I
 
 S/A ^lOSANCElfj>
 
 HIS TENDENCIES AND THEORIES. 
 
 BY 
 
 EDWARD DANNREUTHER. 
 
 " L'arf attend avec impatience une impulsion organiqne, susceptible <) 
 
 la fois de regentrei sa propre vitalitc, et de dtployer ses eminents 
 
 attributs sociaux." A. COMTE, 6, 273. 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 AUGENER & CO., 86, NEWGATE STREET, 
 
 1873-
 
 [Dans un cas quelconque, soit prive, soit public, 1'etat d'examen nc 
 saurait etre evidemment que provisoire, comme indiquant la situation 
 d'esprit qui precede et prepare une decision finale, vers laquelle tend 
 sans cesse notrc intelligence, lors meme qu'elle renonce a d'anciens 
 principes pour s'en former de nouveaux. A. Comte, "Philosophic 
 Positive," 4&r/M lefon.~\ 
 
 EVER since the first performance of TannJiauser 
 at Dresden in 1845, the poet and composer, 
 Richard Wagner, has been the " best-abused " 
 man in Europe. Competent and incompetent 
 critics, fighting under every manner of flag, 
 have assaulted the " musician of the future " or 
 broken 'a lance in his honour. The Almanack 
 des Deutschen Musikvereins for 1869 gives a 
 surprisingly extensive list of books, pamphlets, 
 and articles, put forth by Germans on the 
 defensive side alone. As far as Germany is 
 concerned, where every one can procure and 
 read the master's own expositions of his views, 
 it would seem absurd that so much ink and 
 paper should be wasted ; but in England, where 
 a genuine curiosity has only of late arisen, con- 
 cerning the aesthetic problems mooted by 
 Wagner and his disciples, it may be well to 
 make an attempt at elucidating them. 
 
 B
 
 There are three facts, I believe, to which 
 nearly all the pen-and-ink quarrels concerning 
 Wagner can be traced. First, that he published 
 his criticisms and abstract theories at a time 
 when his later works of art, by which alone 
 these theories could receive their sanction, were 
 little known, and but rarely and inadequately 
 performed; secondly, that the social and political 
 heresies, which he propounded by way of clear- 
 ing the air and finding free-breathing space for 
 his artistic ideals, frightened people ; and, lastly, 
 that he now and then thought fit to point his 
 moral by attacking living men of repute 
 Meyerbeer, for instance in a most savage and 
 merciless manner. 
 
 Any one who has watched the spiritual 
 career of an artist of genius, living or dead, will 
 have observed that his theoretical convictions 
 concerning his art throughout his life are a sort 
 of running comment upon his artistic produc- 
 tions. There can be no greater mistake than 
 to suppose that Wagner has written his musical 
 dramas in accordance with any preconceived 
 artistic theories more or less eccentric. He 
 has, like all men of strong creative impulse, 
 trodden the long, dim path from more or less 
 instinctive production to a complete mastery of
 
 means and ends. His theories and his practice 
 grew together, and, if anything, the former are 
 a result of the latter. Wagner is a poet first 
 and foremost, and his case differs from that of 
 his predecessors only inasmuch as he gave to 
 the world a more elaborate and minute account 
 of the mental fermentation which preceded and 
 accompanied his works ; and that he has done 
 this ought to entitle him to the thanks of all 
 men who know a poet to be something different 
 from a mere funnel through which the gods 
 pour beautiful thought. He possesses, in com- 
 mon with Goethe, the very rare gift of becoming 
 perfectly conscious of all his mental evolutions, 
 and of being able to give a cool and complete 
 account, an outsider's view as it were, even of 
 his passions. This makes him so formidable 
 as a poet and writer. He speaks always at 
 first hand, talks of nothing but what he has 
 himself seen or felt, and holds his subjects 
 with an intense and passionate grasp. Here 
 is no filtration of other men's ideas, no 
 pouring of other men's thoughts from phial to 
 phial. It was the conflict between his strong 
 artistic desires and the only existing means of 
 realising them which for a time tormented and 
 paralyzed him, and then perforce drove him to
 
 criticism. He felt his way through a maze of 
 theoretical speculation on the musical stage, and 
 its elements, mimetics, music and poetry, out of 
 which he came forth, after a protracted and 
 laborious search, with his sight strengthened in 
 more ways than one, and his artistic powers 
 increased a hundredfold. 
 
 About the importance of accurate critical 
 insight to a modern artist there can scarcely 
 be two opinions. I quote Charles Baudelaire, 
 " Tous les grands poetes deviennent naturelle- 
 ment fatalement critiques. Je plains les poetes 
 que guide le seul instinct ; je les crois incom- 
 plets ; il serait prodigieux qu'un critique devint 
 poete, et il est impossible qu'un poete ne con- 
 tienne pas un critique." Mr. Matthew Arnold, 
 too, often preaches on the same text. In his 
 luminous essay on The Functions of Criticism 
 at the Present Time he points out the immense 
 mark made by Goethe, not only upon German 
 but upon European thought, contrasts it with the 
 comparatively traceless apparition of Byron on 
 the English horizon, and shows that Goethe has 
 such weight as a poet, not because his productive 
 power was greater, but because his critical 
 exertions and those of his contemporaries gave 
 him a stronger and surer foothold. Among
 
 living men one could not find a better illustration 
 of this than Wagner. His principal theoretical 
 books were published between 1849 and 1852, 
 when he was banished from Germany, and had 
 no hope whatever of seeing one of his new 
 dramas embodied on the stage. They raised a 
 paper war, in comparison to which the Parisian 
 squabble in the last century between the 
 Gluckists and Piccinists appears as one of frogs 
 and mice. Ingenious critics, killing two birds 
 with one stone, contrasted his theories with his 
 earlier operas, pointed out plentiful contradic- 
 tions, and proved both to be the outcome of a 
 confused and extravagant head. Some asserted 
 that he was a mere charlatan, who invented 
 theories as a cloak to cover his musical impo- 
 tence ; others that he was a musical genius led 
 astray by metaphysical will o' wisps ; a third 
 set, by far the noisiest, held him up to public 
 loathing as a furious madman, who would tear 
 down all existing art fabrics, and plant himself on 
 the ruins "a god of the future." In one respect, 
 and in one only they were unanimous ; that a 
 strait-waistcoat would benefit him greatly. 
 
 Since 1870, when Der Jliegende Hollander 
 was produced at Drury Lane, there have been 
 with us many indications of a reaction in Wag-
 
 ner's favour. Nevertheless, it would seem that 
 as yet we have not quite got rid of the old 
 stereotype cries here charlatan, there genius 
 which have so long embittered party strife. Of 
 the two appellatives, neither is much to my 
 taste ; yet if one must take a side and the 
 questions involved are too important for any 
 artist to remain neutral I unhesitatingly choose 
 the latter. 
 
 I would limit the designation " genius " to 
 that artistic power which withdraws from the 
 tutorship of existing institutions and reigning 
 dogmas ; refuses to support crumbling and fall- 
 ing artistic forms ; strikes out new paths for 
 itself, and breathes new life into them. As 
 Walt Whitman has it (Preface to " Leaves of 
 Grass "), " The clearest expression is that which 
 finds no sphere worthy of itself, and makes 
 one." 
 
 It appears excessively superficial to judge 
 that we have fathomed any special artistic power 
 if we call it genius, and it is absurd to suppose 
 that Nature throws the precious gift about a 
 piacere, so that it often reaches the wrong man. 
 That which distinguishes an artistic tempera- 
 ment is in the first instance little beyond an 
 inborn readiness and aptitude to receive and
 
 retain impressions. An inartistic person, a 
 Philistine of any land or time, can be described 
 as one who meets all impressions from without 
 with an inward reserve, that helps him to see 
 his surroundings only in relation to himself, and 
 never himself in relation to these surroundings ; 
 one who, in Mr. Arnold's phrase, is ready to 
 believe that the donkey was invented so that he 
 might have ass's milk for breakfast, and who, in 
 course of development, attains the sublime 
 height of being able to calculate the exact 
 number of sixpences, and the exact amount of 
 admiration from brother Philistines, which his 
 reserve is likely to bring. On the other hand, 
 an artistic character will be found to possess at 
 all events one unmistakable quality : he sur- 
 renders himself entirely and without reserve to 
 all impressions which touch him sympathetically. 
 Such impressions will be more or less intense 
 according to the strength of his receptive power, 
 and he will feel compelled to communicate them 
 to others, as soon as he has received more than 
 he can contain. In two directions a surcharge 
 of this sort can flow forth, just as it happens to be 
 the result of impressions from past and contem- 
 porary art alone or of impressions from life super- 
 added to these. In the first, a direction which
 
 8 
 
 Wagner calls "the feminine," we find most artists 
 of our decenium, poets, painters, and especially 
 sculptors and musicians ; artistic impressions 
 absorb their receptive power so completely, that 
 impressions from life, coming later, find its 
 capacity exhausted. These artists live in an 
 art-world entirely separated from life, a world 
 in which art plays with itself, sensitively with- 
 drawing from all contact with actuality, not only 
 from the present state of things, but from all 
 real life in general in which art looks upon life 
 as an enemy and antagonist, and holds any 
 attempt to embody it to be unbecoming and 
 fruitless. Need I add "modern instances" of 
 to these " wise saws ?" 
 
 In the other direction, "the male, the creative 
 direction," as Wagner calls it, the power of 
 receiving impressions from life is not by any 
 means weakened, but rather, and in the highest 
 sense too, strengthened by the previously de- 
 veloped artistic power. Life itself is taken up 
 in accordance with artistic impressions, and that 
 power which, from this over-abundance of impres- 
 sions of both life and art combined, compels its 
 possessor to communicate what he has conceived 
 to others, that power surely is the truly poetic. 
 It does not separate itself from actuality ; it tries
 
 rather to embody life from an artistic point of 
 view. Goethe and his works illustrate the latter 
 case perfectly. Of course this is not a question 
 as to whether an artist should treat subjects of 
 lie present day or of remote times. True poets 
 will follow the bent of their genius in spite of 
 every absurd pretention on the part of unpro- 
 ductive critics to dictate the choice of subject 
 matter. The contrast I point at lies solely be- 
 tween the immediate vividness of a poet's per- 
 ceptions of the actual facts of life, regardless of 
 whether he chooses to embody them in mythical, 
 legendary, personal, or even political matter ; 
 and of his working with a dim consciousness 
 of these actualities, such as can be derived from 
 the study of the artistic works of his prede- 
 cessors. In a word, whether he sees with his 
 own eyes, or blinks through the coloured glasses 
 of other men's minds. On the one hand, the 
 work produced will be of original and strong 
 vitality, on the other, though the technical 
 expression may have reached an equal perfec- 
 tion, its reflected light will burn dimly and go 
 out before long. 
 
 To Wagner at his birth the gods gave two 
 gifts a capacity to receive and to retain the 
 most various and the most intense impressions,
 
 10 
 
 and, as he phrases it, " der nie zufriedene Geist 
 der stets auf neues sinnt" (the never satisfied 
 spirit that ever seeks new things). Perhaps, by 
 virtue of these two gifts, he also may be labelled 
 "genius." 
 
 There is a good deal of empty talk current 
 about the impossibility of one individual's com- 
 bining the two extremes of poetic creator and 
 dissecting critic, and it has been frequently used 
 as the basis of attacks on Wagner. As though 
 an artist of any brains could in our day help 
 being a critic ! No man can escape the bewil- 
 dering influence of the numberless conflicting 
 theoretical and critical notions and no-notions 
 afloat. There is too much which he is bound 
 to examine and reject ere he can hope to stand 
 on his own legs. He is perforce compelled to 
 clear the air before he can see an inch ahead 
 with whatever eyes the Fates have blessed him, 
 and to do this effectually he wants criticism- 
 critical insight of the keenest sort. Doubtless, 
 a weakling may have his brains trained and 
 criticised out of him ; but the highest culture 
 and most elaborate training is apt to chasten 
 and strengthen rather than to mar the originality 
 of a man of genuine powers. Careless and 
 naive production is, in modern times, only pos-
 
 1 1 
 
 sible when an artist lives in the atmosphere of a 
 school. As long as he has no desire to soar 
 above this atmosphere, he knows exactly what 
 is required of him. He receives his artistic 
 form ready-made, and he says well-known things 
 in well-known ways, as well or better than his 
 predecessors or contemporaries. But in our 
 day where is there a school of dramatists or 
 musicians, of painters or poets, that has enough 
 vitality to satisfy a man of high and intense 
 aspirations ? Wagner, as I have already said, 
 is a poet first and foremost, who became, and 
 again ceased to be a critic. In early youth he 
 produced musical and poetical works for the 
 concert-room and the stage, some of which were 
 performed successfully. As he grew riper his 
 perceptions of possible artistic perfection so 
 developed themselves, that he felt the operatic 
 theatre as it existed, and still exists, to be 
 utterly insufficient. He was then for the first 
 time in his career compelled to give himself 
 a distinct account of his position as an artist, 
 and so, nolens volens, he was driven to 
 criticism. 
 
 But this critical tendency is not one peculiar 
 to Wagner alone, though with no musician has 
 it borne such fruit. Our whole age feels it.
 
 12 
 
 "In all directions men go back to scrutinise the 
 actual instincts and forces which rule our life, to 
 get behind them, and to see them as they really 
 are, to connect them with other instincts and 
 forces, and thus to enlarge our whole view and 
 rule of life." Philosophy generally, and philo- 
 sophy of art particularly, is more than ever 
 needed ; and it is, in short, a strong philosophi- 
 cal power, coupled with abnornally pronounced 
 capabilities of receiving and retaining impres- 
 sions from actual life, that form the indispen- 
 sable characteristics of every great modern 
 artist. 
 
 Most deviations of opinion on art matters, 
 like nearly all conflicting assertions concerning 
 human life and things, depend upon those 
 fundamental philosophic conceptions which men 
 have adopted, either with or without previous 
 examination. Wagner, in his earlier days, 
 before Schopenhauer's profound pessimistic 
 philosophy had illumined his mental horizon 
 and matured his conception of men and things, 
 nourished himself enthusiastically upon Ludwig 
 Feuerbach's optimistic anthropological views ; 
 he was ready, with Feuerbach, to look upon the 
 idea of God as the shadow of the soul of man, 
 to find the kernel of all religions to be man pure
 
 and simple, and to see in art the ultimate out- 
 come and final flower of terrene things. He 
 looked upon what he calls " Das Drama" in 
 which man contemplates his own nature in all 
 its dignity, as the highest and, properly speaking, 
 the only adequate artistic expression of har- 
 moniously developed humanity ; and the con- 
 ditions, in many respects new, under which he 
 conceived it possible to realise " a drama " 
 that shall expand together with ever-growing 
 humanity, form the main contents of his theo- 
 retical writings. In his pamphlets, " Kunst und 
 Revolution," and especially in " Das Kunstwerk 
 der Zukunft," his gyrations round this centre of 
 drama are of enormous width, and flavour not 
 a little of social and artistic Utopias ; but in 
 his largest work, " Oper und Drama," in the 
 " Brief an einem Franzosischen Freund," and in 
 " Deutsche Kunst und Politik," the circles con- 
 tract into more manageable limits, and he aims 
 at comparatively direct and practical ends. The 
 trouble with these most interesting books of his, 
 which for the most part must be looked upon as 
 running comments upon his efforts at original 
 artistic creation, is, as with most of the best 
 German literary productions, that they can 
 hardly bear condensation ; they want elucidation,
 
 illustration, and translation into a more popular 
 phraseology rather than further compression. 
 
 In our time art, be it poetry, painting, 
 music, or what not, has little or no connection 
 with, or influence upon, national life. It is with 
 us a sort of hot-house plant, flourishing, it is 
 true, with exuberant vitality here and there, yet 
 belonging exclusively to professional artists, 
 and to those few cultivated amateurs whose 
 faculties have been specially trained to appre- 
 ciate it. The case seems to have been very 
 different in ancient Greece, where the inner and 
 outer life of the whole nation was shadowed 
 forth in the great union of all the arts upon the 
 tragic stage, and where again the exquisite 
 sense for beauty and proportion, for high and 
 noble thought and action, and for perfect ex- 
 pression of these, seems to have reacted upon 
 both the form and the spirit of national and 
 individual existence. Wagner connects the 
 rapid decay of the Greek drama, which occurred 
 directly after its wondrous successes in the 
 hands of ^Eschylus, Sophocles, and others, and 
 the subsequent scattering of the great dramatic 
 unity of arts into various branches i.e., rhetoric, 
 sculpture, painting, music, &c. with the dimi- 
 nution of political and individual liberty, and the
 
 gradual decline of the Greek states. He lays 
 great stress upon the fact that the different arts 
 in separate and isolated cultivation, however 
 much their powers of expression may have been 
 increased and developed by men of brilliant 
 genius since the renaissance, could never, without 
 degenerating into unnaturalness and downright 
 faultiness, aim in any way at replacing that all- 
 powerful work of art, the production of which 
 had only been possible by their combined efforts. 
 Aided by the works of eminent art-critics for 
 instance, Lessing's researches concerning the 
 limits of painting and poetry Wagner arrives 
 at the result that each separate branch of art, 
 having developed itself to the full extent of its 
 capabilities, cannot overstep these limits without 
 incurring the risk of appearing incompre- 
 hensible and fantastical ; and he points to the 
 aberrations in which we find modern music under 
 the hands of Berlioz, where it tries to accom- 
 plish what poetry alone can do, or to the latest 
 French operas a la Meyerbeer, where it tries to 
 construct a drama out of its own means, by way 
 of proof. It appears to him evident that each 
 art, as soon as it has reached its utmost limits, 
 imperatively demands to be joined to a sister 
 art, and, what is more, will be ready to forego
 
 i6 
 
 its pretensions at accomplishing that which lies 
 ostensibly beyond its natural sphere. His san- 
 guine hopes for the artistic future of Europe are 
 based, on the one side, upon a universal social 
 regeneration, and, on the other, upon the extra- 
 ordinary and altogether unprecedented develop- 
 ment music, ^ which as we understand it was 
 entirely unknown to the Greeks,) has made in 
 the last three centuries. It is the wonderful 
 and apparently limitless capacities for emotional 
 expression Beethoven has given to the art, that 
 have opened to Wagner vistas of dramatic 
 possibilities, such as the ancient world can have 
 had no conception of. 
 
 His great problem then, or rather the pro- 
 blem of the art-work of the future as he calls it, 
 somewhat like the social problem of Comte, is 
 this : how can the scattered elements of modern 
 existence generally, and of modern art in par- 
 ticular, be united and interfused in such wise 
 that their rays, issuing from all and every side, 
 shall be concentrated into one luminous focus so 
 as to form an adequate expression of the vast 
 whole with its eager impulse and enhanced 
 aspirations, its violent convulsions and paroxysms 
 of pain, its love, joy, and humanitarian faith ? 
 This is the first instance. And secondly : what
 
 hope of a reaction in favour of nobler, richer, 
 and higher forms of social and individual life 
 than our present wretchedly prosaic indus- 
 trialism would the creation and acceptance of 
 such a work of art hold out ? 
 
 Wagner, standing upon Beethoven's supreme 
 achievement, is, from the musician's starting- 
 point, trying to do that for the drama which 
 neither Goethe nor Schiller succeeded in, 
 though their ideal tendency certainly culmi- 
 nated in that direction i.e., to make it inde- 
 pendent of all purely intellectual motives and 
 elements, and to construct it so that it shall 
 appeal and speak at once direct to the feelings 
 of all men of poetical perception, without stand- 
 ing in need of an elaborate mental preparation. 
 It need hardly be added that it is only with the 
 aid of music that is to say, music in its full 
 maturity, and with its almost superhuman 
 powers of emotional expression, as Beethoven 
 represents it that such a thing can be accom- 
 plished ; and it is this feat of leading the full 
 stream of Beethoven's music into a dramatic 
 channel, so that it shall fulfil and complete the 
 poetical intentions of a dramatist, that consti- 
 tutes the principal act of Wagner's genius. 
 The incalculable importance of an artistic 
 
 c
 
 i8 
 
 form, such as is here shadowed forth, would of 
 course consist in the fact that, being free from 
 the restraint of narrow nationality, it might 
 become universally intelligible. As regards 
 literature, the attainment of this quality is out 
 of the question by reason of the diversity of 
 European languages ; but in music, the lan- 
 guage understood by all men, we possess the 
 requisite equalizing power which, resolving the 
 language of intellectual perception into that 
 of feeling, makes a universal communication 
 of the innermost artistic intuitions possible ; 
 more especially if such communication could, 
 by means of the plastic expression of a dra- 
 matic performance, be raised to that distinctness 
 which the art of painting has hitherto claimed 
 as its exclusive privilege. 
 
 Need I state here, by way of parenthesis, 
 that " the music of the future," understood in 
 the sense of music that is ugly to us, but may 
 possibly sound all right to our grandchildren, 
 is a bugbear invented by an ingenious critic 
 Herr Bischoff, or some such worthy, of Cologne, 
 I believe and which does not in any way 
 represent the punctum saliens of the wished-for 
 reformation of dramatic art ? 
 
 After what has been said of his general
 
 tendencies, it would be superfluous to en- 
 large upon the fact that Wagner cannot and 
 does not regard his later works, which are cer- 
 tainly conceived and executed from this point 
 of view, (" Die Meistersinger von Ntirnberg," 
 " Tristan und Isolde," and " Der Ring des 
 Nibelungen ;" a trilogy with a preparatory 
 evening, consisting of " Das Rheingold," ' Die 
 Walkiire," " Siegfried," and " Gotterdamme- 
 rung"), great and sublime though they be, as 
 more than the precursors, or rather the germs, 
 of a new era in art. What he has done is 
 to give an impulse of immense breadth and 
 power, and it remains to be seen how far his 
 titanic push will be felt. I, for my part, am 
 convinced that its magnitude is too great to be 
 ever ignored, and it is to him, more than to 
 any other living poet, that I would apply Walt 
 Whitman's prophetic words, " Here the theme 
 is creative, and has vista. Here comes one 
 among the well-beloved stone-cutters, and plans 
 with decision and science, and sees the solid 
 and beautiful forms where there are now no 
 solid forms."
 
 2. 
 
 " Weh t weh ! 
 
 Du hast sie zerstort, 
 Die schone Welt, 
 Mit machtiger Faust ; 
 Sie stiirzt, sie zerfallt ! 
 Ein Halbgott hat sie zerschlagen ! 
 
 Wir tragen 
 Die Triimmer ins Nichts hiniiber, 
 
 Und klagen 
 Ueber die verlorne Schone. 
 
 Machtiger 
 Der Erdensohne, 
 
 Prachtiger 
 Baue sie wieder, 
 In deinem Busen baue sie auf ! 
 N.'uen Lebenslauf 
 Beginne, 
 
 Mit hellem Sinne, 
 Und neue Lieder 
 
 Tonen darauf ! " Goethe, ' ' Faust. " 
 
 IF I had an unsophisticated friend to whom 
 I wished to prove with an argumentiim ad rein 
 the faultiness, nay, utter absurdity, of the dra- 
 matic grimace known as grand opera, I would 
 take him to a performance of Meyerbeer's 
 Robert le Diable, believing as I do that it is 
 easiest to point a moral from extreme cases, 
 and that fundamental mistakes in the con- 
 struction of this particular form of art will be 
 most glaringly apparent, and consequently best
 
 21 
 
 recognised, in a representative work such as 
 Robert, wherein all the possibilities of artistic, 
 or rather operatic, good and evil, which may 
 have been latent in the form, are developed 
 to their uttermost limits. Far be it from me 
 to underrate the many divinely beautiful things 
 we owe to those musicians of genius, whose 
 names are inscribed on the copious and glorious 
 roll of operatic composers. I am inclined to 
 value the influence which has been exercised 
 by the dramatic stage upon modern music, and 
 even upon the development of pure instru- 
 mental music, where there is apparently no 
 chance for any such influence, more highly than 
 has hitherto been done. But it is just the 
 phenomenon, so astonishing and difficult to 
 account for, of the supremely beautiful bits an 
 opera now and then offers, coupled with the 
 sterile and stupid trivialities of the remaining 
 nine-tenths of it, that has opened Wagner's 
 eyes, on the one hand, to the incommensur- 
 able possibilities of artistic perfection to be 
 attained by a just combination of the dramatic 
 art with our best modern Beethovenian music, 
 and on the other to the downright detestability 
 of the genre called opera. 
 
 The real question before us is not one con-
 
 22 
 
 earning- the greater or smaller capacity of this 
 or that composer for the invention of lovely and 
 significant melodies to be sung upon the lyric 
 stage, but rather concerning the form in which it 
 was thought imperatively necessary to embody 
 these melodies. Musicians of talent, directly after 
 or even before the rise of the secular cantata and 
 opera at the close of the sixteenth century, have 
 written highly expressive music, and they must 
 undoubtedly have had singers at their disposal 
 capable of interpreting it with becoming warmth. 
 In the works of every musician who has left any 
 trace of his existence we meet with beautiful 
 and expressive phrases. But whilst the sym- 
 phony, the quartett, and the sonata sprung 
 from seeds of primitive peoples' dance and 
 song have been so enriched and enlarged as 
 to make one of Beethoven's great instrumental 
 works appear like a flower- crowned plant which 
 has reached its ultimate perfection and stands 
 revealed complete in all its beauty, the narrow 
 and puerile forms of aria and of dry recitative, 
 the main props of our operatic music, are to this 
 day as weak and as barren as they were at the 
 outset. They have imposed their heavy and 
 paralyzing fetters upon all and every composer 
 who has approached the stage ; and, what is
 
 worse, they have shackled and maimed every 
 poet who has attempted to furnish a dramatic 
 poem for music nay, they have literally crushed 
 him. The situations he was allowed to make 
 use of became typical, the characters lifeless, 
 and the sentiments vapid. Even Goethe, who, 
 as well as Lessing and Schiller, was theoreti- 
 cally inclined to expect most favourable results 
 from the opera, felt constrained to place himself 
 on the level of the genre, and deemed it ad- 
 visable to tune his imagination down to the 
 lowest possible pitch, and turn up puerile and 
 weak trash " for music." " Ce qui est trap sol 
 pour fore d'it, on le chante" sneered Voltaire. 
 
 Let us glance at the historical development 
 of the opera, as Wagner sketches it in his 
 " Oper und Drama." We have seen that in 
 ancient Greece the drama was a direct fruit of 
 the poetical instincts and beliefs of the people. 
 The Middle Ages, too, possessed a species of 
 dramatic art ; and it is easy, in the miracle play 
 and its concomitants, to point out traces of a 
 natural union of poetry and mimetics with 
 music. But it is not in the miracle play, or in 
 anything else emanating directly from the people, 
 that we must look for the origin of the opera. 
 It was at the luxurious courts of Italy curiously
 
 enough the only highly cultivated European 
 country wherein the drama has not reached a 
 really significant height it was in Italy that the 
 higher classes first began to encourage profes- 
 sional singers to sing airs i.e., people's songs 
 minus the ineffable, naive charm of real Volks- 
 lieder for which verses and a sort of dramatic 
 scaffolding were bon gre", mat gr manufactured, 
 so as to string them together and give them an 
 appearance of connection 
 
 The dramatic cantata, then, which aimed 
 at all manner of things except genuine drama, 
 is the true mother of our opera ; and the further 
 opera was developed from this point, that is to 
 say, the more rapidly the aria became exclu- 
 sively a basis for the display of vocal agility, 
 the more distinctly it came to be the poet's 
 business, whose assistance was retained for this 
 musical divertissement, to content himself with 
 concocting the necessary number of verses to 
 be composed and sung. It is the principal 
 claim to consideration of Metastasio in the last 
 century, of Scribe, the late Mr. Chorley, or any 
 other purveyor of " words for music " in this, 
 that they were the humble servants of all 
 musical conventionalities, and that they tortured 
 and twisted whatever little poetical originality
 
 they may have possessed on that Procrustean 
 bed of aria, scena, and finale whereon we have 
 all been so often stretched and tormented. 
 
 For the sake of change in the amusements, 
 a ballet was added to the dramatic cantata. 
 Here again, the dance tune was as much an 
 imitation of the people's dance as the aria was 
 of the people's tune ; and here again it was 
 an obsequious poet's business to combine 
 these two and exhibit them from his dramatic 
 scaffolding ; which, as there was not a shadow 
 of necessity for the combination, must have 
 been an awkward task, to say the least of it. 
 The only chance open to him for effecting the 
 desired union was to make use of the musically 
 recited dialogue. 
 
 But the recitative also, far from being a 
 novel invention resulting from a genuine effort 
 in the direction of the drama made by opera, 
 had been used for centuries in the church for 
 the more effective rendering of Biblical and 
 ritualistic texts ; and, as a matter of course, the 
 ritualistic succession of notes soon became on 
 the stage as much stereotyped and as banale as 
 they had been in the church. 
 
 Thus the three factors of opera, recitative, 
 aria, and ballet, were determined and fixed
 
 26 
 
 upon once for all, and have undergone no 
 organic transformation, though one of them, the 
 aria, has been turned to account in various 
 ways, and has suffered, as far as its outward 
 appearance and ornaments are concerned, as 
 many changes of fashion as any tailor's lay 
 figure. And, inevitably, the dramatic scaffold- 
 ings supplied by an operatic poet were petrified, 
 and remained dry and sterile. Taken, as they 
 were for the most part, from the world of Greek 
 myths and heroes, as this world was reflected 
 under the wigs of pompous yet sentimental 
 roccoco worthies, they were not in the slightest 
 degree calculated to awaken warmth and sym- 
 pathy in the heart of any listener ; but they 
 had the dubious advantage of being fit to be 
 used, like apothecaries' recipes, by an unlimited 
 number of musicians who happened to have 
 mastered the technicalities of their art ; and 
 thus it came to pass that scores of favourite 
 libretti were set to music over and over again 
 by different persons. 
 
 We have heard much of the dramatic revo- 
 lution so triumphantly accomplished by Gluck. 
 I have never been able to see that it consisted 
 in anything beyond what Wagner describes it 
 to be, a revolt against the supremacy of dra-
 
 matic singers, and an attempt to place music 
 in direct rapport with the sentiment expressed 
 by the words, with the character of the persons 
 singing, and even with the particular accents 
 and peculiar inflexions of the language used. 
 Gluck turned his singers consciously and on 
 principle into mere spokesmen of his dramatic 
 and musical intentions ; and his imperishable 
 and distinctive merit lies in the fact that he 
 grasped these intentions passionately, and gave 
 to them, by the side of the direct artistic ex- 
 pression, as a record of which his French operas 
 are immortal, also an abstract and theoretical 
 enunciation. But as regards form and this, 
 as has already been insisted upon, is in such 
 cases the vital point, much more than the 
 greater or lesser degree of warmth and artistic 
 fire with which a composer has accomplished 
 his task on this vital point of form he has left 
 things just as he found them. Airs, recitatives, 
 and dance tunes each enjoy their separate and 
 isolated existence in his works, just as they did 
 with his grandfathers. His operas are like 
 theirs, conglomerates of more or less finished 
 pieces of music, rather than organisms of which 
 a distinct dramatic action is the kernel and 
 music the last and the most powerful means of
 
 28 
 
 expression. Gluck's poets were more than 
 ever his tres-humbles serviteurs. They trans- 
 lated the master- works of the Louis XIV. 
 tragedy into the current opera jargon. 
 
 All that can by any possibility be accom- 
 plished in the musical drama from the musician's 
 specific point of view, and without taking the 
 poet into consideration, was accomplished by 
 Gluck's successors, Cherubini, Mehul, and 
 Spontini. They have widened, without de- 
 stroying, the musical forms to the utmost ; they 
 maintained the traditional arrangement of the 
 aria; they rendered the recitative and the 
 connecting links between it and the aria more 
 expressive ; and, what is of especial importance, 
 they allotted the execution of the airs to more 
 than one person, according to dramatic neces- 
 sities, so that the character of monologue 
 hitherto essential to all operas was got rid of. 
 Of course duetti and terzetti had been in use 
 long before their time ; but the fact that they 
 rendered these, which had formerly been mere 
 slight modifications of the solo aria, subservient 
 to the higher purpose of dramatic musical 
 ensemble, this was the progress which these 
 great men realised ; and it would be difficult, 
 remarks Wagner, " to answer them, if they now
 
 2 9 
 
 perchance came amongst us, and asked in what 
 respect we had improved on their mode of 
 musical procedure." 
 
 Cherubini and his friends had allowed the 
 poet to develop his art in the exact ratio of 
 their own increase of musical freedom and 
 strength ; but with them also he never rose 
 above the position of a subordinate. 
 
 It may seem strange that nothing has yet 
 been said of Mozart, the most gifted and the 
 most musical of all musicians he whose un- 
 limited powers and inexhaustible fecundity left 
 an indelible mark on the history of his art, 
 and whose greatest efforts towards its develop- 
 ment are to be found precisely in his operas. I 
 have chosen this place to introduce Mozart's 
 name, as it is with his glorious works for the 
 stage that Wagner believes he can best illus- 
 trate the present thesis. Mozart was further 
 removed from the chance or the temptation to 
 make innovations resulting from 'critical reflec- 
 tions on his art than any other great musician 
 before or since. Yet it is in the opera, where 
 in point of form he gives us so little that is 
 new, that we meet with his most absolutely 
 original creations creations which are by far 
 grander than his best pieces of instrumental
 
 music creations in which he unfolds all the 
 powers of the divine art. And this is exactly 
 the point that lays bare the very kernel of the 
 matter under consideration. 
 
 Mozart, the supreme musician, produces his 
 best music there where the poet has given him 
 a worthy chance, and has risen a little above 
 the ordinary libretto groove. Mozart possessed 
 more than any other musician the subtlest and 
 deepest instinctive knowledge of the nature of 
 his art ; he knew for certain that it was an art 
 of expression only, of the sublimest and most 
 perfect expression, still of expression, and 
 nothing beyond. To his honour be it said, it 
 was impossible for him to make poetical music 
 if the poetical groundwork was null. He could 
 not write music to Titus equal to Don Juan, 
 to Cost fan tutte equal to Figaro. Good music 
 he always wrote, but beautiful music only when 
 he was inspired. His inspiration certainly came 
 from within, but it never shone so bright as 
 when it was lighted from without. Wagner 
 expresses his conviction more than once that 
 Mozart would, with his supreme instinct, have 
 solved the problem of a real musical drama ; 
 but, as it was, he could only give the truest and 
 the most intense expression to the airs, duets,
 
 and ensemble pieces which his fabricators of 
 libretti handed to him. He has attested the 
 inexhaustible puissance of music as a means of 
 expression better than Gluck and any of his 
 successors ; but, in the main, he also leaves the 
 traditional operatic forms as he found them. 
 
 Weber, the noble, high-spirited, and che- 
 valresque, seems to have made for himself, in 
 the long course of his services as conductor of 
 the Opera at Prague and Dresden, a practical 
 analysis of operatic melody. He perceived 
 almost instinctively that it was in the first 
 instance based upon the people's song, and in 
 his endeavours to revivify it, he was tempted 
 to take up the Volsklied of Germany and to 
 transplant it bodily into his operas. The pre- 
 dominance of long-drawn, joyous, yet tender 
 and melodious phrases, as distinguished from 
 the short, bold, and eccentric rhythms peculiar 
 to nationalities like the Polish and Hungarian, 
 is the special characteristic of the German 
 Volsklied. One cannot fancy German songs 
 without accompaniment. They are usually sung 
 in at least two parts, and one is involuntarily 
 tempted to complete the harmony by adding 
 the bass and the remaining middle part. What- 
 ever chance of excellence a dramatic poem
 
 offered that could by any possibility be resolved 
 into and expressed by this melody was safe 
 in Weber's hands ; but we have only to glance 
 at Euryantke, his most ambitious and in some 
 respects his most beautiful work, to see how he 
 tortured himself, and tried in vain to express 
 what could not and would not amalgamate with 
 this melody ; and where Weber's genius failed 
 who shall hope to succeed ? 
 
 So far we have dealt with the serious aspect 
 of the matter ; let us now look at the frivolous 
 side. 
 
 With Rossini, and in an increased ratio with 
 his successors, the history of the opera is simply 
 that of operatic melody ; as Wagner has it 
 " naked, absolute, ear-tickling melody, which 
 one sings and whistles, without knowing where- 
 fore ; which one exchanges to-day for that of 
 yesterday, and forgets again to-morrow, for no 
 reason whatsoever ; which sounds melancholy 
 when we are amused, and joyous when we are 
 disgusted ; and which we hum apropos of any 
 and everything." Take Rossini's works all in 
 all, and you have numberless operatic melodies 
 of here and there an immensely effective sort, 
 but comparatively very little beyond. His 
 object has evidently been to pour forth multi-
 
 33 
 
 tudes of pleasing tunes, such as are fit to be 
 whistled and sung by all the world. If he 
 occasionally gives a powerful dramatic effect, 
 one hails it as something unexpected ; for, as a 
 rule, an opera of his is like a string of beads, 
 each bead being a glittering and intoxicating 
 tune. Dramatic and poetic truth, and all that 
 makes a stage performance interesting, is sacri- 
 ficed to tunes. The task of the composer of 
 Italian opera, after Rossini, came to be little 
 beyond that of manufacturing variations on one 
 fixed type of aria for this or that particular 
 singer. And, together with the advent of 
 Rossini, the operatic public in general that 
 most equivocal of all publics : " Combien faut- 
 il de sots pour faire un public ? " '* -became the 
 sole arbiter of artistic reputation, the ultimate 
 court of appeal in questions of artistic excel- 
 lence, its taste the sole guide for artistic pro- 
 duction, and its favourite purveyor of tunes the 
 autocrat of the whole operatic entertainment. 
 
 Properly speaking, then, the opera ends 
 with Rossini. It was virtually at an end as 
 soon as the principle that melody without cha- 
 racter, and of the shallowest and most banale 
 type, was the very essence of music, and that 
 the loosest connection of one operatic tune 
 
 * Chamforti D
 
 34 
 
 with another was musical form, had been prac- 
 tically set up and accepted. Auber, and 
 Meyerbeer in his Parisian productions after 
 him, made melodic experiments. Auber lis- 
 tened intently to the couplets and contrcdanses 
 (i.e., the can-can) danced and sung by his com- 
 patriots, imported besides melodies from Italy 
 and elsewhere, and served them up intact. 
 The enormous success of his Muette de Portici, 
 a work which marks an epoch on the French 
 stage, and wherein he unquestionably takes a 
 flight far higher, as regards intensity of effect 
 and originality of musical treatment, than in 
 his numerous productions for the OpSra Comique, 
 tempted Rossini to take a leaf out of the same 
 book. Thenceforth Guillaume Tell and Massa- 
 niello were the centres round which the operatic 
 world gyrated until the coming of the great 
 Robert le Diable, who " danced awa' " with 
 them both. Meyerbeer screamed at the top 
 of his voice what Rossini and Auber had been 
 saying, and, turning his artistic attainments and 
 experience, both enormous, to account on purely 
 commercial principles, he managed to outdo 
 them both. Instead of sympathy with the in- 
 flexions of any particular tongue, which he did 
 not possess, he had acquired the knack ot
 
 35 
 
 " setting " every European language that is to 
 say, of drowning its cadences in the shallow 
 and noisy stream of his music. He studied 
 with the attention that a stock-jobber gives to 
 a new prospectus the scores of Hector Berlioz, 
 that astonishing virtuoso of the orchestra and 
 of orchestration, that greatest of French ro- 
 manticists, with whom the last mystical works 
 of Beethoven had brought forth such strange 
 fruit : and taking Rossini's melodies as a point 
 d'appui, he managed to concoct the most un- 
 palatable musical phenomenon of our day a 
 glittering kaleidoscope of eccentric sounds and 
 effects his grand Optra. On his banner was 
 inscribed la caractiristique i.e., " the dodge" of 
 disguising frivolous and empty tunes in a garb 
 that shall appear significant. My unsophisti- 
 cated friend above mentioned, if he did chance 
 to witness a performance of Robert le Diable, 
 would be scared by the queer agglomerate of 
 effects the most ethereal and the most drastic 
 the most far-fetched and the most common- 
 place refinement and vulgarity, sensuality and 
 religion a veritable olla podrida " Wer vieles 
 bringt wird manckem etwas bringen und jeder 
 geJit zufriedeii aus dem Haus" as the director 
 puts it in Faust. In an eloquent peroration
 
 towards the end of the first part of his " Oper 
 und Drama," Wagner, after having spoken of 
 Meyerbeer's specific musical gifts and set them 
 down as comparatively insignificant, speaks in 
 most enthusiastic terms of certain bits of 
 supremely beautiful dramatic effect in Meyer- 
 beer's works fragments, for instance, of the 
 great love-duet in Les Huguenots, and particu- 
 larly of the wonderfully expressive melody in 
 G flat major towards the close of it. This and 
 similar bits, let us not forget, occur only there 
 where the poet has supplied genuine poetical 
 motives, and thus tend to prop our thesis. 
 
 But besides being " characteristic," operatic 
 melody became " historical." Have we not got 
 our chorus dressed in all manner of historical 
 costumes, with decorations to match ? Does 
 not the theatrical tailor produce both cut and 
 colour with scrupulous exactitude ? What 
 matter if the music be dull, spite of its preten- 
 tious peculiarities, as long as its uncouth tour- 
 nure passes for historical ? We have consumed 
 the tunes and costumes of all civilised countries, 
 Oriental and Occidental, for the sake of being 
 " characteristically national and historical." Why 
 should we not have red ochre and scalps, and 
 the war-whoop with an accompaniment of toma-
 
 37 
 
 hawks and rattling wampum, in course of the 
 next operatic decennium ? 
 
 To resume. Gluck, as we have seen, con- 
 sciously tried to speak correctly and intelligibly 
 in music ; he never disfigured a verse for the 
 sake of musical development, and he rendered 
 whatever emotional elements he found in his 
 texts as completely as possible. Mozart spoke 
 " with the perfect rectitude and insouciance of 
 the movements of animals, and the unimpeach- 
 ableness of the sentiment of trees in the woods 
 and grass by the roadside.""" Give him dull 
 stuff", and he reproduces dull stuff"; give him 
 genuine dramatic feeling, and he returns it to 
 you ennobled and intensified a thousandfold. 
 His music glorifies even the paltriest theatrical 
 conventionalities. The closer you look into the 
 glowing colours of Mozart's operas, the more 
 clearly you will distinguish underneath them the 
 outlines furnished by the poet. Without these 
 outlines, the best part of them is inconceivable. 
 Unhappily, this occasional union of musician 
 and poet disappeared entirely in the course 
 of operatic development. Rossini's cry was 
 " Melody, melody ; " and Weber's opposition to 
 him was directed more against the shallowness 
 and frivolity of this melody than against the 
 
 * Walt Whitman.
 
 unnatural position which in Italian opera the 
 poet occupied towards the musician. In fact 
 the fire and the fascinating charm of Weber's 
 melody made a still greater autocrat of the 
 musician, and Weber thought himself justified 
 in dictating to Helmine von Chezy, who wrote 
 the libretto of Euryanthe for him, not only 
 details of expression, but even the dramatic 
 movements of the characters and the motives 
 for their actions ; and in the failure of his 
 favourite Euryanthe, which Weber lived to see, 
 we can convince ourselves, better than with any 
 other of his works, that his twofold aim, " abso- 
 lute melody " melody which shall be sufficient 
 in itself and dramatic expression which shall 
 be true and just throughout, are irreconcilable. 
 
 When we talk of the opera now, we talk 
 not of a work of art, but of a thing a La mode 
 a fashion. For my own part, the popular opera 
 of our day strikes me as the last ghastly grin 
 of a galvanized corpse. 
 
 I conclude, therefore, with Wagner, that one 
 or the other, absolute melody or the drama, 
 must be sacrificed. Rossini threw the drama 
 overboard ; and Weber tried to construct it by 
 means of his melody, and failed. Music, which 
 is of all existing means of expressing emotion
 
 39 
 
 the most powerful, ought not and cannot on its 
 
 own account attempt " characteristic, dramatic, 
 
 or historical " harlequinades. 
 
 And we are constrained to admit the inca- 
 pacity of music unaided by other arts to construct 
 
 the drama out of its own means, and to assert 
 for the future that music must forego part of its 
 pretensions, and in case of dramatic necessity 
 
 merge its individuality in the great end of all 
 
 the arts combined the drama.
 
 " Omnes artes, qua; ad humanitatem pertinent, habent quoddam 
 commune vinculum et quasi cognatione quadam inter se continuantur. " 
 Cicero, " Pro Archia Poeta" Cap. I. 
 
 WITH all single and separate arts that address 
 themselves solely or in part to our imagination, 
 purity of each is a primary requisite. If too 
 many and heterogenous means are employed, 
 the imagination will deviate from the central 
 point, and the impression intended to be made 
 on us will be blurred and chaotic. But a dra- 
 matist in Wagner's sense does not appeal at all 
 to the imagination, but to the immediate sensuous 
 perception, and here an intimate union of various 
 arts, poetry, music, mimetics, painting, &c., is 
 supremely intelligible, for it speaks to all our 
 perceptive faculties united. It should, of course, 
 be borne in mind that we are always talking 
 of the drama actually acted, as of a symphony 
 actually played ; both are alive only during the 
 time of actual production, and should be judged 
 as they then present themselves. 
 
 We have *seen that such operatic composers 
 as " fly at high game " did not and could not
 
 realize their aspirations. It has been shown 
 that the cause of their failure is to be sought 
 for in the intrinsic weakness and unnaturalness 
 of the genre called opera ; and we have been 
 led to assume with Wagner that the ideal so 
 ardently striven after, a genuine musical drama, 
 cannot be attained otherwise than by a radical 
 change in the relative position of its two prin- 
 cipal components, poetry and music. We have 
 seen that music, when it aspires to the drama, 
 must ally itself closely with poetry ; and that, 
 as the supreme art of expression, it must in 
 such case carefully avoid overstepping the 
 boundaries of the task it is so exclusively fitted 
 for, that of evolving flower and fruit from out 
 of the seeds furnished by poetry. It is the 
 object of the present division to point out that, 
 from its side also, dramatic poetry may hope to 
 find its salvation in a close union with music, 
 and moreover to show that it is the unmistake- 
 able tendency of the entire development of 
 European drama since the renaissance to effect 
 such a consummation. 
 
 In both the form and the subject-matter of 
 all ^^.-renaissance plays, we can trace the in- 
 fluence of two entirely distinct and different 
 factors ; first and foremost the mediaeval ro-
 
 mance, with its descendants, the romantic legend 
 and the modern novel ; secondly, and as it were 
 per accidens, the Greek drama, or rather the 
 formal essence thereof, as abstracted by Aristotle 
 in his " Poetics." We may take as types, on 
 the one hand, Shakespeare, whose plays are for 
 the most part dramatized stories and romances ; 
 and on the other, Racine, who in some sense 
 approaches the Greek drama. 
 
 Nothing strikes one more in mediaeval 
 poems and romances than the chaotic super- 
 abundance of subject-matter. Whilst reading 
 them one finds it hopeless to trace the changes 
 of time and place, or to keep account of the 
 intricate maze resulting from the restless activity 
 exhibited by the dramatis persons. Yet we 
 have one and all felt the indiscribable charm 
 resulting from such a display of exuberant fancy, 
 and the secret of this charm lies in the fact that 
 a mediaeval poet could afford to let his fancy 
 run riot, as he appeals solely and exclusively to 
 the imagination of his readers or hearers. 
 
 Yet the desire for curtailment, or rather for 
 concentration of this endless material, was sure 
 to be felt sooner or later, and hence we have 
 the phenomenon of the romance being con- 
 densed into a play. But however more compact
 
 43 
 
 the subject-matter presented by the Elizabethan 
 dramatist might be than the original romances 
 or chronicles from which it is taken, there still 
 remained one fact in connection with the Shake- 
 spearean drama, which left the doors wide open 
 for the introduction of an immense amount of 
 acting matter such as we meet with in Shake- 
 speare's historical plays, for instance and this 
 was the fact that in everything that concerns 
 decoration it appealed to the imagination only. 
 A board, with an inscription that could be easily 
 changed, and a curtain, occupied the place of 
 our elaborate coulisses. 
 
 When in the last century it was thought 
 advisable to re-attempt the acting of Shake- 
 speare's plays, the public had become so inured 
 to accurate and detailed decorations, that it 
 appeared necessary to the most intelligent 
 actors, Garrick for instance, to change Shake- 
 speare's works so as to suit " modern require- 
 ments." Scenes which did not appear absolutely 
 indispensable to the clear understanding of the 
 plot were entirely omitted ; others, again, were 
 condensed or joined together. Against such 
 practices the strongest protests have since been 
 launched by poets and literati protests which 
 are of course unanswerable from a literary point
 
 44 
 
 of view, but have no weight whatever with the 
 actors, who point to their stage experience and 
 stand firm. Only two ways seem open to 
 escape the dilemma. Ludwig Tieck, the Ger- 
 man poet, proposed the most obvious one to 
 restore Shakespeare's stage with board and 
 curtain bodily and this was actually done at 
 Berlin, but proved, like all radical restorations 
 of bygone customs, an utter failure ; the other 
 was what has been in the main adopted on the 
 present English and German stages ; the whole 
 inexhaustible machinery and the whole luxurious 
 paraphernalia which form an integral part of a 
 grand opra, were brought into play to realize 
 the sudden and frequent changes of scene. 
 Here, then, we are treated to as much reality 
 as is attainable on the stage, but it is a reality 
 far less real than that which holds us captive 
 when we read Shakespeare ; then our imagina- 
 tion performs what is required of it to perfection 
 and with ease ; whilst the whole mass of ope- 
 ratic decoration only tends to stun and bewilder 
 us, much as the mediaeval romances stun 
 and bewilder their readers with superabundance 
 of matter. 
 
 The Italians of the renaissance never dreamt 
 of trying to make use of the people's plays for
 
 45 
 
 artistic purposes. They took their stand on 
 Aristotle, and, as their performances were con- 
 trived for the salons of princes, it was found 
 convenient to observe his rules concerning the 
 unity of place and time. The enthusiasm for 
 the writers of antiquity in the highly-cultivated 
 circles of Italian ilhiminati was far too engross- 
 ing to let any one dream of dramatizing those 
 popular romances, to escape from the spirit of 
 which was the principal tendency of the whole 
 artistic movement known as the renaissance. 
 Even if it had appeared desirable to make some 
 use of them, how could their matter have been 
 condensed to admit of Aristotle's unities ? It 
 was thought far wiser to import the ready-made 
 condensations of myths and stories as they are 
 preserved in Greek literature. 
 
 So the Italians of the renaissance, and the 
 Frenchmen of Louis XIV. after them, re- 
 mained imitators of antiquity, in so far as they 
 understood it, and their dramatic productions 
 retained the stamp of artificiality. Racine's 
 tragedies are the exact antipodes of Shake- 
 spearian plays. Racine's art is rhetorical rather 
 than dramatic ; it supplies motives for action 
 without the action proper ; it offers the speech 
 upon the stage and the action behind ; it gives
 
 4 6 
 
 the will without the deed. The instinct of 
 musicians soon prompted them to turn this 
 prominent rhetorical side of it into musical 
 phraseology, to translate Racine's tirades into 
 the aria ; and it is not too much to say that the 
 French tragedy of Louis XIV. reached its ulti- 
 mate goal in Gluck's opera : the premature 
 musical blossom of an unnatural dramatic plant, 
 reared in an artificial hotbed. 
 
 Shakespeare, if he had witnessed the chaotic 
 changes of scenery and decoration with which 
 his plays are now performed, would undoubtedly 
 have been induced to try further condensation 
 of the acting matter, just as time and action 
 of the mediaeval people's play had been con- 
 densed by himself and his predecessors, and he 
 would probably have discovered, what Schiller 
 and Goethe found in the course of their dra- 
 matic experiments that legendary and his- 
 torical romance is, after all, unmanageable for 
 the highest dramatic purposes. It is an inte- 
 resting question whether Shakespeare would 
 have done what the Greeks did dramatize 
 myths. Wagner answers it in the affirmative, 
 and shows that the myt/ios, in which the poetic 
 perceptions of a whole race are so concentrated 
 as to receive their most palpable and intelligible
 
 47 
 
 expression, is the true material for the ideal 
 drama we have in view. It will be necessary 
 to return to this point by-and-by. 
 
 Every poet who watched the progress of 
 the drama, with intent to test his powers in it, 
 was compelled to take his choice of two alter- 
 natives : either to give up all direct communion 
 with the stage, and to write dramatic poems 
 for the book market and the library, as Goethe 
 did in Faust, and as after him Byron, Browning, 
 and Swinburne, in all their dramatic pieces 
 or to try to make the best of that artificial 
 and, to a modern mind, instinctively uncon- 
 genial form, which, as we have seen, was 
 constructed by Italian and French poets, in 
 accordance with Aristotle. We can best trace 
 both sides and influences in the experiments 
 made by the two greatest of German dramatists, 
 Goethe and Schiller. 
 
 Goethe's constructive powers waxed stronger 
 as long as he continued directing it towards 
 the drama, and it decreased and became flabby, 
 when, with failing courage, he withdrew his 
 attention from the stage. He commenced his 
 career as a playwright with dramatizing a 
 full-blooded German romance, " Gotz von Ber- 
 lichingen" Shakespeare being avowedly his
 
 4 8 
 
 guide in the treatment of it. He executed it 
 in the first instance much more from the poet's, 
 or rather the poetic student's point of view, 
 than from a dramatist's ; and afterwards, when 
 it came to be acted, he was obliged to remodel 
 it so as to suit the exigencies of a practical 
 performance on a stage possessing all the 
 scenical apparatus necessary for a clear pre- 
 sentation of the whereabouts of a dramatic 
 action, over and above the wherewithal in 
 other words, so as to make it appeal more to 
 the immediate sensuous perceptions of the 
 audience than to the imagination. But under 
 the process of rewriting, the poem lost the 
 freshness of a romance, and did not gain the 
 full strength of a drama ; which fact recalls the 
 point made above, that the romance per se is 
 unmanageable as the subject matter of a drama. 
 After his experiences with " Gb'tz von Ber- 
 lichingeii" Goethe tried Das biirgerliche Drama 
 the home-spun drama in various small plays, 
 which treated the realities of German middle- 
 class life, much as the novels of the period 
 embodied them ; and from this narrow sphere 
 he jumped at once, and with an enormous, a 
 Titanic effort, to Faust, that altogether incom- 
 mensurable poem in which he threw over all
 
 49 
 
 connection with the actual stage, and retained 
 only the advantages of a dramatic exposition. 
 Goethe after this gave himself no more trouble 
 about what is called a good acting play ; he was 
 content with the statuesque calm of Iphigenie, 
 and the perfect proportion of artistic work- 
 manship in Tasso. In his Iphigenie in Tauris 
 we have a work as finished in toto and in detail 
 as a piece of Greek sculpture. But he was 
 able to accomplish this only with materials 
 ready-made and condensed to his hands, like 
 the Greek story. Wagner points out, with rare 
 ingenuity, that, like Beethoven in his sympho- 
 nies, Goethe dissects the poetic material as 
 Beethoven dissects the melodious kernel of his 
 works and reconstructs it organically and anew; 
 yet Goethe was unable to mould the elements 
 of modern life into a similarly complete form, 
 and we find him at various intervals of his 
 poetic career renouncing the drama and writing 
 romances to fulfil his ardent desire of embody- 
 ing the present in some palpable shape. So 
 it would seem that the poet was unable to 
 embody the ultimate blossom of his modern 
 conception of the world in an actual dramatic 
 performance ; he was content to embody it by 
 means of descriptions appealing to the imagina- 
 
 E
 
 tion. In his youth he pushed forward with a 
 true Shakespearean impulse towards the drama ; 
 yet his most influential artistic creation Wil- 
 helm Meister, die Wahlverwandschaften, the 
 second part of Faust was destined to lose 
 itself into the romance, from which he had 
 started, and into the dramatic poem, not fit and 
 not intended for, actual performance. 
 
 Schiller began, as Goethe did, with a dra- 
 matized novel (Die Ranber) under the influence 
 of Shakespeare ; " home-spun " and political 
 romances (Cabale und Liebe, Fiesko, Don Carlos] 
 occupied him until he arrived at the very root 
 of these history pure and simple and he 
 exerted himself to produce a drama (W alien- 
 stein) direct from this source, He attempted 
 to condense and colour the historical facts for 
 his stage purposes, but he was not and could 
 not be satisfied with the result. History ceased 
 to be history, yet the ideal drama he aspired 
 to was not realized. He was able to give but 
 a rather unclear extract of history in the main 
 parts of his drama (Die Piccolomini and Wal- 
 lensteins Tod), and he had to make a separate 
 picture of the world surrounding his heroes 
 ( Wallensteins Lager). In this, his most elabo- 
 rate work, he perceived, and we perceive with
 
 him, that upon the modern stage, which appeals 
 to the sensuous perceptions more than to the 
 imagination, historical matter is unmalleable. 
 Shakespeare, appealing to the spectators' imagi- 
 nation, might and would have given a picture 
 of the entire Thirty Years' War in the space 
 occupied by Schiller's trilogy. After Wallen- 
 stein, Schiller gave his attention more and more 
 to the antique forms ; and in Die Braut von 
 Messina he actually went to the length of intro- 
 ducing the Greek chorus and the Greek fate. 
 When the unsatisfactory result of his experi- 
 ments led him to despair of finding salvation 
 in a union of pure Greek form and mediaeval 
 story (a union symbolized by Goethe in his 
 marriage of Helena and Faust}, he sought in 
 his last dramatic poem, Wilhelm Tell, to save 
 at least his freshness and vitality as a poet, 
 which had suffered considerably whilst he was 
 struggling in the meshes of sterile sesthetical 
 speculation. 
 
 Ever since Schiller, the drama has oscillated 
 aimlessly and helplessly between the two poles 
 of antique form and the modern novel. The 
 dramatic works of our noblest poets take 
 Browning as an instance are certainly not fit 
 to be acted ; and our acting plays, though we
 
 may accredit them with all manner of virtues, 
 are as certainly not poetical. 
 
 To all poetic students, who as a rule keep 
 aloof from actual theatrical performances, and 
 take cognizance of dramatic literatiire only, it 
 is a surprising fact, and one which they deeply 
 deplore, that the opera has not only absorbed the 
 interest dne to the spoken drama, but has actually 
 exercised the most deteriorating influence on 
 the character of theatrical performances gene- 
 rally. Even actors of high artistic aspirations 
 desire to be " successful " with their roles, they 
 want to make a certain amount of " effect," and 
 they are ready to join in all cries against the 
 opera on seeing mediocre singers enabled to 
 " bring down the house " by means of the com- 
 monest and most frivolous musical phrases. 
 It is scarcely fair to blame actors of the ordi- 
 nary type if they give way to the temptation of 
 imitating some cheap operatic effects, as far as 
 their art can admit of, if they " split the ears 
 of the groundlings " with ranting or the sing- 
 song known as " false pathos." 
 
 Few thinking actors or playwrights, how- 
 ever, have cared to follow Wagner when he 
 goes on to point out that these and the like 
 deplorable truths do not cover the whole aspect
 
 53 
 
 of the matter, and that it offers other points 
 of view of far higher importance, which hold 
 out glorious hopes for the future. 
 
 We have all felt the astounding effect of 
 certain dramatic musical combinations, in the 
 operas of Mozart for instance ; we are im- 
 pressed by these so deeply and firmly, and with 
 an immediate vividness such as no art but 
 music can approach. 
 
 Let the admirers of the spoken drama say 
 what they will, it is undeniable that it has been 
 outstripped in public favour by the opera, and 
 it is more than probable that the opera is destined 
 to furnish the seed from which a veritable ideal 
 drama ivill spring up. The noble music of a 
 great master lends to the performance of ope- 
 ratic singers of small natural gifts an indefinable 
 charm, such as even the greatest actor cannot 
 hope to exercise in the spoken drama. On the 
 other hand, a genuinely gifted dramatic per- 
 former can ennoble very poor music to such 
 a degree, that we get an impression stronger 
 than any which the same gifted performer could 
 by any chance produce without the aid of 
 music. The mysterious might of the divine art 
 lifts whatever it touches into a sublime sphere. 
 
 If, then, the main object of the poetical
 
 54 
 
 career of Goethe and Schiller can be charac- 
 terized as an attempt to discover the ideal 
 subject-matter and an ideal form for the modern 
 drama ; and if, as Schiller, in a very curious 
 confession, records it, with him the beginning 
 of all poetical production was eine musikalische 
 Gemiithsstimmung (a musical state of mind), 
 which only after a time brought forth the 
 poetical idea pictures and words if it is a 
 fact sufficiently proved, best of all in a recent 
 pamphlet,'" that the drama of /Eschylos 
 took its origin from the union of the 
 older didactic hymns of the Hellenic priests 
 with the newer Dionysian dithyrambos that 
 is to say, with poetry conceived and executed in 
 the orgiastic spirit of musical sound we may 
 by analogy confidently conclude and expect 
 that from out of the spirit of Beethovenian 
 music and of the manifold branches of Teutonic 
 mythos, which Wagner conceives to be the true 
 subject-matter for the supreme work of art 
 he has in view, an ideal dramatic form will 
 emanate which will stand in relation to the 
 spirit of modern existence as the drama of 
 
 * "Die Geburt der Tragodie aus dem Geiste der Musik," von 
 Friedrich Nietzsche, Ordentl. Professor der klassischen Philologie 
 an der Universitat Basel.
 
 yschylos stood in relation to the national 
 spirit of Greece. 
 
 I conclude this part of the subject with a 
 summing-up translated from Wagner's Brief an 
 einem Franzosischm Freiuid. " Referring to the 
 hopes and wishes so frequently expressed by 
 great poets of attaining in the opera an ideal 
 genre, I came to believe that the poet's co- 
 operation, so decisive in itself, would be per- 
 fectly spontaneous on his part and desired by 
 him. I endeavoured to obtain a key to this 
 aspiration, and thought to have found it in 
 the desire, so natural to a poet, and which in 
 him directs both conception and form, to em- 
 ploy the instrument of abstract ideas language 
 in a manner which would take effect on the 
 feelings. As this tendency is already pre- 
 dominant in the invention of poetical subject- 
 matter, and as only that picture of human life 
 may be called poetical in which all motives, 
 comprehensible to abstract reason, only disap- 
 pear so as to present themselves rather as 
 motives of purely human feeling in like man- 
 ner this tendency is obviously the only one to 
 determine the form and expression of poetical 
 execution. In his language the poet tries to 
 substitute the original sensuous signification of
 
 words for their abstract and conventional mean- 
 ing, and by rhythmical arrangement and the 
 almost musical ornament of rhyme in the verse, 
 to assure an effect to his phrases which will 
 charm and captivate our feelings. This ten- 
 dency, essential to the poet, conducts him fatally 
 to the limits of his art, where it comes into im- 
 mediate contact with music ; and the most com- 
 plete poetic work would therefore be that which 
 in its ultimate perfection would resolve itself 
 into music"
 
 4. 
 
 M?phi:topheles, " Grau, theurer Freund, ist alle Theorie, 
 Und grim des Lebens goldner Baum." 
 
 Goethe, "Faust." 
 
 HAVING traced the current of both modern 
 music and poetry to the point at which it 
 appeared palpably evident that the one as 
 well as the other was possessed with a 
 longing for a complete reunion, having hailed 
 the opera as a foreshadowing of the future 
 complete drama, and having shown how Goethe 
 and Schiller strove for the attainment of an 
 ideal dramatic form which shall have a purely 
 human interest and be free from the fetters 
 of all historic conventionality, appealing to the 
 feelings of men instead of to their abstract 
 understanding, and how from their numerous 
 experiments it results as an inevitable conclu- 
 sion that with such an end in view, historical 
 as well as social and political matter, because it 
 cannot be made to bear the necessary con- 
 densation without becoming vague and losing 
 its character, is unmalleable, we have been 
 forced to agree with Wagner's assertion, that
 
 the proper material for the construction of such 
 a form is mythos, and mythos only. 
 
 From this point then Wagner, led by the 
 spirit of music, takes his departure, and pro- 
 ceeds to demonstrate how such mythical matter, 
 the nature of which is always essentially emo- 
 tional, imperatively demands the great language 
 of emotion, music, for its proper presentation. 
 Having settled once for all that it was the aim 
 of the drama to present, in the most universally 
 intelligible manner, the poet's perception of 
 purely human individualities apart from all con- 
 ventionality, he goes on to solve the problem 
 of form in detail, and to fix the relation of the 
 various factors of his work to one another. 
 
 Here then I ought to be able to draw the 
 curtain, and offer the reader a performance of 
 the master's Nibelungen trilogy. That would 
 be the proper way of making the particulars 
 which a : to follow fully intelligible ; for it is 
 difficult io consider them other than as com- 
 ments to that central work of Wagner's life, 
 the emotional effect of which when it is actually 
 performed can be the only just criterion as to 
 their validity. For clearness sake, I shall try 
 to sketch the main points separately. 
 
 General Shape of the Drama. The mythical
 
 59 
 
 subject-matter has a plastical unity ; it is per- 
 fectly simple and easily comprehensible, and it 
 does not stand in need of the numberless small 
 details, which a modern playwright is obliged 
 to introduce to make some historical occurrence 
 intelligible. It is divided into few important 
 and decisive scenes, in each of which the action 
 arises spontaneously from out of the emotions 
 of the actors ; which emotions, by reason of the 
 small number of such scenes, can be presented 
 in a most complete and exhaustive manner. In 
 planning these scenes according to the distinc- 
 tive nature of the mythical subject-matter, it is 
 unnecessary to take any preliminary account of 
 specific musical forms as the opera has them 
 arias, duetts, ensemble pieces, &c. for as the 
 myths are in themselves emotional, and as the 
 dramatist moulds them in accordance with and 
 and under the influence of the spirit of music, 
 they resolve themselves, as it were quite spon- 
 taneously, into musical diction. No phase of 
 emotion is touched upon, in any one of the 
 scenes, which does not stand in some important 
 relation to the emotion of all the rest ; so that 
 the development of the phases from one an- 
 otherj and their necessary sequence, constitute 
 the unity of expression in the drama.
 
 6o 
 
 Musical Form. Each of the phases of 
 emotion just spoken of has for its outcome some 
 clearly marked and decided musical expression, 
 some characteristic musical theme ; and just as 
 there is an intimate connection betwen the 
 phases of emotion, so an intimate interlacing 
 of the musical themes takes place, which inter- 
 lacing spreads itself not only over an entire 
 scene or part of a scene, but over the whole 
 extent of the drama. It is never made use of 
 for the display of any purely musical combina- 
 tions per se, but it is always in the closest rela- 
 tionship and most complete union with the 
 poet's dramatic intentions. Thus, that wonder- 
 ful power by which a great musician can make 
 his phrase undergo metamorphosis after meta- 
 morphosis, without losing its character as the 
 expression of some distinct emotion, is here 
 developed to a hitherto unknown extent ; and 
 the means of dramatic expression are, in conse- 
 quence, infinitely widened and enlarged. 
 
 Verse. Concerning this I must beg leave 
 to begin ad ovo. Two facts are certain as 
 regards the different means by which poets 
 have tried to enhance the power of every- 
 day language, so as to render it capable of 
 exercising a direct influence on our feelings
 
 6i 
 
 rhythm and rhyme i.e., regularity and melody; 
 these facts are, firstly, that the poets of the 
 Middle Ages, to attain regularity of rhythm, 
 constructed their verses according to some fixed 
 melody or other ; and, secondly, that the con- 
 dition from which the astonishing and to us 
 incomprehensible variety of Greek metres arose 
 was the inseparable and ever-present combined 
 action of mimetics, or rather, of the move- 
 ments of an ideal dance, with the poetical lan- 
 guage, as it was sung or chanted. 
 
 The modern Germans have imitated, as well 
 as their unquestionably flexible language will 
 admit of, every metre under the sun ; but no 
 one will deny that the fixed rhythms upon 
 which the German language prides itself so 
 much exist far more for the reader's eye than 
 for the hearer's ear. Take the most common 
 form of verse in modern German iambics 
 is it not torture to hear the sense of the lan- 
 guage continually forced and twisted to suit 
 this five-footed monster ? Sensible actors, 
 when it was first used on the stage, were 
 afraid of its sing-song, and treated it exactly 
 like prose. 
 
 Italians and Frenchmen, who have not at- 
 tempted to base their rhythms upon prosodical
 
 62 
 
 longs and shorts, and who have chosen to 
 measure their verse by the number of syllables 
 it contains, have found a rhyme at the end 
 of each verse absolutely necessary. Now, if 
 we examine the relation of music to all the 
 varieties of modern verse, we come across a 
 most curious fact. Musicians declaim German 
 iambics, and indeed every species of verse, in 
 all and every sort of time. As for the rhyme 
 at the end of a line, music, as a rule, swallows 
 it entirely. And the cases wherein the musical 
 rhyme actually corresponds to the rhyme in the 
 verse are for the most part accidental, and, at 
 any rate, few and far between. A musician 
 can do no more with iambics than the actors 
 did ; he must treat them as prose and stretch 
 them to fit his tune. 
 
 Seeing that modern versification offers such 
 small attraction, Wagner was led to ask himself 
 what sort of rhythmical speech it might be that 
 was most intimately connected with musical 
 diction, and the answer was not far to seek. 
 Just as we have seen the poetical material con- 
 densed by dramatists for their purposes, so the 
 expression of our daily speech will have to 
 be condensed. When we speak under the 
 pressure of some strong emotion, we involun-
 
 tarily drop conventional phraseology ; we con- 
 tract our accents and enforce them with a 
 raised voice ; our words become rhythmical ; 
 our expressions terse and to the point. In the 
 early days of all the Teutonic languages, such 
 a manner of speech had been used for artistic 
 purposes ; it is the alliterative verse of the 
 Edda, of Beovulf, &c. The condensed form 
 and the close relative position of the accented 
 vowels in alliterative verse give to it an emo- 
 tional intensity, which renders it peculiarly 
 musical. When a poet conceives this sort of 
 verse and indeed the fact holds good, though 
 in a lesser degree, with all sorts of verse he 
 is never without some sense of harmony in 
 connection with the melody of his words. And 
 at this point the musician, whose art enables 
 him to give precise expression to the vaguely 
 conceived harmonies of the poet, steps in ; on 
 the basis of this harmony he proceeds to fix 
 the exact melody pertaining to the verse, and 
 thus finally to complete the desire for perfect 
 poetical expression. 
 
 Of the three opera- manufacturing nations, 
 the Italians, the French, and the Germans, the 
 latter only possess an everyday speech which 
 has an immediate and easily recognizable con-
 
 6 4 
 
 ncction with its roots. Italians and Frenchmen 
 only come to understand the radical meaning 
 of their speech by studying Latin and other 
 so-called dead languages ; it may be said of 
 them that their speech speaks for them, not 
 they through their speech. 
 
 Melody. Wagner's melody has undergone 
 many a metamorphosis. It is only since he 
 was led by the nature of his mythical subjects 
 to adopt the alliterative verse just spoken of, 
 that his manner of procedure has been ulti- 
 mately determined. In his youth he tried to 
 embody Schumann's maxim, " You must invent 
 original and bold melodies ;" but the more he 
 came to derive his form of musical expression 
 direct from the legendary matter chosen for 
 dramatic presentation, the less he troubled him- 
 self to appear " original." In Rienzi, his first 
 published opera, we find, with little exception, 
 Italian and French grand Optra phraseology 
 a la Spontini. In Der fliegende Hollander, the 
 story of which is legendary, the melody often 
 approaches the Volkslied. It has a rhythmical 
 backbone, as it were, which Rienzi lacks. In 
 Tannkauser, and still more in Lohengrin, the 
 melody grows from out of the verse. In both 
 these works, it is not so much any melodic
 
 peculiarity as the emotion expressed by the 
 melodious phrase that attracts the listener. 
 The fault of modern verse, pointed out above- 
 its want of real rhythmical precision inevitably 
 told upon the melody. But Wagner managed 
 to increase its power enormously by the em- 
 ployment of characteristic harmonies. He 
 individualized it by means of significant ac- 
 companiments, and thus rendered it highly 
 efficient for his dramatic purpose. Alliterative 
 verse has at last given to his melody what 
 was still wanting a rhythmical animation 
 which is fully justified by the nature of the 
 verse. The use of alliteration, and nota dene 
 of the melody springing from it, innovation as 
 it certainly is, sprang, like all his innovations, 
 direct from the supreme artistic instinct with 
 which he masters the subject-matter congenial 
 to him, and was not in any sense the result 
 of abstract speculation. Most musicians will 
 be aware of the fact that if a composer writes 
 the accompaniments to a vocal phrase in such 
 a manner that those vocal notes which are 
 essential to the harmony are omitted in the 
 instrumental portion, the result is disastrous ; 
 both the vocal and the instrumental parts will 
 sound incomplete ; the fact being that our ear 
 
 F
 
 66 
 
 invariably takes special and separate notice of 
 the human voice, the colour of which is at all 
 times totally and absolutely distinct and diffe- 
 rent from the colour of the orchestral instru- 
 ments. It is upon this fact that Wagner bases 
 his procedure ; he allows his vocal melody, 
 independent of the orchestral melody, to grow 
 directly from out of the verse. He intends 
 it to be nothing but an intensified version of 
 the actual sounds of rhythmical speech. The 
 relation of this sung melody to the melos of 
 
 The Orchestra, so difficult to describe, and 
 so easy to understand if one has the good 
 fortune to hear it actually executed, Wagner 
 describes in an elaborate simile, the main points 
 of which are as follow : " Let us look upon 
 the orchestra as a deep mountain lake pierced 
 to its very depth by the sunlight (i.e., the 
 poetical intention which moulds endless possi- 
 bilities of musical harmony to its own particular 
 purpose), the surrounding banks of which are 
 visible from every point. From the tree-stems 
 that grew upon the banks, a skiff was fashioned, 
 precisely in a manner to render it fit to be 
 carried on the lake, and to cut through its 
 waters. This skiff is the melody growing from 
 out of the verse, sung by the dramatic singer
 
 and supported by the surrounding- waves of the 
 orchestra. It is a skiff totally different from 
 the lake, yet fashioned solely with a view to 
 float upon it. Only when it is launched upon 
 its waves does it become alive ; supported and 
 carried, yet going of its own will, it attracts 
 our eyes as we glance across the lake, as though 
 the sole purpose of the entire show was to offer 
 this particular picture." 
 
 But not only will the orchestra thus carry 
 the verse ; with its help also the spirit of music 
 will reveal the innermost emotions of the dra- 
 uiatis persorue ; its supremely intelligible speech 
 will, in unison with expressive mimetics, initiate 
 us into the secret of those nuances and depths 
 of feeling which all arts except music can only 
 hint at, and which without its divine aid would 
 remain absolutely inexpressible. It will speak 
 to the ear as the actor's movements and the 
 expression of his features speak to the eye ; 
 over and above this, it will at the very begin- 
 ning of the performance put the hearer into the 
 proper frame of mind to expect the dramatic 
 pictures and actions to come, and it will recall 
 all those sounds and phrases belonging to past 
 scenes which can to some extent throw light 
 on the present one. Lastly, it will systemati-
 
 68 
 
 cally make use of and develop its capacity for 
 accompanying and enforcing- the dramatic ges- 
 tures ; traces of which capacity have appeared 
 often enough in the opera, but have there been 
 left, like mimetics generally from which they 
 arise, in an embryonic state, scarcely above the 
 level of the pantomime. " On the one hand, 
 as embodied harmony, it renders the distinct 
 expression of melody possible, whilst on the 
 other, it keeps the melody in the necessary 
 uninterrupted flow, and thus always displays 
 the motives of the dramatic action with the 
 most convincing impressiveness to our feelings." 
 The entire work of art, then, intended by 
 Wagner is miisical in spirit, and could have 
 been conceived by none but a man of universal 
 artistic instincts, who is at the same time a 
 great modern musician. Its mythical subject- 
 matter, chosen because of its essentially emo- 
 tional nature ; its division into scenes, and the 
 sequence of these ; the use of alliterative verse, 
 and its melodious declamation ; the use of the 
 orchestra, preparing, supporting, commenting, 
 enforcing, recalling ; all its factors are imbued 
 with the spirit of music. Their task is not 
 accomplished if any one side of the subject 
 remains to be supplied by some process of
 
 6 9 
 
 abstract reasoning on the hearer's part. They 
 are to appeal exclusively to our feelings. The 
 sole test of what sort of thing is to be said 
 lies in the expressive power of music. Being 
 emotional throughout, the musical drama stands 
 higher as a form of art than the spoken play. 
 In it the profound pathos of dramatic speech 
 is not left to the discrimination of the individual 
 actor. The musician's sure technique positively 
 fixes every accent and every inflection, and a 
 composer in the act of conducting such a drama 
 is so completely in unison with the singers and 
 players, that one may talk without hyperbole 
 of an actual metempsychosis his very soul 
 speaks from out of the performers. 
 
 Before concluding this division of the sub- 
 ject, let me express a hope that whoever has 
 read so far with some attention will be in a 
 position to see how inapplicable much of the 
 current talk about that great bugbear, " the 
 music of the future," is to Wagner and his 
 aims. His drama has nothing whatever to do 
 with the supposed reform I say supposed 
 reform advisedly of instrumental music which 
 has been clubbed " the music of the future." 
 Did any one ever dare to assert that the beau- 
 tiful works of Schubert, Mendelssohn, Schu-
 
 ro 
 
 mann, &c., leave an unsatisfactory expression, 
 owing to any shortcomings capable of reform 
 in the manner of musical procedure employed 
 by these composers ? It is surely impossible 
 to see where reform is needed, and no musician" 
 in his senses ever dreamt of attempting or 
 advocating such a thing ; least of all Franz 
 Liszt, who is unhappily so often treated as the 
 wildest of the supposed destroyers of the beau- 
 tiful- -Liszt, who has on numberless occasions 
 proved his intimate knowledge of, and loyal 
 admiration for, the lovely works of Beethoven's 
 epigonse. The innovations in details of form 
 and diction introduced by Berlioz and Liszt in 
 some of their instrumental works derive their 
 origin from Beethoven himself; they are the 
 result of a tendency which was carried out more 
 or less conscientiously by all his successors ; it 
 is the desire of a poetical basis for instrumental 
 music. If such a desire be the distinctive 
 mark, surely Chopin, Schumann, Mendelssohn, 
 and all their living followers, are " musicians of 
 the future." 
 
 Be this as it may, Wagner's ideal drama is 
 a thing totally apart from this tendency towards 
 programme-music, the seeming contradictions of 
 which, from its high stand-point, it disposes of
 
 with ease. Nor is Wagner's drama an attempt 
 at the reformation of the opera, though I have 
 spoken of it as the accomplished destiny of the 
 opera. It is no more a reformed opera than 
 man is a reformed monkey ; it can be measured 
 as little with an ordinary opera yard-stick as 
 with the conductor's-baton of an absolute musi- 
 cian. It is new from end to end, and it carries 
 its own criterion of excellence in the high and 
 intense emotions a correct performance of it 
 may and will arouse in every man who, in 
 Pistol's phrase, " hears with ears."
 
 " Vatcs in propria patria honorc caret.' 1 
 '' ' Tempo e galantuomo. " 
 
 The theatre is the centre from which all truly 
 national culture is diffused; no art can hope to 
 lend effectual aid towards popu lar culture as long 
 as the supreme importance of the theatre is un- 
 recognised, as long as the theatre is not lifted 
 from out of its present deplorable condition. 
 
 If the spirit of modern life, which takes its 
 origin in the " renaissance" could succeed in pro- 
 ducing a theatre that shall stand in relation to 
 the innermost motives of modern culture as the 
 Greek theatre stood to the religion of Greece, then 
 tJie arts should have arrived at the same vivify- 
 ing spring from which in Greece they nourished 
 themselves ; should this be impossible, "renascent'" 
 art has also had its day. 
 
 It is principally in the drama that the limit- 
 less capacities of music for emotional expression, 
 the width and wealth of its resources are fully 
 apparent ; under the hands of great dramatic
 
 73 
 
 composers this capacity has grown in exact ratio 
 ^vith the extent and the dignity of the opportu- 
 nities afforded to musicians by the dramatic poets ; 
 and the future prospects of musical art are 
 intimately and indissolubly connected luith those 
 of the theatre. 
 
 These assertions can be taken as the thesis 
 which Wagner illustrates from numberless diffe- 
 rent points of view, in the many smaller writ- 
 ings which have the amelioration of the present 
 state of theatrical and musical things in Ger- 
 many for an object. There are especially two 
 pamphlets : " Bericht liber eine in Miinchen 
 zu errichtende Deutsche Musikschule " (Report 
 concerning a German school of music to be 
 established at Munich), and " Ueber das Diri- 
 giren " (On Conducting) both small in bulk 
 but weighty in contents, from which I must 
 take a few gleanings, as in them the master's 
 dramatic ideal is brought to bear directly upon 
 questions of musical practice. If we remember 
 that it is from the high point of view of his 
 drama that he looks upon the musical doings 
 of the present, we shall be more inclined to 
 make allowances for the occasional hardness in 
 his criticism of contemporaneous efforts, and 
 for the extreme severity of his censure when
 
 74 
 
 dealing with downright incapacity or wilful per- 
 versity. 
 
 Of the two pamphlets in question, the first 
 is a scheme for the establishment of a school 
 of music in Munich, the main object of which 
 was to have been to train dramatic singers 
 towards the correct presentation of works 
 written in the German language, and in spe- 
 cifically German spirit ; and, together with this, 
 to fix and to preserve a distinct and adequate 
 style for the rendering of works by the great 
 German composers, both vocal and instru- 
 mental. The second is a severe and elaborate 
 criticism of the mode of conducting now cur- 
 rent in Germany, with significant hints as to its 
 improvement. 
 
 The school was not to teach all and every- 
 thing, and end, as do most conservatoriums, by 
 teaching little or nothing ; it was to devote 
 itself exclusively to the attainment of correct 
 performances correct in every technical detail, 
 and in every nuance of expression. The theory 
 of harmony, counterpoint, and composition, 
 history of music and aesthetics, evert the ex- 
 clusively technical side of the instructions for 
 every particular instrument, were to be left to 
 private tuition, under the supervision of the
 
 75 
 
 school authorities. It was intended to act 
 direct upon the artistic taste and instinct of the 
 pupils by means of constant united practice of 
 the representative works of the great masters. 
 There is, as every one knows, abundant op- 
 portunity in German towns to get excellent 
 theoretical instruction ; but what young musi- 
 cians want above all things is a practical 
 knowledge of the laws of beautiful and cor- 
 rect expression, and this the school was to 
 cultivate. 
 
 That a knowledge of the laws of correct 
 expression should be to some extent wanting 
 to their performances is a truth which German 
 musicians, and especially singers, do not like to 
 hear, but the sense of which they are sometimes 
 rather roughly taught by the public of Paris or 
 London. There are many singers in Germany 
 who deserve to be called good musicians ; as a 
 rule they know much more about music than 
 their Italian or French brethren ; they possess 
 good voices too ; yet they " cannot sing." The 
 real cause of this, as of so many other practical 
 shortcomings (and here is the point to which 
 Wagner is ever returning), lies in the fact that 
 Germany has never been in possession of a 
 national musical theatre a theatre which, acting
 
 76 
 
 upon the national taste, and being in its turn 
 acted upon by the nation, should have developed 
 a classical style of execution, such as could ade- 
 quately reflect the pecular German spirit which 
 breathes in the great German poets and com- 
 posers. The conservatoires of Naples, Milan, 
 and Paris preserved and fostered the styles 
 which had been developed by the artists of San 
 Carlo, of La Scala, and L'Academie de Musique, 
 with the co-operation of the Italian and French 
 nations. But the German theatres, unfortu- 
 nately, having to cater for a public of Philistine 
 subscribers who attend all the year round, and 
 require constant change of diet, have never 
 subsisted on any speciality of their own ; they 
 produce every conceivable thing, from Sophocles 
 to the latest cochonnerie a la Offenbach. These 
 pieces are translated mostly by penny-a liners, 
 and are generally given without any attempt 
 at correctness of style. Whoever has passed 
 a year in Dresden, Berlin, or Vienna, can fur- 
 nish a list of theatrical poltrooneries that makes 
 one's flesh creep. There are, of course, now 
 and then, exceptional performances, which are 
 prepared with due care, and are proportionately 
 good ; but these are inevitably swamped by the 
 numberless bad ones, and seem to have little
 
 77 
 
 influence either upon the public or upon the 
 artists immediately concerned. 
 
 It was objected that a German conserva- 
 torium need not trouble itself about Italian or 
 French productions. " Let them go their ways 
 and let it conserve the proper tradition con- 
 cerning Gluck and Mozart!" 
 
 Ay, but here lies the rub ! The dramatic 
 works of the Germans Gluck and Mozart must 
 be studied with a view to French and Italian 
 peculiarities of style ; German singers have no 
 more mastered these peculiarities than those of 
 other works by entirely foreign authors. If 
 Gluck and Mozart have ever been properly 
 given in Germany, they certainly are not so 
 now ; and if proof were needed of the utter 
 helplessness of the present race of operatic 
 performers, one could not point to a more 
 melancholy sight than their lifeless and colour- 
 less representations of Don Giovanni and Ipki- 
 gnie. 
 
 It has also been objected that the real centre 
 of musical life in Germany lies in the concert- 
 room and not in the theatre. Granted ; but it 
 is impossible to deny that all the noble efforts 
 which have been made by concert-givers and 
 conductors, with a view to directing the taste
 
 of the nation towards the highest and the best, 
 have been again and again disturbed by the 
 overwhelming miasma arising from the thea- 
 trical morasses. You may witness after a 
 Mozartian or Beethovenian symphony some 
 virtuoso riding his parade horse, or some singer 
 going through a series of contortions for the 
 throat ; whilst the public, demoralized by its 
 daily meal of theatrical vulgarity and devoid 
 of artistic instincts, applauds everything indis- 
 criminately. The more one examines the 
 matter, the more one's conviction grows that 
 if nobler and higher artistic tastes are to be 
 effectively engrafted upon a nation, there is but 
 one way : raise the quality and the character 
 of theatrical performances. And thus, to return 
 to our starting point, the Munich institution 
 was to prepare the material for a theatre in 
 which the performances should be correct, and 
 German. 
 
 Singing lessons are of the utmost import- 
 ance to every young musician, no matter to 
 what speciality he intends ultimately to devote 
 himself, and the neglect of vocal studies is to 
 be felt in Germany, not only with professed 
 singers, but also with most instrumentalists and 
 composers. Accordingly, elementary singing
 
 79 
 
 instruction was to be made a sine qua non for 
 every pupil of the school. In developing a 
 German style of singing, the peculiarities of the 
 language, its short and often mute vowels, its 
 clotted lumps of consonants, marvellously ex- 
 pressive though they be, its ever-recurring 
 gutturals and sibilants must be carefully taken 
 account of. For this reason, the prominent 
 feature of a German style, as opposed to the 
 long-drawn vocalism of the Italian style, must 
 of necessity consist in an energetic accentuation 
 akin to actual speech ; obviously a kind of 
 singing particularly well adapted to dramatic 
 delivery. When Wagner speaks of energetic 
 accents, he, of course, does not intend to sacri- 
 fice the beauty of sound pertaining to the 
 Italian method. The cursus was to combine 
 the study of Italian singing in the Italian lan- 
 guage with German. Besides general instruc- 
 tions in music harmony, counterpoint, and 
 composition, which, as has been already stated, 
 were to be left to private tuition rhetoric and 
 gymnastics were to be added to the vocal 
 studies, so that in time the school for singing 
 might completely fulfil all the conditions neces- 
 sary to the preparation of its pupils for the 
 lyric stage. The piano, that indispensable
 
 8o 
 
 auxiliary, and its literature, so important to 
 musicians, were to receive due attention not 
 only from those who wished to become virtuosi, 
 but also from such as intended to devote them- 
 selves to composing and conducting. Finally, 
 to give the tendencies of the school a chance 
 of spreading more rapidly, a journal written 
 by the masters, in which the novel tasks and 
 problems emanating therefrom should be dis- 
 cussed, was to be published. 
 
 What has become of the school ? It was 
 started, and promised wonders. I was present 
 at one of the examinations. It has not kept 
 its promise since Wagner, and after him Von 
 Billow, left Munich. 
 
 The pamphlet on conducting should be 
 translated entire. I shall pick out some points 
 here and there, as it appears an impossible task 
 to abridge or further condence it. 
 
 A true taste for classical compositions cannot 
 accrue unless a truly classical style for their 
 execution be developed. The general public 
 accepts great works much more on authority 
 than by reason of any emotional impressions 
 the customary performances of them are capable 
 of producing. Take a single example Mozart's 
 symphonies notice two/ points : the vocal
 
 8i 
 
 nature of the themes (in which respect he differs 
 from and is superior to Haydn) and the sparse 
 indications in the scores for the proper render- 
 ing of these. It is well known how hurriedly 
 Mozart wrote his symphonies generally for 
 performance at some concert he was about to 
 give and how exacting he was as regards the 
 rendering of his melodious phrases when re- 
 hearsing the orchestra. It is evident that the 
 success of the performance depended in great 
 measure upon the master's verbal admonitions ; 
 and it is within the experience of every musi- 
 cian that even in our days, when the orchestral 
 parts are overloaded with dynamical marks, a 
 word from the conductor is more efficacious 
 than written signs. Now, it is considered 
 " classical " by nine conductors out of ten in 
 Germany and elsewhere, to avoid most scrupu 
 lously all nuances of expression not expressly 
 indicated in the score ! And what becomes 
 of Mozart's heavenly melodies under such a 
 method of procedure ? He who was imbued 
 with the noble spirit of older Italian singing, 
 whose great merit it is to have transplanted its 
 expressive inflections into the orchestra what 
 becomes of his themes if they are delivered 
 without increase or decrease of accent, without 
 
 G
 
 82 
 
 that modification of tempo and rhythm so indis- 
 pensable to singers ? what becomes of them 
 if they are played smoothly and neatly, like a 
 recitation of some rule-of-three sum ? 
 
 Beethoven's orchestral works are in a diffe- 
 rent, though not in a much better plight. His 
 scores contain ample directions for correct 
 execution ; still the difficulty of rendering his 
 symphonies properly is as much greater as his 
 thematic combinations are more elaborate than 
 Mozart's. New difficulties arise through the 
 peculiar use Beethoven makes of his rhythms ; 
 and to fix the proper tempo for his symphonic 
 movements, above all the ever-present delicate 
 and expressive modification of this tempo, with- 
 out which the sense of many an eloquent phrase 
 remains incomprehensible, is a task requiring 
 artistic instincts such as the typical German 
 Kapellmeister is not as a rule remarkable for. 
 
 To my thinking the lively applause ex- 
 tremely lifeless orchestral performances of 
 Mozart's and Beethoven's symphonies are wont 
 to meet with would be utterly incomprehensible 
 if it were not for the fact that most people owe 
 their love for these works to numerous private 
 performances of pianoforte arrangements, so 
 that when they listen to the orchestra they are
 
 already familiar with both themes and treat- 
 ment, and the only access to their conception is 
 the vivid distinctness of orchestral colour. 
 
 The demand for continual though scarcely 
 perceptible modifications of tempo, such as in- 
 evitably ensue when music is executed in con- 
 nection with a dramatic performance, forms the 
 essence of Wagner's pamphlet. He wishes to 
 see the nuances of tempo suggested by his dra- 
 matic instinct applied to pure instrumental 
 music, and it is very curious to note how the 
 results of this procedure chime with the de- 
 scriptions that have come down to us of the 
 greatest musicians' manner of playing their 
 works, and of improvising for instance, Schin- 
 dler's detailed account of Beethoven's rendering 
 of his sonatas and symphonies. 
 
 Conductors often miss the proper tempo 
 because they are ignorant of the art of singing, 
 for it is only after you have correctly caught 
 the melos (melodious phraseology) of a move- 
 ment that you have found the right tempo. 
 The two are inseparable ; one implies the other. 
 Older musicians rarely gave other than very 
 general indications : the two extremes, allegro, 
 adagio ; and andante, to denote the medium 
 between them. Sabastian Bach, in most cases,
 
 8 4 
 
 gives no hints whatever, and this is, from a 
 musical point of view, not without some show 
 of reason. Bach may have said to himself : 
 He who does not understand my themes and 
 their treatment, he whose instinct does not lead 
 him to feel their character, what can he be 
 expected to make of any vague Italian desig- 
 nation of tempo ? 
 
 The tempo adagio stands opposed to the 
 tempo allegro, as the sustained tone to the ani- 
 mated movement {figurirte Bewegung). In the 
 tempo adagio, as Beethoven has it, the sustained 
 tone furnishes the laws for the movement. One 
 might say, in a certain delicate sense, of the 
 pure adagio, that it cannot be taken too slowly. 
 Here the sustained tone speaks for itself; the 
 smallest change of harmony is surprising, and 
 successions the most remote are at once under- 
 stood by our expectant feelings. Beethoven's 
 allegro can be looked upon, also in a certain 
 delicate sense, as the result of an admixture of 
 the emotional adagio with animated 'movement 
 (bewegtere figuration). In Beethoven's greatest 
 allegros some large melody generally predomi- 
 nates, which in character is akin to the adagio, 
 and which gives to these movements a certain 
 sentimental colour (in the best acceptation of
 
 the word) that clearly distinguishes them from 
 the earlier naive sort of allegro. Take for 
 example the opening melody of the Sinfonia 
 Eroica or of the great trio in B flat. The 
 exclusive character of the naive allegro is not 
 felt until much later in the course of these 
 pieces, when the rhythmical movement gets the 
 upper hand of the sustained tone. The best 
 specimens of the na'ive allegro are to be found 
 in Mozart's alia breve movements, such as the 
 allegros of the overtures above all Figaro and 
 Don Giovanni. In pieces of this character, of 
 which Beethoven too furnishes specimens, like 
 the Jinale of his symphony in A major, the 
 rhythmical movement has it all its own way- 
 celebrates its orgies as it were ; and it is impos- 
 sible to take these pieces too quick, or with too 
 much decision. But whatever lies between the 
 two extremes stands under the laws of mutual 
 relationship, each to the other, and requires as 
 many and as delicate combinations of tempo as 
 are the nuances and inflections of which the 
 sustained tone is capable. 
 
 We find in Beethoveris sentimental allegro 
 all the separate peculiarities of the older allegro, 
 the sustained and the broken tone, the vocal 
 portamento and the animated movement, so fused
 
 as to make an inseparable, sole, and unique 
 musical tissue ; and it is undeniably certain that 
 all the manifold materials which go to make up 
 one of his symphonic movements must be ren- 
 dered in accordance with their respective nature, 
 if the whole is not to make an impression some- 
 what akin to that of a monstrosity. Wagner 
 recounts how in his youth he had often seen 
 older musicians shake their heads over the 
 Eroica. Dionys Weber, for example, who was 
 director of the conservatorium at Prague, 
 treated it altogether as a nonentity. He knew 
 of nothing beyond the Mozartian naive allegro 
 spoken of above ; and whoever heard the pupils 
 of his school play the first movement of the 
 Eroica in the strict tempo proper to that Mo- 
 zartian allegro was certainly constrained to 
 agree with him. Have we, since, improved 
 much upon Dionys' mode of procedure ? 
 
 In connection with his assertion, that as 
 regards tempo everything depends upon the 
 executants understanding the melodious phrase- 
 ology of a piece, Wagner goes on to show how 
 great a risk conductors run who, of a sudden, 
 expect their orchestra to play a piece in a diffe- 
 rent tempo from the supposed " traditional '* 
 one. The deplorable fact is, he says, that a
 
 mode of playing, which can be described as " a 
 careless gliding over things," has taken root 
 which is intimately connected with the incorrect 
 tempo habitually taken for certain movements 
 witness the third movement of Beethoven's 
 8th Symphony, which, though expressly marked 
 Tempo di Menuetto, is almost invariably served 
 up as a sort of scherzo. 
 
 Nothing is less familiar to German orche- 
 stras than the production of a long-sustained tone 
 with unflagging strength. Ask any orchestral 
 instrument for a full, equal, and sustained forte, 
 and the player will be astonished at the unusual 
 demand ! Yet this equally-sustained tone is the 
 basis of all dynamics as with singing so with 
 orchestral playing. Without this basis an 
 orchestra will produce much noise but no power. 
 But our conductors think very highly of an 
 over-delicate piano, which the strings produce 
 without the slightest trouble, but which for the 
 wind, and especially the wood wind instru- 
 ments, is extremely difficult to attain. The 
 players on these latter, particularly flutists, who 
 have transformed their instruments, formerly so 
 soft, into " forcible tubes," find it scarcely pos- 
 sible to produce a delicately-sustained piano 
 with perhaps the exception of French oboists,
 
 88 
 
 who have never altered the pastoral character 
 of their instrument, or of clarinettists, if you 
 ask them for the " echo effect." 
 
 Now the discrepancies between the piano of 
 the winds and that of the string's seem entirely 
 to escape the observation of conductors. It 
 is the character of the piano of the strings 
 which is in a great measure at the bottom of 
 the fault, for we are as much without a proper 
 piano as we are without a proper forte ; both 
 lack fulness of tone. The fiddlers, who find it 
 so easy to draw their bows over the strings 
 so as to produce a whispering vibration, might 
 copy the full-toned piano from exceptionally 
 good wind instrument players. These again 
 might gain by imitating the piano of great 
 singers. For these two, the full piano and sus- 
 tained forte, are, to reitterate our dogma, the 
 two poles of orchestral dynamics between which 
 all execution should move. United to the 
 proper tempo they form the elements of a truly 
 classical style for the delivery of instrumental 
 music. 
 
 In the face of all these troubles, one cannot 
 shrink from the confession that there is very 
 serious danger in advocating modification of 
 tempo. Are we to allow, it may be asked,
 
 8 9 
 
 every man who " wags a stick " to do as it 
 listeth him with the tempi of our glorious in- 
 strumental music ? Are we to permit him to 
 " make effects " in Beethoven's symphonies as 
 his reckless fancy may dictate ? To which I 
 know of no answer, except it be, 'Tis a pity 
 men should occupy positions they are not fit 
 for. 
 
 " Ueber das Dirigiren " contains numerous 
 examples in musical type ; amongst others, 
 many details concerning the interpretation of 
 the overtures to Der Freischiitz and Die Meister- 
 singer, Beethoven's 3rd, 5th, 8th, and 9th Sym- 
 phonies, &c. 
 
 Concerning this pamphlet, and in fact con- 
 cerning all Wagner's writings, I would say 
 what the supernatural voice is reported to have 
 said to the Father of the Church, St. Augus- 
 tine : To lie, lege take and read.
 
 6. 
 
 "Natura lo fece e poi ruppe lo stampo." 
 
 Ariosto. 
 
 IT is humiliating to confess, after all is said 
 and done, that neither an exposition of artistic 
 theories nor any species of critical and aesthe- 
 tical talk can finally settle a single vital point 
 in art matters the actual works of art must in 
 the end be left to speak for themselves. 
 
 In the life of a man of abnormal receptive 
 powers, the centre of gravity of whose exist- 
 ence must be looked for in the realms of thought 
 rather than in the realms of action, biographical 
 facts are far less significant and worthy of at- 
 tention than they would be in the life of a man 
 of the world, whose practical doings represent 
 the sum total of his existence. The strivings 
 more or less successful of a man of genius for 
 the acquisition of the necessary qiiantum of 
 daily bread and butter are of less than second- 
 ary importance. Nevertheless, as it always 
 pleasant, and sometimes even useful, to know 
 where, when, or how he bore the burden of 
 professional work, though such knowledge can-
 
 not in any sense widen one's conception of the 
 man's nature or of his exceptional powers, I 
 propose to furnish, by way of opiis supereroga- 
 tionis, a number of biographical facts which 
 may serve as landmarks to the outward history 
 of Wagner's artistic career. 
 
 He has become a European celebrity in 
 spite of himself. I say in spite of himself 
 advisedly, for to those who believe in him and 
 his works there is nothing more humiliating 
 than the fact that the interest excited by his 
 name is not one which derives from his works, 
 but rather from his personality. Outside of 
 Germany his reputation rests, if the truth must 
 be told, on his mistakes of policy. " // a les 
 dtfauts de ses vertus" as Madame de Stael, and 
 and George^Sand after her, has it. Like most 
 men of genius when they meddle in practical 
 matters, he is apt to make a mountain of a 
 molehill ; and the scandal arising from a number 
 of momentary exaggerations on his part, fos- 
 tered as it has been by the attack of a hostile 
 press, is in reality the cause of his name being 
 in everybody's mouth. His dramas, and espe- 
 cially the later ones, are unfortunately as yet 
 in no danger of being too familiar out of Ger- 
 many.
 
 Apropos of the position of a man of genius 
 in this world of mental distress and physical 
 want, let me be allowed to translate some lines 
 from the second volume of Arthur Schopen- 
 hauer's " Die Welt als Wille und Vorstellung : " 
 " All great theoretical feats of whatever sort are 
 achieved by means of so powerful, firm, and 
 exclusive a concentration of their author's mind 
 towards one particular object, that for the time 
 being all the rest of the world disappears com- 
 pletely, and the one object becomes the sole 
 reality to him. This great and forcible con- 
 centration, which is one of the special privileges 
 of genius, is by no means rare even in the 
 presence of ordinary things, and in the affairs 
 of daily life ; and under such a focus these 
 latter are often enormously exaggerated, much 
 as a flea takes elephantine proportions under 
 the microscope. It is for this reason that 
 highly-gifted persons are violently affected, ren- 
 dered sad, gay, thoughtful, timid, angry, &c., 
 by things which would not touch an ordinary 
 mortal. For this reason also genius is wanting 
 in sobriety, in the power of seeing in things, at 
 least as far as our personal aims are concerned, 
 nothing beyond what is contained in them. 
 How much common sense, quiet composure,
 
 93 
 
 entire sereneness and evenness of conduct a 
 man of ordinary capacity exhibits in comparison 
 with a man of genius ! Yet it is the latter, 
 so frequently sunk in dreams, or excited by 
 passion, from whose restless anguish and pain 
 immortal works spring forth. Genius stands 
 almost invariably in an equivocal relation to the 
 surrounding world, for its very strivings and 
 doings are, as a rule, in opposition to and at 
 war with the age. Men of mere talent always 
 turn up at the proper time ; they are moved by 
 the spirit of their age and called forth by its 
 requirements ; they are able to satisfy these 
 and no more ; they take their share in the 
 course of contemporaneous development, or by 
 their help some special science advances a step 
 or two ; and they reap rewards and gain due 
 applause. But to the next generation their 
 works are no longer palateable, and must be 
 replaced by others, which again in their turn 
 do not last. Genius, on the contrary, flashes 
 upon the times like a comet upon the planets' 
 orbits, to the well-regulated and visible order 
 of which its completely eccentric course is quite 
 alien ; it cannot therefore chime in with the 
 course of regular development of the age, but 
 it throws its works out far ahead (as the im-
 
 94 
 
 perator who devotes himself to death throws 
 his spear among the enemy) where time alone 
 can overtake them. Its relations to the men 
 of talent, whose career culminates in the mean- 
 while, is well expressed in the words of the 
 evangelist ' My time is not yet come, but your 
 time is always ready.' (St. John vii. 6.)" 
 
 But to begin with our biographical facts. 
 I have gathered them here and there, mainly 
 however, from a little autobiographical sketch 
 which appeared many years ago in the Zeitung 
 /ilr die elegante Welt, the editor of which, Laub, 
 was a friend of Wagner's, and induced him to 
 furnish a number of data, with a view to their 
 being arranged for his journal. But Wagner's 
 sketch struck him as being so bright and fresh 
 that he chose to print it intact. 
 
 Wilhelm Richard Wagner was born 22nd 
 May, 1813, at Leipzig. His father, an actuarius 
 of police, died six months after, and the widow 
 was re-married to Ludwig Geyer, an actor, 
 painter, and author of comedies, who also died 
 early when Richard was seven years of age. 
 It had been his intention to bring up Richard 
 as a painter, but the boy proved invincibly 
 awkward at drawing ; so he did at pianoforte 
 playing, in which, some months before Geyer's
 
 95 
 
 decease, he had a few lessons. The teacher 
 caught him hammering at tunes from the over- 
 ture to Der Freischiitz with monstrous fingering 
 in lieu of practising his exercises, and pro- 
 nounced him a hopeless case ; which dictum 
 has since proved right enough, for Wagner 
 continues to this day to torture the piano in a 
 most abominable fashion. 
 
 The fact that he was not an " infant pheno- 
 menon" is nowise surprising if the strangely 
 original nature of his gifts be considered. To 
 my mind, sneers at the astonishing number of 
 musical prodigies are perfectly legitimate ; let 
 it only be borne in mind that he who sneers 
 is wrong if he represents the faculties required 
 for music as being of a lower order than those 
 required for other arts. To account for the 
 presence of so many prodigies it is sufficient 
 to point out, besides the hunger of indigent 
 parents and the vanity of wealthier ones, that 
 no art has in the course of time become so 
 petrified in its rules and forms of procedure as 
 music ; and, moreover, that people are ready to 
 hail any youth found capable of handling a few 
 of these forms with some ease as a composer, 
 whilst they would not dream of calling this or 
 that boy a poet merely because he was able to
 
 9 6 
 
 make stanzas with the correct numbers of 
 syllables in each line. It is neither easier nor 
 more difficult to master all the means of ex- 
 pression in music than in any other art, only as 
 regards music a very large proportion of the 
 public are still in a state of childhood ; they 
 revel in sounds, leaving the sense to take care 
 of itself. 
 
 Music, then, though he was enthusiastic 
 about it, was but an accessory to Wagner's 
 studies ; Greek, Latin, mythology, and ancient 
 history being the main points at the Kreuz 
 Schule of Dresden, which he attended with a 
 view to the usual university career. He was 
 given to poetising, sketched tragedies in Greek 
 form, and passed muster in the school for a 
 clever fellow in literis. He learnt English so 
 as to be able to read Shakespeare properly, and 
 he translated bits in metre. He projected an 
 immense tragedy, which he describes as a con- 
 coction made up of Hamlet and King Lear, 
 on an absurdly grand scale. Forty-two men 
 died in the course of it, and he was obliged 
 to make a number of them return as ghosts, 
 so as to keep the last acts sufficiently stocked 
 with dramatis persona?. During two years this 
 production occupied him ; he left Dresden while
 
 97 
 
 it was still progressing and returned to Leipzig, 
 where, at the Gewandkaus concerts, he first 
 received intense impressions from the instru- 
 mental works of Beethoven and Mozart ; and, 
 in imitation of the former's Egmont, he at- 
 tempted to add music to his play. When this 
 play was at length discovered by his family 
 to have led him to neglect his philological 
 studies, there was, as usual in such cases, a grand 
 quarrel, followed by endless minor recrimina- 
 tions. But he was not to be stopped ; he 
 wrote overtures for grand orchestra, a sonata, a 
 quartett, &c. One overture, which he describes 
 as the culminating point of his musical absurdi- 
 ties, was performed and ridiculed at the Leipzig 
 Theatre. Whilst he was a student at the 
 University of Leipzig he went through a strict 
 course of contrapunctal studies with Theodor 
 Weinlig, then cantor at the Thomas-schule. 
 and an excellent musician, which laid a solid 
 foundation for his musical future. Under the 
 supervision of Weinlig, he brought forth a 
 considerable number of works, amongst which 
 a symphony, an overture, and the libretto to- 
 gether with some musical numbers for a tragic 
 opera, are mentioned. The overture was per- 
 formed at the GeWandhauS with encouraging 
 
 H
 
 9 8 
 
 success and the symphony pleased at Prague 
 and Leipzig. Mozart and Beethoven, espe- 
 cially the latter for whose works he had at 
 that time already the most passionate admira- 
 tion were his models. " I doubt," writes 
 Heinrich Dorn, in an article published in Schu- 
 mann's Neue Zeitschrift fur Musik (1838, No. 
 7), whether there ever was a young musician 
 who knew Beethoven's works more thoroughly 
 than Wagner at his eighteenth year. The 
 master's overtures and larger instrumental 
 compositions he had copied for himself in score. 
 He went to sleep with the sonatas and rose 
 with the quartetts he sang the songs and 
 whistled the concertos (for his pianoforte play- 
 ing was never of the best) in short, he was 
 possessed with a fiiror teutonicus, which, added 
 to a high education and a rare mental activity, 
 promised to bring forth rich fruit." In 1833 he 
 was at Wiirzburg, composing an opera in three 
 acts, Die Feen, for which he had contrived a 
 libretto after Gozzi's Woman- Snake, and con- 
 ducting the chorus at the theatre. His next 
 opera, Das Liebesverbot, after Shakespeare's 
 Measure for Measure, was written while he was 
 conductor at Magdeburg, and performed in 
 1836, after only twelve days' preparation, with
 
 nil for a result, as might have been expected. 
 Soon after this the Magdeburg Theatre failed, 
 and Wagner, penniless and encumbered with 
 debts, after a visit to Berlin, whither a fruitless 
 hope of having his opera performed had led 
 him, accepted the conductorship at a theatre 
 at Konigsberg. There, in f 836, he married, and 
 composed two overtures, " Polonia " and " Rule, 
 Britannia." In 1837, whilst conducting the 
 theatre at Riga, he began sketching the five-act 
 tragic opera, Rienzi, the first of his dramatic 
 works which has gained acceptance in Germany 
 and has been published. Its libretto, based on 
 Bulwer's novel, is laid out on an immense scale 
 so as to make it suitable for the very largest 
 theatres only. With the music to two acts of 
 it finished he started in 1839, without funds or 
 friends, and without the smallest definite plan 
 of action, for Paris. At Boulogne he made 
 Meyerbeer's acquaintance, who, on seeing the 
 score of Rienzi, furnished him with letters of 
 introduction to the musical and theatrical nota- 
 bilities of Paris. In consequence of these, 
 things looked bright for a little time, but he 
 soon found that to gain a hearing in Paris with- 
 out the aid of influential friends on the spot 
 (Meyerbeer did not stay there for any length of
 
 IOO 
 
 time during the two years of Wagner's sojourn) 
 was an Herculean task, beyond the reach even 
 of such indomitable energy as his. When 
 things looked particularly black he took to writ- 
 ing articles for Schlesinger's Gazette Musicale, 
 and making arrangements of operas Halevy's 
 Reine de C/iypre, Donizetti's Favorita, and the 
 like for the pianoforte and all other instruments, 
 the cornet-a-piston among the number. Some 
 of the articles into which he threw a good deal 
 of his personal experience, such as " Das Ende 
 eines deutschen Musikers in Paris," or of his 
 then paradoxical opinions and fantastic aspira- 
 tions, as in " Eine Pilgerfahrt zu Beethoven," 
 created a considerable sensation. About this 
 time the text-book to Derfliegende Hollander was 
 conceived, and the music to it executed in the 
 short space of seven w r eeks. There is a story 
 current about this opera, to the effect that it 
 was written to the order of Monsieur Leon 
 Fillet, director of the Grand Opera, and was 
 rejected on account of the miserable quality of 
 the music, which may as well be set to rights. 
 The fact is that Wagner for a long time was 
 led to expect that he might receive an order to 
 compose an opera, and he had, in this expecta- 
 tion, handed to Monseiur Fillet a sketch of Der
 
 IOI 
 
 Jliegende Hollander. But Fillet procrastinated 
 from month to month, until Wagner happened 
 to be informed by a friend that his sketch had 
 been been put into the hands of a professional 
 librettist. He then, not to be entirely swindled, 
 thought it best to sell his versified rendering of 
 the sketch outright, and to let a musician ap- 
 pointed by Fillet (called Dietsch) maltreat it at 
 his discretion. In the meanwhile he pleased 
 himself by setting it to music for his own 
 private edification. Giving up all hopes of 
 Paris, he sent the score of Rienzi to the Court 
 Theatre at Dresden. It was accepted, per- 
 formed with immense success in 1842, and 
 Wagner, who had followed it to Dresden, found 
 himself of a sudden the most popular man 
 there, and the King of Saxony's Hofcapell- 
 meister. On the 2nd of January, 1843, Der 
 
 Jliegende Hollander was produced at Dresden. 
 
 That part of Wagner's career which is of 
 universal interest commences with Der Jliegende 
 Hollander, and it would be a delightful task, 
 if one had sufficient leisure, to trace, through 
 Tannhduser, Lohengrin, Die Meister singer, 
 Tristan und Isolde, and Der Ring des Nibelun- 
 gen, the gradual expanse of his artistic practice. 
 Here a few dates must suffice. While engaged
 
 IO2 
 
 among the arduous duties of a principal con- 
 ductorship at Dresden, Taunkauser was com- 
 pleted and performed in 1845. Das Liebesmahl 
 der Apostel, a large Biblical scena for male voices 
 and orchestra, and Lohengrin, were finished in 
 1847 ; an d before the revolution in 1849 the 
 poem of Die Meistersinger (which was originally 
 intended to form a sort of comical pendant to 
 Tannhauser) and of Siegfrieds Tod were written. 
 The revolution, in which Wagner took active 
 part with written and spoken addresses, put an 
 end to the connection with Dresden ; he fled, 
 and found refuge in Zurich. During the next 
 ten years he appeared before the public, if we 
 except a few concerts which he conducted here 
 and there for instance, the eight concerts of 
 the London Philharmonic Society, in the season 
 of 1855 only as a writer on musical aesthetics. 
 "Die Kunst und die Revolution," "Das Kunst- 
 werk der Zukunft," and " Oper und Drama " 
 appeared in 1849, 1850, and 1851 respectively. 
 During his sojourn at Zurich also the poem of 
 Der Ring des Nibelungen, consisting of Das 
 Rheingold, Die Walkiire, Siegfried, Gotterdam- 
 merung which, of all his works, is the most 
 colossal in dimensions was finished. He has 
 since completed the scores of the three first 
 
 o,
 
 10' 
 
 parts of this tetralogy, and is now at work on 
 the final act of the fourth. In 1857, also, the 
 poem of Tristan was begun, and the music to 
 it finished two years later, during his prolonged 
 stay at Venice. Towards the end of 1859 he 
 came to Paris, and in February, 1860, gave 
 three concerts there. On the I3th of March, 
 1 86 1, Tannhauser was produced at the Grand 
 Opera, with a masterly translation by Edmoncl 
 Roche, at the command of the emperor, and 
 hooted and whistled off the stage by the 
 members of the Jockey Club. In 1863, he 
 appeared at Vienna, Prague, Leipzig, St. 
 Petersburg, Moscow, Pesth, &c., conducting 
 orchestral concerts with brilliant success ; and 
 in May, 1864, King Ludwig II. called him to 
 Munich, where in 1865 Tristan, in 1868 Die 
 Meister singer, in 1869 Das Rheingold, in 1870 
 Die Walkilre (the latter two without the com- 
 poser's co-operation), were first performed. In 
 August, 1870, he was married a second time, 
 to Cosima von Billow, ne'e Liszt. 
 
 His artistic career is about to reach its 
 culminating point in 1874, when his most 
 gigantic achievement, the Trilogy, "der Ring 
 des Nibelungen," consisting of " Die Walktire," 
 " Siegfried," " Gotterdammerung," with a pre-
 
 104 
 
 paratory evening, " das Rheingold," is to be 
 produced under his personal supervision at a 
 theatre specially designed for the purpose and 
 now in course of erection at Bayreuth. The 
 funds for this purpose, some 300,000 Thalers, 
 are being furnished by different " Wagner 
 Societies " which have sprung up spontaneously, 
 absolutely without agitation on the master's 
 part, and in most instances without his know- 
 ledge, in all parts of Germany, in London, 
 Pesth, Milan, New York, &c. It is the object 
 of these Societies to give him a chance of per- 
 forming his work correctly, and in every 
 respect as he has conceived it ; for which, as 
 long as the present state of things at all Ger- 
 man court and town theatres continues, there 
 would have been little or no chance. 
 
 I. MUSICAL WORKS, 
 (a) FOR THE STAGE : 
 
 Rienzi, der letzte der Tribunen. First performed under 
 
 Wagner, 1842, Dresden. 
 Der fliegende Hollander. First performed under Wagner, 
 
 1843, Dresden. 
 
 Tannhauser. First performed underWagner, 1 845, Dresden 
 (The French Edition, translated by Edmond Roche, Paris 
 1861, contains the opening scenes, Act /., us they were re-written 
 and enlarged for the Grand Optra. /
 
 105 
 
 Lohengrin. First performed under Liszt, 1850, Weimar. 
 Tristan und Isolde. First performed under von Billow 
 
 1865, Munich. 
 Die Meistersinger von Niirnberg. First performed under 
 
 Biilow, 1868, Munich. 
 Der Ring des Nibelungen. Ein Biihnenfestspiel. 
 
 1. Das Rheingold. Attempted 1869, Munich. 
 
 2. Die Walkiire. Attempted 1870, Munich. 
 
 3. Siegfried. 
 
 . 4. Gotterdammerung (nearly finished). 
 
 ( The -whole to be performed at Bayreuth, 1874. ) 
 
 (b} FOR CHORUS AND ORCHESTRA : 
 
 An Webers Grabe. Dresden, 1844 (on occasion of the 
 
 burial of Weber's remains, which had been brought 
 
 from London.) 
 Das Liebesmahl der Apostel. Eine Biblische Scene. 
 
 Dresden, 1847. Male chorus and orchestra. 
 
 (c) ORCHESTRAL PIECES : 
 
 Eine Faustouverture. 1839. 
 
 Huldigungsmarsch. 1869. 
 
 Kaisermarsch. 1871. 
 
 Close to Gluck's overture Iphigdnie en, Aulidc. 
 
 (d) SONGS : 
 
 Les deux Grenadiers. Paris, 1839 
 
 Dors mon Enfant. Paris, 1839 \ Republished, with 
 Mignonne. Paris, 1839 V German translation, 
 
 Attente. Paris, 1839 j Berlin, Fiirstner, 1871. 
 
 Fiinf Gedichte. 1860. 
 
 i. Der Engel. 2. Stehe still. 3. Im Treibhaus. 
 
 4. Schmerzen. 5. Traume. (London and Mayence : 
 Schott & Co.) 
 
 (e) PIANOFORTE PIECES : 
 
 Sonata, B flat. 1832. 
 Polonaise in 4 mains. 1832. 
 Albumblatt. 1861.
 
 io6 
 
 1839-41, 
 
 B. LITERARY WORKS. 
 
 (Collected Edition in nine volumes, now in course of publication. 
 Leipzig : Fritzsch.) 
 
 i. Autobiographische Skizze (bis 1842). 
 Das Liebesverbot. Bericht iiber eine erste opernauffurung. 
 Rienzi, der letzte der Tribunen. 
 Ein deutscher Musiker in Paris. Novellen 
 und Aufsatze. 
 
 1. Eine Pilgerfahrt zu Beethoven. 
 
 2. Ein Ende in Paris. 
 
 3. Ein gliicklicher Abend. 
 
 4. Ueber deutsches Musikwesen. 
 
 5. Der Virtuos und der Kiinstler. 
 
 6. Der Kiinstler und die offentlichkeit. 
 
 7. Rossini's Stabat Mater. 
 Ueber die Ouvertiire. 
 
 Der Freischiitz in Paris. 
 
 1. Der Freischiitz. An das Pariser Pub- 
 
 licum. 
 
 2. Le Freyschutz. Bericht nach Deutsch- 
 
 land. 
 Bericht iiber eine neue Pariser Oper. (La 
 
 reine de Chypre). Von Halevy. 
 Der fliegende Hollander. 
 
 2. Tannhauser und der Sangerkrieg auf der Wartburg. 
 Bericht iiber die Heimbringung der sterblichen Ueberreste 
 Karl Maria von Weber's aus London nach Dresden. 1844. 
 
 Rede an Weber's letzten Ruhestatte. 
 
 Gesang nach der Bestattung. 
 
 Bericht iiber die Auffiihrung der neunten Symphonic von 
 Beethoven im Jahre 1846, nebst Programm dazu. 
 Lohengrin. 
 Die Wibelungen. Weltgeschichte aus der Sage. 1848.
 
 ro/ 
 
 Dcr Nibelungenmythus. Als Entwurf zu einem Drama. 
 Siegfrieds Tod. [1848. 
 
 Trinkspruch am Gedenktage des 300 jahrigen Bestehens 
 der Koniglich siichsischen Kapelle in Dresden. 
 
 Entwurf zur Organisation eines deutschen Nationalthea- 
 tres fur das Konigreich Sachsen. 1849. 
 
 3. Die Kunst und die Revolution. 1849. 
 Das Kunstwerk der Zukunft. 1850. 
 
 " Wieland der Schmiedt," als Drama entwurfen. 
 Kunst und Klima. 1850. 
 
 4. Oper und Drama. 1851. 
 
 Erster Theil : Die Oper und das Wesen der Musik. 
 
 Zweiter Theil : Des Schauspiel und das Wesen der Dra- 
 matischen Dicht-Kunst. 
 
 Dritter Theil : Dichtkunst und Tonkunst im Drama der- 
 Zukunft. 
 
 Eine Mittheilung an meine Freunde. 1851. 
 
 5. Ueber die " Goethestiftung." Brief an Franz Liszt. 1851. 
 Ein Theatre in Zurich. 1851. 
 
 Ueber Musikalische Kritik. Brief an den Herausgeber der 
 " Neuen Zeitschrift fiir Musik." 1852. 
 
 Das Judenthum in der Musik. 1852. 
 
 Errinnerungen an Spontini. 
 
 Nachruf an L. Spohr und Chordirector W. Fischer. 1860. 
 
 Gluck's Ouvertiire zu " Iphigenie in Aulis." 1854. 
 
 Ueber die Auffiihrung des " Tannhauser." 
 
 Bemerkungen zur Auffiihrung der Oper : Der Fliegende 
 Hollander. 
 
 Programmatische Erlauterungen : 
 
 1. Beethoven's " Heroische Symphonic." 
 
 2. Ouvertiire zu " Koriolan." 
 
 3. Ouvertiire zum " Fliegenden Hollander." 
 
 4. Ouvertiire zum " Tannhauser." 
 
 5. Vorspiel zu " Lohengrin." 
 
 LTeber Franz Liszt's Symphonische Dichtungen.
 
 loS 
 
 6. Der Ring des Nibelungen, ein Biihnenfestpiel. 
 
 Vorabend : Das Rheingold. 
 Erster Tag : Die Walkiire. 
 Zweiter Tag : Siegfried. 
 Dritter Tag : Gotterdammerung. 
 
 Epilogisher Bericht iiber die Umstande und Schicksale, 
 welche die Auffiihrung des Biihnenfestspieles "Der 
 Ring des Nibelungen, bis zur Veroffentlichung der 
 Dichtung desselben begleiteten. 
 
 7. Eine wichtige Frage der Musik der Gegenvvart. 
 Brief iiber Liszt's Instrumentalcompositionen. 
 Tristan und Isolde. 
 
 Brief an Berlioz. 1860. 
 
 Zukunftsmusik. 1864. 
 
 Bericht iiber die Auffiihrang des " Tannhauser " in Paris. 
 
 8. Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg. [1861. 
 Das Wiener Hofoperntheater. 1863. 
 
 Gedicht an Ludwig II., Konig von Bayern. 
 
 Ueber Staat und Religion. 
 
 Einladung zur Auffiihrung des Tristan in Munchen. 
 
 Erinnerungen an Ludwig Schnorr von Carolsfeld. 
 
 Bericht iiber eine in Munchen zu errichtende Musikschule. 
 
 Was ist Deutsch ? [1865. 
 
 9. Deutsche Kunst und deutsche Politik. 1868. 
 Vermischte Aufsatze. 
 
 1. H. Riehl. 
 
 2. Ferdinand Hiller. 
 
 3. Erinnerungen an Rossini. 
 
 4. Studie iiber den Schreibestyl der " Jetztzeit." 
 
 5. Brief an Frau M. v. M. 
 
 6. Errinnerungen an Auber. 
 Ueber das Dirigiren. 1870. 
 Beethoven. 1870. 
 
 Ueber die Bestimmung der Oper. 1871. / /f J&h I 
 Ueber Schauspieler und Sanger. 1872. v
 
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