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My Life, Volume I

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




Music was still a secondary occupation with me when the news of
Weber's death and the longing to learn his music to Oberon fanned
my enthusiasm into flame again. This received fresh impetus from
the afternoon concerts in the Grosser Garten at Dresden, where I
often heard my favourite music played by Zillmann's Town Band, as
I thought, exceedingly well. The mysterious joy I felt in hearing
an orchestra play quite close to me still remains one of my most
pleasant memories. The mere tuning up of the instruments put me
in a state of mystic excitement; even the striking of fifths on
the violin seemed to me like a greeting from the spirit world--
which, I may mention incidentally, had a very real meaning for
me. When I was still almost a baby, the sound of these fifths,
which has always excited me, was closely associated in my mind
with ghosts and spirits. I remember that even much later in life
I could never pass the small palace of Prince Anthony, at the end
of the Ostra Allee in Dresden, without a shudder; for it was
there I had first heard the sound of a violin, a very common
experience to me afterwards. It was close by me, and seemed to my
ears to come from the stone figures with which this palace is
adorned, some of which are provided with musical instruments.
When I took up my post as musical conductor at Dresden, and had
to pay my official visit to Morgenroth, the President of the
Concert Committee, an elderly gentleman who lived for many years
opposite that princely palace, it seemed odd to find that the
player of fifths who had so strongly impressed my musical fancy
as a boy was anything but a supernatural spectre. And when I saw
the well-known picture in which a skeleton plays on his violin to
an old man on his deathbed, the ghostly character of those very
notes impressed itself with particular force upon my childish
imagination. When at last, as a young man, I used to listen to
the Zillmann Orchestra in the Grosser Garten almost every
afternoon, one may imagine the rapturous thrill with which I drew
in all the chaotic variety of sound that I heard as the orchestra
tuned up: the long drawn A of the oboe, which seemed like a call
from the dead to rouse the other instruments, never failed to
raise all my nerves to a feverish pitch of tension, and when the
swelling C in the overture to Freischutz told me that I had
stepped, as it were with both feet, right into the magic realm of
awe. Any one who had been watching me at that moment could hardly
have failed to see the state I was in, and this in spite of the
fact that I was such a bad performer on the piano.

Another work also exercised a great fascination over me, namely,
the overture to Fidelio in E major, the introduction to which
affected me deeply. I asked my sisters about Beethoven, and
learned that the news of his death had just arrived. Obsessed as
I still was by the terrible grief caused by Weber's death, this
fresh loss, due to the decease of this great master of melody,
who had only just entered my life, filled me with strange
anguish, a feeling nearly akin to my childish dread of the
ghostly fifths on the violin. It was now Beethoven's music that I
longed to know more thoroughly; I came to Leipzig, and found his
music to Egmont on the piano at my sister Louisa's. After that I
tried to get hold of his sonatas. At last, at a concert at the
Gewandthaus, I heard one of the master's symphonies for the first
time; it was the Symphony in A major. The effect on me was
indescribable. To this must be added the impression produced on
me by Beethoven's features, which I saw in the lithographs that
were circulated everywhere at that time, and by the fact that he
was deaf, and lived a quiet secluded life. I soon conceived an
image of him in my mind as a sublime and unique supernatural
being, with whom none could compare. This image was associated in
my brain with that of Shakespeare; in ecstatic dreams I met both
of them, saw and spoke to them, and on awakening found myself
bathed in tears.

It was at this time that I came across Mozart's Requiem, which
formed the starting-point of my enthusiastic absorption in the
works of that master. His second finale to Don Juan inspired me
to include him in my spirit world.

I was now filled with a desire to compose, as I had before been
to write verse. I had, however, in this case to master the
technique of an entirely separate and complicated subject. This
presented greater difficulties than I had met with in writing
verse, which came to me fairly easily. It was these difficulties
that drove me to adopt a career which bore some resemblance to
that of a professional musician, whose future distinction would
be to win the titles of Conductor and Writer of Opera.

I now wanted to set Leubald und Adelaide to music, similar to
that which Beethoven wrote to Goethe's Egmont; the various ghosts
from the spirit world, who were each to display different
characteristics, were to borrow their own distinctive colouring
from appropriate musical accompaniment. In order to acquire the
necessary technique of composition quickly I studied Logier's
Methode des Generalbasses, a work which was specially recommended
to me at a musical lending library as a suitable text-book from
which this art might be easily mastered. I have distinct
recollections that the financial difficulties with which I was
continually harassed throughout my life began at this time. I
borrowed Logier's book on the weekly payment system, in the fond
hope of having to pay for it only during a few weeks out of the
savings of my weekly pocket-money. But the weeks ran on into
months, and I was still unable to compose as well as I wished.
Mr. Frederick Wieck, whose daughter afterwards married Robert
Schumann, was at that time the proprietor of that lending
library. He kept sending me troublesome reminders of the debt I
owed him; and when my bill had almost reached the price of
Logier's book I had to make a clean breast of the matter to my
family, who thus not only learnt of my financial difficulties in
general, but also of my latest transgression into the domain of
music, from which, of course, at the very most, they expected
nothing better than a repetition of Leubald und Adelaide.

There was great consternation at home; my mother, sister, and
brother-in-law, with anxious faces, discussed how my studies
should be superintended in future, to prevent my having any
further opportunity for transgressing in this way. No one,
however, yet knew the real state of affairs at school, and they
hoped I would soon see the error of my ways in this case as I had
in my former craze for poetry.

But other domestic changes were taking place which necessitated
my being for some little time alone in our house at Leipzig
during the summer of 1829, when I was left entirely to my own
devices. It was during this period that my passion for music rose
to an extraordinary degree. I had secretly been taking lessons in
harmony from G. Muller, afterwards organist at Altenburg, an
excellent musician belonging to the Leipzig orchestra. Although
the payment of these lessons was also destined to get me into hot
water at home later on, I could not even make up to my teacher
for the delay in the payment of his fees by giving him the
pleasure of watching me improve in my studies. His teaching and
exercises soon filled me with the greatest disgust, as to my mind
it all seemed so dry. For me music was a spirit, a noble and
mystic monster, and any attempt to regulate it seemed to lower it
in my eyes. I gathered much more congenial instruction about it
from Hoffmann's Phantasiestucken than from my Leipzig orchestra
player; and now came the time when I really lived and breathed in
Hoffmann's artistic atmosphere of ghosts and spirits. With my
head quite full of Kreissler, Krespel, and other musical spectres
from my favourite author, I imagined that I had at last found in
real life a creature who resembled them: this ideal musician in
whom for a time I fancied I had discovered a second Kreissler was
a man called Flachs. He was a tall, exceedingly thin man, with a
very narrow head and an extraordinary way of walking, moving, and
speaking, whom I had seen at all those open-air concerts which
formed my principal source of musical education. He was always
with the members of the orchestra, speaking exceedingly quickly,
first to one and then the other; for they all knew him, and
seemed to like him. The fact that they were making fun of him I
only learned, to my great confusion, much later. I remember
having noticed this strange figure from my earliest days in
Dresden, and I gathered from the conversations which I overheard
that he was indeed well known to all Dresden musicians. This
circumstance alone was sufficient to make me take a great
interest in him; but the point about him which attracted me more
than anything was the manner in which he listened to the various
items in the programme: he used to give peculiar, convulsive nods
of his head, and blow out his cheeks as though with sighs. All
this I regarded as a sign of spiritual ecstasy. I noticed,
moreover, that he was quite alone, that he belonged to no party,
and paid no attention to anything in the garden save the music;
whereupon my identification of this curious being with the
conductor Kreissler seemed quite natural. I was determined to
make his acquaintance, and I succeeded in doing so. Who shall
describe my delight when, on going to call on him at his rooms
for the first time, I found innumerable bundles of scores! I had
as yet never seen a score. It is true I discovered, to my regret,
that he possessed nothing either by Beethoven, Mozart, or Weber;
in fact, nothing but immense quantities of works, masses, and
cantatas by composers such as Staerkel, Stamitz, Steibelt, etc.,
all of whom were entirely unknown to me. Yet Flachs was able to
tell me so much that was good about them that the respect which I
felt for scores in general helped me to overcome my regret at not
finding anything by my beloved masters. It is true I learnt later
that poor Flachs had only come into the possession of these
particular scores through unscrupulous dealers, who had traded on
his weakness of intellect and palmed off this worthless music on
him for large sums of money. At all events, they were scores, and
that was quite enough for me. Flachs and I became most intimate;
we were always seen going about together--I, a lanky boy of
sixteen, and this weird, shaky flaxpole. The doors of my deserted
home were often opened for this strange guest, who made me play
my compositions to him while he ate bread and cheese. In return,
he once arranged one of my airs for wind instruments, and, to my
astonishment, it was actually accepted and played by the band in
Kintschy's Swiss Chalet. That this man had not the smallest
capacity to teach me anything never once occurred to me; I was so
firmly convinced of his originality that there was no need for
him to prove it further than by listening patiently to my
enthusiastic outpourings. But as, in course of time, several of
his own friends joined us, I could not help noticing that the
worthy Flachs was regarded by them all as a half-witted fool. At
first this merely pained me, but a strange incident unexpectedly
occurred which converted me to the general opinion about him.
Flachs was a man of some means, and had fallen into the toils of
a young lady of dubious character who he believed was deeply in
love with him. One day, without warning, I found his house closed
to me, and discovered, to my astonishment, that jealousy was the
cause. The unexpected discovery of this liaison, which was my
first experience of such a case, filled me with a strange horror.
My friend suddenly appeared to me even more mad than he really
was. I felt so ashamed of my persistent blindness that for some
time to come I never went to any of the garden concerts for fear
I should meet my sham Kreissler.

By this time I had composed my first Sonata in D minor. I had
also begun a pastoral play, and had worked it out in what I felt
sure must be an entirely unprecedented way.

I chose Goethe's Laune der Verliebten as a model for the form and
plot of my work. I scarcely even drafted out the libretto,
however, but worked it out at the same time as the music and
orchestration, so that, while I was writing out one page of the
score, I had not even thought out the words for the next page. I
remember distinctly that following this extraordinary method,
although I had not acquired the slightest knowledge about writing
for instruments, I actually worked out a fairly long passage
which finally resolved itself into a scene for three female
voices followed by the air for the tenor. My bent for writing for
the orchestra was so strong that I procured a score of Don Juan,
and set to work on what I then considered a very careful
orchestration of a fairly long air for soprano. I also wrote a
quartette in D major after I had myself sufficiently mastered the
alto for the viola, my ignorance of which had caused me great
difficulty only a short time before, when I was studying a
quartette by Haydn.

Armed with these works, I set out in the summer on my first
journey as a musician. My sister Clara, who was married to the
singer Wolfram, had an engagement at the theatre at Magdeburg,
whither, in characteristic fashion, I set forth upon my adventure
on foot.

My short stay with my relations provided me with many experiences
of musical life. It was there that I met a new freak, whose
influence upon me I have never been able to forget. He was a
musical conductor of the name of Kuhnlein, a most extraordinary
person. Already advanced in years, delicate and, unfortunately,
given to drink, this man nevertheless impressed one by something
striking and vigorous in his expression. His chief
characteristics were an enthusiastic worship of Mozart and a
passionate depreciation of Weber. He had read only one book--
Goethe's Faust--and in this work there was not a page in which he
had not underlined some passage, and made some remark in praise
of Mozart or in disparagement of Weber. It was to this man that
my brother-in-law confided the compositions which I had brought
with me in order to learn his opinion of my abilities. One
evening, as we were sitting comfortably in an inn, old Kuhnlein
came in, and approached us with a friendly, though serious
manner.

I thought I read good news in his features, but when my brother-
in-law asked him what he thought of my work, he answered quietly
and calmly, 'There is not a single good note in it!' My brother-
in-law, who was accustomed to Kuhnlein's eccentricity, gave a
loud laugh which reassured me somewhat. It was impossible to get
any advice or coherent reasons for his opinion out of Kuhnlein;
he merely renewed his abuse of Weber and made some references to
Mozart which, nevertheless, made a deep impression upon me, as
Kuhnlein's language was always very heated and emphatic.

On the other hand, this visit brought me a great treasure, which
was responsible for leading me in a very different direction from
that advised by Kuhnlein. This was the score of Beethoven's great
Quartette in E flat major, which had only been fairly recently
published, and of which my brother-in-law had a copy made for me.
Richer in experience, and in the possession of this treasure, I
returned to Leipzig to the nursery of my queer musical studies.
But my family had now returned with my sister Rosalie, and I
could no longer keep secret from them the fact that my connection
with the school had been entirely suspended, for a notice was
found saying that I had not attended the school for the last six
months. As a complaint addressed by the rector to my uncle about
me had not received adequate attention, the school authorities
had apparently made no further attempts to exercise any
supervision over me, which I had indeed rendered quite impossible
by absenting myself altogether.

A fresh council of war was held in the family to discuss what was
to be done with me. As I laid particular stress on my bent for
music, my relations thought that I ought, at any rate, to learn
one instrument thoroughly. My brother-in-law, Brockhaus, proposed
to send me to Hummel, at Weimar, to be trained as a pianist, but
as I loudly protested that by 'music' I meant 'composing,' and
not 'playing an instrument,' they gave way, and decided to let me
have regular lessons in harmony from Muller, the very musician
from whom I had had instruction on the sly some little while
before, and who had not yet been paid. In return for this I
promised faithfully to go back to work conscientiously at St.
Nicholas's School. I soon grew tired of both. I could brook no
control, and this unfortunately applied to my musical instruction
as well. The dry study of harmony disgusted me more and more,
though I continued to conceive fantasias, sonatas, and overtures,
and work them out by myself. On the other hand, I was spurred on
by ambition to show what I could do at school if I liked. When
the Upper School boys were set the task of writing a poem, I
composed a chorus in Greek, on the recent War of Liberation. I
can well imagine that this Greek poem had about as much
resemblance to a real Greek oration and poetry, as the sonatas
and overtures I used to compose at that time had to thoroughly
professional music. My attempt was scornfully rejected as a piece
of impudence. After that I have no further recollections of my
school. My continued attendance was a pure sacrifice on my side,
made out of consideration for my family: I did not pay the
slightest attention to what was taught in the lessons, but
secretly occupied myself all the while with reading any book that
happened to attract me.

As my musical instruction also did me no good, I continued in my
wilful process of self-education by copying out the scores of my
beloved masters, and in so doing acquired a neat handwriting,
which in later years has often been admired. I believe my copies
of the C minor Symphony and the Ninth Symphony by Beethoven are
still preserved as souvenirs.

Beethoven's Ninth Symphony became the mystical goal of all my
strange thoughts and desires about music. I was first attracted
to it by the opinion prevalent among musicians, not only in
Leipzig but elsewhere, that this work had been written by
Beethoven when he was already half mad. It was considered the
'non plus ultra' of all that was fantastic and incomprehensible,
and this was quite enough to rouse in me a passionate desire to
study this mysterious work. At the very first glance at the
score, of which I obtained possession with such difficulty, I
felt irresistibly attracted by the long-sustained pure fifths
with which the first phrase opens: these chords, which, as I
related above, had played such a supernatural part in my childish
impressions of music, seemed in this case to form the spiritual
keynote of my own life. This, I thought, must surely contain the
secret of all secrets, and accordingly the first thing to be done
was to make the score my own by a process of laborious copying. I
well remember that on one occasion the sudden appearance of the
dawn made such an uncanny impression on my excited nerves that I
jumped into bed with a scream as though I had seen a ghost. The
symphony at that time had not yet been arranged for the piano; it
had found so little favour that the publisher did not feel
inclined to run the risk of producing it. I set to work at it,
and actually composed a complete piano solo, which I tried to
play to myself. I sent my work to Schott, the publisher of the
score, at Mainz. I received in reply a letter saying 'that the
publishers had not yet decided to issue the Ninth Symphony for
the piano, but that they would gladly keep my laborious work,'
and offered me remuneration in the shape of the score of the
great Missa Solemnis in D, which I accepted with great pleasure.

In addition to this work I practised the violin for some time, as
my harmony master very rightly considered that some knowledge of
the practical working of this instrument was indispensable for
any one who had the intention of composing for the orchestra. My
mother, indeed, paid the violinist Sipp (who was still playing in
the Leipzig orchestra in 1865) eight thalers for a violin (I do
not know what became of it), with which for quite three months I
must have inflicted unutterable torture upon my mother and sister
by practising in my tiny little room. I got so far as to play
certain Variations in F sharp by Mayseder, but only reached the
second or third. After that I have no further recollections of
this practising, in which my family fortunately had very good
reasons of their own for not encouraging me.

But the time now arrived when my interest in the theatre again
took a passionate hold upon me. A new company had been formed in
my birthplace under very good auspices. The Board of Management
of the Court Theatre at Dresden had taken over the management of
the Leipzig theatre for three years. My sister Rosalie was a
member of the company, and through her I could always gain
admittance to the performances; and that which in my childhood
had been merely the interest aroused by a strange spirit of
curiosity now became a more deep-seated and conscious passion.

Julius Caesar, Macbeth, Hamlet, the plays of Schiller, and to
crown all, Goethe's Faust, excited and stirred me deeply. The
Opera was giving the first performances of Marschner's Vampir and
Templer und Judin. The Italian company arrived from Dresden, and
fascinated the Leipzig audience by their consummate mastery of
their art. Even I was almost carried away by the enthusiasm with
which the town was over-whelmed, into forgetting the boyish
impressions which Signor Sassaroli had stamped upon my mind, when
another miracle--which also came to us from Dresden--suddenly
gave a new direction to my artistic feelings and exercised a
decisive influence over my whole life. This consisted of a
special performance given by Wilhelmine Schroder-Devrient, who at
that time was at the zenith of her artistic career, young,
beautiful, and ardent, and whose like I have never again seen on
the stage. She made her appearance in Fidelio.

If I look back on my life as a whole, I can find no event that
produced so profound an impression upon me. Any one who can
remember that wonderful woman at this period of her life must to
some extent have experienced the almost Satanic ardour which the
intensely human art of this incomparable actress poured into his
veins. After the performance I rushed to a friend's house and
wrote a short note to the singer, in which I briefly told her
that from that moment my life had acquired its true significance,
and that if in days to come she should ever hear my name praised
in the world of Art, she must remember that she had that evening
made me what I then swore it was my destiny to become. This note
I left at her hotel, and ran out into the night as if I were mad.
In the year 1842, when I went to Dresden to make my debut with
Rienzi, I paid several visits to the kind-hearted singer, who
startled me on one occasion by repeating this letter word for
word. It seemed to have made an impression on her too, as she had
actually kept it.

At this point I feel myself obliged to acknowledge that the great
confusion which now began to prevail in my life, and particularly
in my studies, was due to the inordinate effect this artistic
interpretation had upon me. I did not know where to turn, or how
to set about producing something myself which might place me in
direct contact with the impression I had received, while
everything that could not be brought into touch with it seemed to
me so shallow and meaningless that I could not possibly trouble
myself with it. I should have liked to compose a work worthy of a
Schroder-Devrient; but as this was quite beyond my power, in my
head-long despair I let all artistic endeavour slide, and as my
work was also utterly insufficient to absorb me, I flung myself
recklessly into the life of the moment in the company of
strangely chosen associates, and indulged in all kinds of
youthful excesses.

I now entered into all the dissipations of raw manhood, the
outward ugliness and inward emptiness of which make me marvel to
this day. My intercourse with those of my own age had always been
the result of pure chance. I cannot remember that any special
inclination or attraction determined me in the choice of my young
friends. While I can honestly say that I was never in a position
to stand aloof out of envy from any one who was specially gifted,
I can only explain my indifference in the choice of my associates
by the fact that through inexperience regarding the sort of
companionship that would be of advantage to me, I cared only to
have some one who would accompany me in my excursions, and to
whom I could pour out my feelings to my heart's content without
caring what effect it might have upon him. The result of this was
that after a stream of confidences to which my own excitement was
the only response, I at length reached the point when I turned
and looked at my friend; to my astonishment I generally found
that there was no question of response at all, and as soon as I
set my heart on drawing something from him in return, and urged
him to confide in me, when he really had nothing to tell, the
connection usually came to an end and left no trace on my life.
In a certain sense my strange relationship with Flachs was
typical of the great majority of my ties in after-life.
Consequently, as no lasting personal bond of friendship ever
found its way into my life, it is easy to understand how delight
in the dissipations of student life could become a passion of
some duration, because in it individual intercourse is entirely
replaced by a common circle of acquaintances. In the midst of
rowdyism and ragging of the most foolish description, I remained
quite alone, and it is quite possible that these frivolities
formed a protecting hedge round my inmost soul, which needed time
to grow to its natural strength and not be weakened by reaching
maturity too soon.

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