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My Life, Volume I

R >> Richard Wagner >> My Life, Volume I




Luttichau also seemed to make a point of winning back my trust to
some extent, and I gathered from his calm friendliness that I
must suppose this wholly uncultured man had no consciousness of
the outrage he had done me. He returned to the idea of having
orchestral concerts, in accordance with the suggestions I had
made in my rejected report on the orchestra, and in order to
induce me to arrange such musical performances in the theatre,
said the initiative had come from the management and not from the
orchestra itself. As soon as I discovered that the profits were
to go to the orchestra I willingly entered into the plan. By a
special device of my own the stage of the theatre was made into a
concert-hall (afterwards considered first-class) by means of a
sounding board enclosing the whole orchestra, which proved a
great success. In future six performances were to take place
during the winter months. This time, however, as it was the end
of the year, and we only had the second half of the winter before
us, subscription tickets were issued for only three concerts, and
the whole available space in the theatre was filled by the
public. I found the preparations for this fairly diverting, and
entered upon the fateful year 1848 in a rather more reconciled
and amiable frame of mind.

Early in the New Year the first of these orchestral concerts took
place, and brought me much popularity on account of its unusual
programme. I had discovered that if any real significance were to
be given to these concerts, in distinction to those consisting of
heterogeneous scraps of music of every different species under
the sun, and which are so opposed to all serious artistic taste,
we could only afford to give two kinds of genuine music
alternately if a good effect was to be produced. Accordingly
between two symphonies I placed one or two longer vocal pieces,
which were not to be heard elsewhere, and these were the only
items in the whole concert. After the Mozart Symphony in D major,
I made all the musicians move from their places to make room for
an imposing choir, which had to sing Palestrina's Stabat Mater,
from an adaptation of the original recitative, which I had
carefully revised, and Bach's Motet for eight voices: Singet dem
Herrn ein neues Lied ('Sing unto the Lord a new song'); thereupon
I let the orchestra again take its place to play Beethoven's
Sinfonia Eroica, and with that to end the concert.

This success was very encouraging, and disclosed to me a somewhat
consoling prospect of increasing my influence as musical
conductor at a time when my disgust was daily growing stronger at
the constant meddling with our opera repertoire, which made me
lose more and more influence as compared with the wishes of my
would-be prima donna niece, whom even Tichatschek supported.
Immediately on my return from Berlin I had begun the
orchestration of Lohengrin, and in all other respects had given
myself up to greater resignation, which made me feel I could face
my fate calmly, when I suddenly received a very disturbing piece
of news.

In the beginning of February my mother's death was announced to
me. I at once hastened to her funeral at Leipzig, and was filled
with deep emotion and joy at the wonderfully calm and sweet
expression of her face. She had passed the latter years of her
life, which had before been so active and restless, in cheerful
ease, and at the end in peaceful and almost childlike happiness.
On her deathbed she exclaimed in humble modesty, and with a
bright smile on her face: 'Oh! how beautiful! how lovely! how
divine! Why do I deserve such favour?' It was a bitterly cold
morning when we lowered the coffin into the grave in the
churchyard, and the hard, frozen lumps of earth which we
scattered on the lid, instead of the customary handful of dust,
frightened me by the loud noise they made. On the way home to the
house of my brother-in-law, Hermann Brockhaus, where the whole
family were to gather together for an hour, Laube, of whom my
mother had been very fond, was my only companion. He expressed
his anxiety at my unusually exhausted appearance, and when he
afterwards accompanied me to the station, we discussed the
unbearable burden which seemed to us to lie like a dead weight on
every noble effort made to resist the tendency of the time to
sink into utter worthlessness. On my return to Dresden the
realisation of my complete loneliness came over me for the first
time with full consciousness, as I could not help knowing that
with the loss of my mother every natural bond of union was
loosened with my brothers and sisters, each of whom was taken up
with his or her own family affairs. So I plunged dully and coldly
into the only thing which could cheer and warm me, the working
out of my Lohengrin and my studies of German antiquity.

Thus dawned the last days of February, which were to plunge
Europe once more into revolution. I was among those who least
expected a probable or even possible overthrow of the political
world. My first knowledge of such things had been gained in my
youth at the time of the July Revolution, and the long and
peaceful reaction that followed it. Since then I had become
acquainted with Paris, and from all the signs of public life
which I saw there, I thought all that had occurred had been
merely the preliminaries of a great revolutionary movement. I had
been present at the erection of the forts detaches around Paris,
which Louis Philippe had carried out, and been instructed about
the strategic value of the various fixed sentries scattered about
Paris, and I agreed with those who considered that everything was
ready to make even an attempt at a rising on the part of the
populace of Paris quite impossible. When, therefore, the Swiss
War of Separation at the end of the previous year, and the
successful Sicilian Revolution at the beginning of the New Year,
turned all men's eyes in great excitement to watch the effect of
these risings on Paris, I did not take the slightest interest in
the hopes and fears which were aroused. News of the growing
restlessness in the French capital did indeed reach us, but I
disputed Rockel's belief that any significance could be attached
to it. I was sitting in the conductor's desk at a rehearsal of
Martha when, during an interval, Rockel, with the peculiar joy of
being in the right, brought me the news of Louis Philippe's
flight, and the proclamation of the Republic in Paris. This made
a strange and almost astonishing impression on me, although at
the same time the doubt as to the true significance of these
events made it possible for me to smile to myself. I too caught
the fever of excitement which had spread everywhere. The German
March days were coming, and from all directions ever more
alarming news kept coming in. Even within the narrow confines of
my native Saxony serious petitions were framed, which the King
withstood for a long time; even he was deceived, in a way which
he was soon to acknowledge, as to the meaning of this commotion
and the temper that prevailed in the country.

On the evening of one of these really anxious days, when the very
air was heavy and full of thunder, we gave our third great
orchestral concert, at which the King and his court were present,
as on the two previous occasions. For the opening of this one I
had chosen Mendelssohn's Symphony in A minor, which I had played
on the occasion of his funeral. The mood of this piece, which
even in the would-be joyful phrases is always tenderly
melancholy, corresponded strangely with the anxiety and
depression of the whole audience, which was more particularly
accentuated in the demeanour of the royal family. I did not
conceal from Lipinsky, the leader of the orchestra, my regret at
the mistake I had made in the arrangement of that day's
programme, as Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, also in a minor key,
was to follow this minor symphony. With a merry twinkle in his
eyes the eccentric Pole comforted me by exclaiming: 'Oh, let us
play only the first two movements of the Symphony in C minor,
then no one will know whether we have played Mendelssohn in the
major or the minor key.' Fortunately before these two movements
began, to our great surprise, a loud shout was raised by some
patriotic spirit in the middle of the audience, who called out
'Long live the King!' and the cry was promptly repeated with
unusual enthusiasm and energy on all sides. Lipinsky was
perfectly right: the symphony, with the passionate and stormy
excitement of the first theme, swelled out like a hurricane of
rejoicing, and had seldom produced such an effect on the audience
as on that night. This was the last of the newly inaugurated
concerts that I ever conducted in Dresden.

Shortly after this the inevitable political changes took place.
The King dismissed his ministry and elected a new one, consisting
partly of Liberals and partly even of really enthusiastic
Democrats, who at once proclaimed the well-known regulations,
which are the same all over the world, for founding a thoroughly
democratic constitution. I was really touched by this result, and
by the heartfelt joy which was evident among the whole
population, and I would have given much to have been able to gain
access to the King, and convince myself of his hearty confidence
in the people's love for him, which seemed to me so desirable a
consummation. In the evening the town was gaily illuminated, and
the King drove through the streets in an open carriage. In the
greatest excitement I went out among the dense crowds and
followed his movements, often running where I thought it likely
that a particularly hearty shout might rejoice and reconcile the
monarch's heart. My wife was quite frightened when she saw me
come back late at night, tired out and very hoarse from shouting.

The events which took place in Vienna and Berlin, with their
apparently momentous results, only moved me as interesting
newspaper reports, and the meeting of a Frankfort parliament in
the place of the dissolved Bundestag sounded strangely pleasant
in my ears. Yet all these significant occurrences could not tear
me for a single day from my regular hours of work. With immense,
almost overweening satisfaction, I finished, in the last days of
this eventful and historic month of March, the score of Lohengrin
with the orchestration of the music up to the vanishing of the
Knight of the Holy Grail into the remote and mystic distance.

About this time a young Englishwomen, Madame Jessie Laussot, who
had married a Frenchman in Bordeaux, one day presented herself at
my house in the company of Karl Ritter, who was barely eighteen
years of age. This young man, who was born in Russia of German
parents, was a member of one of those northern families who had
settled down permanently in Dresden, on account of the pleasant
artistic atmosphere of that place. I remembered that I had seen
him once before not long after the first performance of
Tannhauser, when he asked me for my autograph for a copy of the
score of that opera, which was on sale at the music-shop. I now
learned that this copy really belonged to Frau Laussot, who had
been present at those performances, and who was now introduced to
me. Overcome with shyness, the young lady expressed her
admiration in a way I had never experienced before, and at the
same time told me how great was her regret at being called away
by family affairs from her favourite home in Dresden with the
Ritter family, who, she gave me to understand, were deeply
devoted to me. It was with a strange, and in its way quite a new,
sensation that I bade farewell to this young lady. This was the
first time since my meeting with Alwine Frommann and Werder, when
the Fliegender Hollander was produced, that I came across this
sympathetic tone, which seemed to come like an echo from some old
familiar past, but which I never heard close at hand. I invited
young Ritter to come and see me whenever he liked, and to
accompany me sometimes on my walks. His extraordinary shyness,
however, seemed to prevent him from doing this, and I only
remember seeing him very occasionally at my house. He used to
turn up more often with Hans von Bulow, whom he seemed to know
pretty well, and who had already entered the Leipzig University
as a student of law. This well-informed and talkative young man
showed his warm and hearty devotion to me more openly, and I felt
bound to reciprocate his affection. He was the first person who
made me realise the genuine character of the new political
enthusiasm. On his hat, as well as on his father's, the black,
red, and gold cockade was paraded before my eyes.

Now that I had finished my Lohengrin, and had leisure to study
the course of events, I could no longer help myself sympathising
with the ferment aroused by the birth of German ideals and the
hopes attached to their realisation. My old friend Franck had
already imbued me with a fairly sound political judgment, and,
like many others, I had grave doubts as to whether the German
parliament now assembling would serve any useful purpose.
Nevertheless, the temper of the populace, of which there could be
no question, although it might not have been given very obvious
expression, and the belief, everywhere prevalent, that it was
impossible to return to the old conditions, could not fail to
exercise its influence upon me. But I wanted actions instead of
words, and actions which would force our princes to break for
ever with their old traditions, which were so detrimental to the
cause of the German commonwealth. With this object I felt
inspired to write a popular appeal in verse, calling upon the
German princes and peoples to inaugurate a great crusade against
Russia, as the country which had been the prime instigator of
that policy in Germany which had so fatally separated the
monarchs from their subjects. One of the verses ran as follows:--

The old fight against the East Returns again to-day. The people's
sword must not rust Who freedom wish for aye.

As I had no connection with political journals, and had learned
by chance that Berthold Auerbach was on the staff of a paper in
Mannheim, where the waves of revolution ran high, I sent him my
poem with the request to do whatever he thought best with it, and
from that day to this I have never heard or seen anything of it.

Whilst the Frankfort Parliament continued to sit on from day to
day, and it seemed idle to conjecture whither this big talk by
small men would lead, I was much impressed by the news which
reached us from Vienna. In the May of this year an attempt at a
reaction, such as had succeeded in Naples and remained indecisive
in Paris, had been triumphantly nipped in the bud by the
enthusiasm and energy of the Viennese people under the leadership
of the students' band, who had acted with such unexpected
firmness. I had arrived at the conclusion that, in matters
directly concerning the people, no reliance could be placed on
reason or wisdom, but only on sheer force supported by fanaticism
or absolute necessity; but the course of events in Vienna, where
I saw the youth of the educated classes working side by side with
the labouring man, filled me with peculiar enthusiasm, to which I
gave expression in another popular appeal in verse. This I sent
to the Oesterreichischen Zeitung, where it was printed in their
columns with my full signature.

In Dresden two political unions had been formed, as a result of
the great changes that had taken place. The first was called the
Deutscher Verein (German Union), whose programme aimed at 'a
constitutional monarchy on the broadest democratic foundation.'
The names of its principal leaders, among which, in spite of its
broad democratic foundation, my friends Eduard Devrient and
Professor Rietschel had the courage openly to appear, guaranteed
the safety of its objects. This union, which tried to include
every element that regarded a real revolution with abhorrence,
conjured into existence an opposition club which called itself
the Vaterlands-Verein (Patriotic Union). In this the 'democratic
foundation' seemed to be the chief basis, and the 'constitutional
monarchy' only provided the necessary cloak.

Rockel canvassed passionately for the latter, as he seemed to
have lost all confidence in the monarchy. The poor fellow was,
indeed, in a very bad way. He had long ago given up all hope of
rising to any position in the musical world; his directorship had
become pure drudgery, and was, unfortunately, so badly paid that
he could not possibly keep himself and his yearly increasing
family on the income he derived from his post. He always had an
unconquerable aversion from teaching, which was a fairly
profitable employment in Dresden among the many wealthy visitors.
So he went on from bad to worse, running miserably into debt, and
for a long time saw no hope for his position as the father of a
family except in emigration to America, where he thought he could
secure a livelihood for himself and his dependants by manual
labour, and for his practical mind by working as a farmer, from
which class he had originally sprung. This, though tedious, would
at least be certain. On our walks he had of late been
entertaining me almost exclusively with ideas he had gleaned from
reading books on farming, doctrines which he applied with zeal to
the improvement of his encumbered position. This was the mood in
which the Revolution of 1848 found him, and he immediately went
over to the extreme socialist side, which, owing to the example
set by Paris, threatened to become serious. Every one who knew
him was utterly taken aback at the apparently vital change which
had so suddenly taken place in him, when he declared that he had
at last found his real vocation--that of an agitator.

His persuasive faculties, on which, however, he could not rely
sufficiently for platform purposes, developed in private
intercourse into stupefying energy. It was impossible to stop his
flow of language with any objection, and those he could not draw
over to his cause he cast aside for ever. In his enthusiasm about
the problems which occupied his mind day and night, he sharpened
his intellect into a weapon capable of demolishing every foolish
objection, and suddenly stood in our midst like a preacher in the
wilderness. He was at home in every department of knowledge. The
Vaterlands-Verein had elected a committee for carrying into
execution a plan for arming the populace; this included Rockel
and other thoroughgoing democrats, and, in addition, certain
military experts, among whom was my old friend Hermann Muller,
the lieutenant of the Guards who had once been engaged to
Schroder-Devrient. He and another officer named Zichlinsky were
the only members of the Saxon army who joined the political
movement. The part I played in the meetings of this committee, as
in everything else, was dictated by artistic motives. As far as I
can remember, the details of this plan, which at last became a
nuisance, afforded very sound foundation for a genuine arming of
the people, though it was impossible to carry it out during the
political crisis.

My interest and enthusiasm about the social and political
problems which were occupying the whole world increased every
day, until public meetings and private intercourse, and the
shallow platitudes which formed the staple eloquence of the
orators of the day, proved to me the terrible shallowness of the
whole movement.

If only I could rest assured that, while such senseless confusion
was the order of the day, people well versed in these matters
would withhold from any demonstration (which to my great regret I
observed in Hermann Franck, and told him of, openly), then, on
the contrary, I should feel myself compelled, as soon as the
opportunity arose, to discuss the purport of such questions and
problems according to my judgment. Needless to say, the
newspapers played an exciting and prominent part on this
occasion. Once, when I went incidentally (as I might go to see a
play) to a meeting of the Vaterlands-Verein, when they were
assembled in a public garden, they chose for the subject of their
discussion, 'Republic or Monarchy?' I was astonished to hear and
to read with what incredible triviality it was carried on, and
how the sum-total of their explanation was, that, to be sure, a
republic is best, but, at the worst, one could put up with a
monarchy if it were well conducted. As the result of many heated
discussions on this point, I was incited to lay bare my views on
the subject in an article which I published in the DRESDENER
ANZEIGER, but which I did not sign. My special aim was to turn
the attention of the few who really took the matter seriously,
from the external form of the government to its intrinsic value.
When I had pursued and consistently discussed the utmost
idealistic conclusions of all that which, to my mind, was
necessary and inseparable from the perfect state and from social
order, I inquired whether it would not be possible to realise all
this with a king at the head, and entered so deeply into the
matter as to portray the king in such a fashion, that he seemed
even more anxious than any one else that his state should be
organised on genuinely republican lines, in order that he might
attain to the fulfilment of his own highest aims. I must own,
however, that I felt bound to urge this king to assume a much
more familiar attitude towards his people than the court
atmosphere and the almost exclusive society of his nobles would
seem to render possible. Finally, I pointed to the King of Saxony
as being specially chosen by Fate to lead the way in the
direction I had indicated, and to give the example to all the
other German princes. Rockel considered this article a true
inspiration from the Angel of Propitiation, but as he feared that
it would not meet with proper recognition and appreciation in the
paper, he urged me to lecture on it publicly at the next meeting
of the Vaterlands-Verein for he attached great importance to my
discoursing on the subject personally. Quite uncertain as to
whether I could really persuade myself to do this, I attended the
meeting, and there, owing to the intolerable balderdash uttered
by a certain barrister named Blode and a master-furrier Klette,
whom at that time Dresden venerated as a Demosthenes and a Cleon,
I passionately decided to appear at this extraordinary tribunal
with my paper, and to give a very spirited reading of it to about
three thousand persons.

The success I had was simply appalling. The astounded audience
seemed to remember nothing of the speech of the Orchestral
Conductor Royal save the incidental attack I had made upon the
court sycophants. The news of this incredible event spread like
wildfire. The next day I rehearsed Rienzi, which was to be
performed the following evening. I was congratulated on all sides
upon my self-sacrificing audacity. On the day of the performance,
however, I was informed by Eisolt, the attendant of the
orchestra, that the plans had been changed, and he gave me to
understand that thereby there hung a tale. True enough, the
terrible sensation I had made became so great, that the directors
feared the most unheard-of demonstrations at any performance of
Rienzi. Then a perfect storm of derision and vituperation broke
loose in the press, and I was besieged on all sides to such an
extent that it was useless to think of self-defence. I had even
offended the Communal Guard of Saxony, and was challenged by the
commander to make a full apology. But the most inexorable enemies
I made were the court officials, especially those holding a minor
office, and to this day I still continue to be persecuted by
them. I learned that, as far as it lay in their power, they
incessantly besought the King, and finally the director, to
deprive me at once of my office. On account of this I thought it
necessary to write to the monarch personally, in order to explain
to him that my action was to be regarded more in the light of a
thoughtless indiscretion than as a culpable offence. I sent this
letter to Herr von Luttichau, begging him to deliver it to the
King, and to arrange at the same time a short leave for me, so
that the provoking disturbance should have a chance of dying down
during my absence from Dresden. The striking kindness and
goodwill which Herr von Luttichau showed me on this occasion made
no little impression upon me, and this I took no pains to conceal
from him. As in the course of time, however, his ill-controlled
rage at various things, and especially at a good deal that he had
misunderstood in my pamphlet, broke loose, I learned that it was
not from any humane motives that he had spoken in such a
propitiatory manner to me, but rather by desire of the King
himself. On this point I received most accurate information, and
heard that when everybody, and even von Luttichau himself, were
besieging the King to visit me with punishment, the King had
forbidden any further talk on the subject. After this very
encouraging experience, I flattered myself that the King had
understood not only my letter, but also my pamphlet, better than
many others.

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