland, but remained there for a short time, heading soon for Paris.

His wife refused to join him there, remembering too well the poverty of the previous stay in the French capital. But he started on _Siegfried’s Death_, which was to grow into the gigantic _Ring_. He flitted about again, leaving Paris, returning a little later.

Wagner fell in love with Jessie Taylor Laussot, who proved a benefactress in a financial way. In the meantime, he decided to leave Minna forever. In Zurich, whither he repaired, he labored unceasingly on the libretto for _The Young Siegfried_. Then he created the subject of _The Valkyrie_ and finally that of _The Rheingold_.

It is amusing to note that he wrote his _Ring_ librettos in reverse order, that is, from what is now _Götterdämmerung_ back to _Das Rheingold_. Having hit upon a huge theme, he found it increasingly necessary to broaden its scope, thus accounting for the four operas. Parenthetically, however, he wrote the music in the correct order.

Now in Wagner’s life there appears a strange and beautiful influence, Mathilde Wesendonck, wife of a very wealthy silk merchant. It has been pointed out that under the spell of this beguiling woman his composing flourished as never before. At the home of the Wesendoncks he completed the poem for _Tristan und Isolde_. It is not known how friendly Richard and Mathilde were, but this is fact: Wagner left his friends’ abode because he would not bring grief upon Otto Wesendonck.

He went once more to Paris where some very ridiculous things happened having to do with a suggested ballet for the opera _Tannhäuser_. Wagner, adamant, would not change the order of his work merely to please influential gentlemen of the Jockey Club.

In 1864, when Wagner was fifty-one, he settled in Munich—he had been forgiven for his revolutionary surge—and in this musically flourishing city he came under the high patronage of King Ludwig of Bavaria. Here he renewed acquaintance with Liszt’s daughter Cosima, whom he had met some years before. She was now married to Hans von Bülow, a highly gifted conductor. The composer and Cosima were thrown together a lot and their mutual regard soon ripened into love. Poor little Minna, who had been ill for a long period, died in 1866, a piece of news which saddened Wagner greatly.

That same year, however, he and Cosima took a place at Triebschen on Lake Lucerne in Switzerland. Bülow, at first angered by his wife’s deed, soon came to realize the inevitability of it. Besides, he adored Wagner and his music. He acted sanely therefore, sacrificing his personal feelings for the sake of Wagner’s art. Cosima and Richard were married in 1870.

At Triebschen he completed _Die Meistersinger_, _Siegfried_, and the first two acts of _Götterdämmerung_, besides writing any number of treatises, articles, and the like. Here, too, the idea of a great festival theater was born in him, and the originality of the thing soon won many influential supporters to the cause. By 1871 a site was found for it at Bayreuth, Germany. The next year he put the finishing touches to the _Ring_ and the Bayreuth project grew in proportion to his frantic efforts to raise money for it. In all, it took some four years to erect this shrine to Wagnerian music. And finally, the première of the Wagnerian Cycle, running from August 13 to 16, was a tremendous success, in spite of the heartaches, the headaches, and the discouragement.

With all that he had already accomplished, Wagner could have retired to the easy life he often so fervently spoke about. But the urge to compose never left him. He set to work on _Parsifal_, the poem he had completed some months before. When the opera was all finished he endeavored with his usual kinetic energy to raise money for its production. It was given its first performance on July 26, 1882. There were sixteen more performances.

Wagner, after all the excitement of Bayreuth, left for a vacation in Venice. In spite of repeated heart attacks, he considered seriously the writing of another symphony. But he had done his work. There was to be no second symphony. Wagner died of his heart illness on February 13, 1883. He was buried at Bayreuth.

Overture to “Rienzi”

Bulwer’s _Rienzi_ revived an old desire of Wagner’s to make an opera out of the story of the last of the Tribunes. He was in Dresden during the summer of 1837 and there he read Barmann’s translation of the Bulwer novel. However, he did not begin actual work until the following July. First, of course, came the text. Later that month he started on the music. By May 1839, he had completed two acts. The remainder of the score, with the exception of the Overture, was written and orchestrated in Paris. The Overture was finished on October 23, 1840.

On October 20, 1842, _Rienzi_ was given its world première at the Royal Saxon Court Theater, Dresden. Amusingly, the performance began at 6 P.M., and it went on and on until midnight. America was not to become acquainted with the opera until March 4, 1878, when it was given at the Academy of Music, New York.

The thematic material employed in the Overture stems from music in the opera itself, such as the “long-sustained, swelled and diminished A on the trumpet,” which is the signal for the people’s uprising against the nobles; Rienzi’s Prayer; a theme of the chorus, _Gegrüsst sei hoher Tag_; the theme of the revolutionary forces, _Santo spirito cavaliere_; the stretto of the second Finale, _Rienzi, dir sei Preis_; and a subject similar to the phrase of the nobles set to the words, _Ha, dieser Gnade Schmach erdruckt das stolze Herz!_

The score of the Overture calls for one piccolo, two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, two valve-horns, two plain horns, one serpent (nowadays replaced by the double-bassoon), two valve trumpets, two plain trumpets, three trombones, one ophicleide (replaced by the bass-tuba), two snare-drums, bass drum, triangle, cymbals, and strings.

Overture to “The Flying Dutchman”

This compact and brilliantly written Overture calls for the following instrumentation: piccolo, two flutes, two oboes, English horn, two clarinets, four horns, two bassoons, two trumpets, three trombones, bass tuba, kettledrums, harp, and strings.

John Runciman once remarked about this music, “It is the atmosphere of the sea that counts; the roar of the billows, the ‘hui!’ of the wind, the dashing and plunging.... The sea, indeed, is the background, foreground, the whole environment of the drama.... The smell and atmosphere of the sea is maintained with extraordinary vividness to the last bar.”

In the construction of the Overture Wagner makes important use of the theme of the Dutchman, which appears in the opening measure by horns and bassoons, and of the up-and-down theme of Senta, the Angel of Mercy, softly and tenderly sung by English horn, horns and bassoons. This is the theme which at the conclusion of the piece rises to a triumphant sonority, indicative of redemption attained.

Overture to “Tannhäuser”

The first concert performance of this well-known Overture took place at Leipzig, on February 12, 1846, under the direction of Mendelssohn. The event was a benefit for the Gewandhaus Orchestra Pension Fund.

Wagner himself furnished a “program” for the Overture when the musicians performing it at a Zurich concert requested an explanation of the music. The “program” in a translation by William Ashton Ellis follows:

“To begin with, the orchestra leads before us the Pilgrim’s Chorus alone; it draws near, then swells into a mighty outpour, and passes finally away.—Evenfall; last echo of the chant. As night breaks, magic sights and sounds appear, a rosy mist floats up, exultant shouts assail our ears, the whirlings of a fearsomely voluptuous dance are seen. These are the Venusberg’s seductive spells, that show themselves at dead of night to those whose breast is fired by the daring of the senses. Attracted by the tempting show, a shapely human form draws nigh; ’tis Tannhäuser, Love’s minstrel.... Venus herself appears to him.... As the Pilgrim’s Chant draws closer, yet closer, as the day drives farther back the night, that whir and soughing of the air—which had erewhile sounded like the eerie cries of the soul condemned—now rises, too, to ever gladder waves; so that when the sun ascends at last in splendor, and the Pilgrims’ Chant proclaims in ecstasy to all the world, to all that lives and moves thereon, Salvation won, this wave itself swells out the tidings of sublimest joy. ’Tis the carol of the Venusberg itself, redeemed from the curse of impiousness, this cry we hear amid the hymn of God. So wells and leaps each pulse of Life in chorus of Redemption; and both dissevered elements, both soul and senses, God and Nature, unite in the astonishing kiss of hallowed Love.”

The Overture to Tannhäuser is scored for piccolo, two flutes, two oboes, two clarinets, two bassoons, four horns, three trumpets, three trombones, bass tuba, kettledrums, cymbals, triangle, tambourine, and strings.

Bacchanale from “Tannhäuser”

The opera was first produced at the Royal Opera House, Dresden, on October 19, 1845. Some sixteen years later, due to the interest and influence of Princess Metternich, wife of the Austrian Ambassador to France, the work was introduced to Paris. For that production Wagner extended his first scene to include a Bacchanale, the reasons for this being as amusing to us as they must have been tragic to Wagner. The Princess revealed, in an article written for the _Pall Mall Magazine_ (London, 1894) some of the reasons for the failure of the opera there, and it was a complete failure. The Princess says:

“The day of the performance drew nigh and in most circles little good will was confessed. It was stated generally that a protest should be made against the abominable futurist music, and it was rumored that stormy scenes might be expected at the Opera. In the clubs men were annoyed because Wagner would not have a regular ballet, but only a few poses of the ballerinas in the Venusberg. The club subscribers to the Opera expected a ballet at nine-thirty sharp, no matter what the opera. This, at least, was the custom of the time. No one who knew anything of art could conceive where a ballet could be introduced into the midst of ‘Tannhäuser.’ Wagner declared that he would not accede to the silly wishes of the subscribers, because he could not. And he was perfectly right, but his refusal was to be paid for dearly.”

Wagner had entertained great hopes for this Parisian production of _Tannhäuser_. To produce his work at the justly famed Opera was reason enough, what with that organization’s habit of letting expense go hang. He labored industriously at making revisions, which included a complete rewrite of the Bacchanalian scene as well as of the music for Venus and Tannhäuser in Act 1.

When he had completed his revisions he played the music for several friends. Charles Nuitter, one of these, reported on that private hearing as follows:

“When we arrived the composer sat down to the piano. He played with indescribable animation and fury. His hands pounded the keys, and the same time he strove to acquaint me with the action of the scene, crying out the entrance of the various groups. ‘Arrival of the fauns and satyrs; all are put to flight; the confusion mounts to its climax,’ he flung at me, and his hands continued to bang the keys, the musical delirium always augmenting. When he was piling on a succession of quivering chords Wagner suddenly cried, ‘Now a crash of thunder. We are all dead!’ At that moment a wagon of paving stones discharged its load into the street, thus producing a prolonged and terrible noise. Wagner turned round and regarded us with stupefaction, his eyes staring wildly. It took us some moments to recover from this stirring of our feelings. Thus it was that I was initiated into the new music.”

The first Paris performance of _Tannhäuser_ took place on March 13, 1861. That was the first of three fiascos in the French capital. The second occurred on March 18. Napoleon III and the Empress both attended, but their presence had no effect on the rest of the audience, whose cat-calls, howls, and kindred strange noises were even louder, if not funnier, than the first time.

The work was given for the third time on March 24. This was not a regular subscription performance, and it seemed to all and sundry that finally a Parisian audience would be honest and unprejudiced in its attitude toward the opera. However, the composer’s enemies had bought out the house and the result was the same. Whereupon Wagner withdrew his score. _Tannhäuser_ was not given again in Paris until thirty-four years later.

Prelude to “Lohengrin”

In the summer of 1845, while Wagner was at Marienbad, he worked out the plan for _Lohengrin_. The libretto he wrote during the following winter. Then came a topsy-turvy scheme of creation. In composing the music he began with the hero’s Narrative in the last act, “because the monologue contained the most significant musical germs in the whole score.” He finished the third act on March 25, 1847, the first act on June 8 of that year, the second act on August 2, and the Prelude on August 28. The orchestration was done during the following winter and spring. Franz Liszt conducted the première of the opera at Weimar on August 28, 1850. The Prelude was played for the first time in concert on January 17, 1853, at the Leipzig Gewandhaus, Julius Rietz conducting.

Discussing the Prelude, William Foster Apthorp wrote:

“Like the hero’s career in the opera, it begins, as it were, in the clouds, then gradually descends farther and farther until it embraces all the lower tones of the orchestra, and then returns to the clouds again. Its single theme is developed in free polyphony by various successive groups of instruments, each of which groups proceeds with free counter-thematic work as the next group enters with the theme. First we have the violins _piano_ in their higher registers; then come the flutes, oboes, and clarinets; then the violas, ’cellos, horns, bassoons, and double-basses; lastly the trumpets, trombones, and the tuba _fortissimo_; then comes the _decrescendo_, ending _pianissimo_ in the high violins and flutes.”

The composer, who could descant with the best of them, paraded his rhetorical gifts on the Prelude (the translation is by William Ashton Ellis):

“Love seemed to have vanished from a world of hatred and quarreling; as a lawgiver she was no longer to be found among the communities of men. Emancipating itself from barren care for gain and possession, the sole arbiter of all worldly intercourse, the human heart’s unquenchable love-longing, again at length craved to appease a want which, the more warmly and intensely it made itself felt under the pressure of reality, was the less easy to satisfy on account of this very reality. It was beyond the confines of the actual world that man’s ecstatic imaginative power fixed the source as well as the output of this incomprehensible impulse of love, and from the desire of a comforting sensuous conception of this supersensuous idea invested it with a wonderful form, which, under the name of the ‘Holy Grail,’ though conceived as actually existing, yet unapproachably far off, was believed in, longed for, and sought for.

“The Holy Grail was the costly vessel out of which, at the Last Supper, our Saviour drank with His disciples, and in which His blood was received when out of love for His brethren He suffered upon the cross, and which till this day has been preserved with lively zeal as the source of undying love; albeit, at one time this cup of salvation was taken away from unworthy mankind, but at length was brought back again from the heights of heaven by a band of angels, and delivered into the keeping of fervently loving, solitary men who, wondrously strengthened and blessed by its presence, and purified in heart, were consecrated as the earthly champions of eternal love.

“This miraculous delivery of the Holy Grail, escorted by an angelic host, and the handing of it over into the custody of highly favored men, was selected by the author of ‘Lohengrin’ for the introduction of his drama, as the subject to be musically portrayed; just as here, for the sake of explanation, he may be allowed to bring it forward as an object for the mental receptive power of his hearers.