Part 6
At last we reach in our review the field, in which Rheinberger has been especially fertile and successful, his many choral compositions. As a writer of chorus-ballads, he occupied a similar high position as that held by Loewe for solo ballads, and as by far the worthiest successor of Schumann and Gade, if not in some respects their superior. His choral works afford ample opportunity to admire his fine sense for novel, charming vocal effects, for a correct, grateful and always effective treatment of the human voice, a careful finishing of details, a great variety of colors and a distinct and fine characterization of the various moods of the poems. Whenever a piano or orchestra accompaniment is added, it is most refined, truly musical, and adequately arranged. Many such happy features could be quoted, but it is impossible to enter further into details. Most of these works do not require a very large chorus or the mastery of unusual difficulties, and have therefore justly become favorites with smaller choral societies. Others however,
## particularly those for male voices, demand numerous, well-trained voices
and a very thorough study, as their difficulties are quite extraordinary.
[Illustration:
Fac-simile autograph manuscript written by Jos. Rheinberger in Munich in 1891. ]
Of the large works for mixed chorus, soli and orchestra, we mention the often sung cycle of romances, “Toggenburg,” “Montfort” (a saga from the Rhine), “Christoforus” (an old Christian legend), and his latest work, “The Star of Bethlehem,” a Christmas cantata, the words of all of which were written by Rheinberger’s wife, Fanny von Hoffnaass. Less extensive and with only a pianoforte accompaniment are “King Erich,” “The Willow Tree,” “The Water Sprite,” “The Shepherdess from the Country,” “The Dead Bride,” “May Dew,” “Harald,” “Night,” etc. Of smaller part songs for mixed voices we mention those contained in the collection, “Love’s Garden,” and some sacred hymns. Those for male voices are of greater prominence and rise far above the plane of the conventional “Liedertafel” style. They are true works of art in every respect, of a very noble, interesting and impressive musical character, sweet and characteristic melodically, richly colored and surprisingly original harmonically, while each one is a real tone-picture, clearly reflecting the various poetical moods and situations. Some, too, are quite extensive and have a piano or orchestral accompaniment, such as the wonderful “Valley of the Espingo,” “The Roses of Hildesheim,” “Wittekind,” and “St. John’s Eve.” Most of the part songs, too, are perfect gems of modern male chorus music, although they are very difficult as vocal music and require the most careful preparation. Rheinberger has also written a number of solo songs, some of which in cyclic form such as “Love’s Life,” “On the Seashore,” etc.
In reviewing this great number of compositions, we must admit that Rheinberger does not rank as an epoch-making genius in musical history. But in sincere admiration and gratitude we recognize that the latest period of German music is not wanting in those whose music reflects the sunshine and serenity of a clear blue sky, the happiness of a sound heart and refined mind, whose first purpose it is, by a masterly and thoughtful use of all musical means of expression, to delight hearers and performers alike.
This, then, is Rheinberger’s position as a composer. We will not, however, forget to do full justice to his eminent ability as a teacher, which enables him to impart to his pupils that thorough and systematic theoretical education, which must remain the indispensable basis for the productions of even the most gifted composers, especially at a time when many are inclined to parade with immature experiments of a fiery, but inordinate imagination, long before the necessary technical ability corresponds with their enthusiastic, and perhaps really worthy intentions.
[Illustration: Louis Kellerbaum]
[Illustration:
_Reproduction of a steel engraving made by Krauss, after a photograph._ ]
[Illustration: WAGNER]
[Illustration: [Fleuron]]
RICHARD WAGNER
The life of the great German reformer of the lyric stage is a most instructive story. In no respect is it more so than in its illustration of the fact that genius sometimes requires development, that the aspirations of a young man of promise may be altogether out of the line of the inspirations of maturity. Wagner began his musical career as the admirer and imitator of that which was most popular and facile in the lyric drama, and became at last the regenerator of that art which some of his early models had dragged in the mire of time-service and gain. There seems to have been a special providence in the utter failure of his inartistic attempts, which forced him in his despair to write what was in him without hope of pecuniary reward. Destiny drove him toward the goal of fame with the stinging whip of adversity.
Wilhelm Richard Wagner was born in Leipsic, May 22, 1813. His father, Friedrich Wagner, a man of considerable education though simply a police superintendent, died in October of the same year of a nervous fever caused by the carnage at the battle of Leipsic. Left with a family of seven children, of whom Albert, the oldest, was only fourteen, the widow married again. Her second husband was Ludwig Geyer, an actor at the Dresden Court Theatre. He was a man of artistic tastes, a poet, and a portrait painter, and withal a kindly man, who had a fatherly regard for his stepchildren. After removing with his family to Dresden, Geyer died in 1821, and Wagner was once more without a father. The day before his death Geyer bade little Richard play two simple pieces which he had learned to strum on the piano, and said feebly to the mother, “Has he perchance a talent for music?” The next day, when the stepfather lay dead, Wagner’s mother said to him, “He hoped to make something of thee.” And the composer adds in his autobiographic sketch, “I remember, too, that for a long time I imagined that something indeed would come of me.”
In his ninth year Wagner went to the Kreuzschule, where he studied Greek, Latin, mythology, and ancient history, and in secret worshipped Weber, whom he saw daily passing by. The boy received some piano lessons, but beguiled his time with attempts to play “Der Freischütz” overture with “fearful fingering.” He never became a good pianist. More important for his future were his poetic studies. On the death of a schoolfellow he wrote a lament which was printed. He made a metrical translation of Romeo’s monologue, and he built a terrible tragedy, compounded of “Lear” and “Hamlet,” in which forty-two persons died, most of them returning as ghosts to finish the play. In 1828 he left Dresden and entered the Nicolaischule in Leipsic. At the Gewandhaus concerts he heard Beethoven’s music. The effect he afterwards described thus: “One evening I heard, for the first time, a Beethoven symphony. I then fell sick of a fever, and when I recovered I found myself a musician.” He tried to write music for one of his tragedies, but discovered that he needed instruction. Gottlieb Müller tried to teach him, but found his pupil too wilful. His wilfulness, however, secured the performance of an overture at the theatre in 1830. The public laughed at it because of the persistent thumping of the bass drum. Fortunately he realized his lack of knowledge, and applied to Theodore Weinlig, cantor at the Thomasschule. Weinlig led him in the right direction, and in less than six months dismissed him as competent to “solve with ease the hardest problems of counterpoint.” The immediate results of this course were an overture, applauded at a Gewandhaus concert, and a symphony in C major, modelled on Beethoven and Mozart.
In 1832 he wrote his first opera libretto, “Die Hochzeit” (“The Wedding”), the music for which he abandoned after a few numbers. In 1833 he visited his brother Albert, tenor and stage manager at the Würzburg theatre, and accepted the position of chorus master. He now had leisure to write another opera. This was “Die Feen” (“The Fairies”), founded on Gozzi’s “La Donna Serpente.” Beethoven, Weber, and Marschner were his models. The work was accepted by Ringelhardt, of the Leipsic Theatre, but not produced. It was resurrected, however, in 1891, and was performed ten times in Germany. In 1834, Wagner heard Wilhelmina Schroeder-Devrient sing in Bellini’s “Montecchi e Capuletti,” and her power as an actress seems to have set his mind to work on the possibility of an intimate union of music with acting. A performance of “Massaniello,” with its quick succession of incidents, completed the formulation of his idea of the road to success. As Adolphe Jullien remarks, his object was “first to imagine an animated scene of action, then to write music easy to sing, and of a nature to catch the public ear.” He now began his second opera, “Das Liebesverbot” (“The Love Veto”), based on Shakespeare’s “Measure for Measure,” but so altered as to become practically a glorification of free love.
[Illustration:
RICHARD WAGNER’S BIRTHPLACE IN LEIPSIC.
From a photograph. ]
In 1834 he secured the post of musical director at the Magdeburg Theatre, and there, in the season of 1835–36, he produced his new work after only ten days’ rehearsals. The result was failure, penury, and debt. In Magdeburg he fell in love with Wilhelmina Planer, an actress, and following her to Königsberg, when she was engaged there, he became conductor at the theatre. On Nov. 24, 1834, they were married. In 1837 he read Bulwer’s “Rienzi,” and conceived the idea of using it as an opera plot. In the fall of that year he became conductor at Riga, where in 1838 he finished his libretto and began the music. He now wrote without hope of an immediate production, but with a view to future performance at some theatre of large resources. His mental eye, however, fixed itself on Paris, and his “Rienzi” began to develop along lines suggested by the popular composers of the time, Spontini, Meyerbeer, Bellini, and Rossini. In 1839 he and his wife started for Paris, by way of London, on a sailing ship. Stormy weather and the legend of “The Flying Dutchman,” told by the sailors, sowed in his mind seed which grew and subsequently blossomed. At Boulogne he became acquainted with Meyerbeer, who gave him letters to Parisians of note in music, and in September, 1839, he arrived in the French capital.
“Das Liebesverbot” was accepted by Jolly, director of the Renaissance Theatre, which went into bankruptcy before the work was rehearsed. Wagner wrote “A Faust Overture,” which also failed to come to a performance, and other attempts were fruitless. He was now reduced to arranging music for a publisher, and contributing to a musical journal. He wrote at this time some charming songs and his notable article, “A Pilgrimage to Beethoven,” and he worked hard at his “Rienzi.” An overture, “Columbus,” was played, but was not liked. He tried to get a position as a chorus singer at a small theatre, but was rejected. In “the last stage of his misery,” Meyerbeer arrived, and Leon Pillet, under his influence, allowed Wagner to have hopes of preparing a work for the Grand Opéra. He wrote a sketch of the book of “Der Fliegende Holländer” (“The Flying Dutchman”), and to his disgust, Pillet proposed to buy it of him and have some one else write the music. Finally, reserving the German rights, he did sell the sketch to Pillet for five hundred francs. Then he wrote the libretto and began to compose his own fine music. He had not composed for so long a time that he doubted his powers. “As soon as the piano had arrived,” he writes, “my heart beat fast for very fear; I dreaded to discover that I had ceased to be a musician. I began first with the ‘Sailors’ Chorus’ and the ‘Spinning Song’; everything sped along as though on wings, and I shouted for joy as I felt within me that I still was a musician.” His sketch, sold to Pillet, was made into a French opera under the title of “Le Vaisseau Fantôme,” music by Dietsch, and failed signally. Wagner, taking no thought for the future, but working according to his own artistic impulses, completed his own version in seven weeks, and began to develop the system which was to remodel opera. In the mean time “Rienzi” had been accepted by the Dresden Court Theatre, and early in 1842 the “Holländer” was accepted. “As regards Paris itself,” he writes, “I was completely without prospects for several years; I therefore left it in the spring of 1842. For the first time I saw the Rhine; with hot tears in my eyes, I, poor artist, swore eternal fidelity to my German fatherland.”
[Illustration:
LUDWIG GEYER.
Reproduction of a portrait painted by himself. Original now in possession of the Brockhaus family in Leipsic. ]
“Rienzi” was produced on Oct. 20, 1842, with the following cast: Rienzi, Tichatschek; Irene, Frl. Wüst; Stefano, Dettmer; Adriano, Mme. Schroeder-Devrient; Paolo, Wachter; Raimondo, Rheinhold; Baroncelli, Vestri; Cecco, Risse; Messenger, Frl. Thiele. The opera achieved an immediate and emphatic success, which fifty years of popularity have approved. “Der Fliegende Holländer” was now hurried upon the stage, and produced at Dresden, Jan. 2, 1843, with Schroeder-Devrient as Senta, and Mitterwurzer as Vanderdecken. The great change in style from “Rienzi,” the sombreness of the story, the simplicity of the action, and the originality of the music surprised and disappointed the public. Only Spohr seemed to perceive its real value. He said, “Among composers for the stage _pro tem._, Wagner is the most gifted.” Spohr produced the “Holländer” at Cassel on June 5, 1843, and was to the end an admirer of Wagner.
Immediately after finishing this work in Paris, Wagner cast about for new material. He read a new version of the story of “Tannhäuser,” which set him to work to trace to its source the connection of this tale with that of the Wartburg song contest. Thus he came to read “Der Wartburgkrieg,” which introduces the story of “Lohengrin,” and Wolfram von Eschenbach’s “Parzival”; “and thus,” as he says, “an entirely new world of poetical matter suddenly opened before me.” Before the rehearsals of “Rienzi” he began the book of “Tannhäuser.” He completed the opera (though he afterwards made some changes) on April 13, 1844. In the mean time (January, 1843) he was made court conductor at Dresden, where he served seven years, producing the masterpieces of Gluck, Mozart, Weber, Mendelssohn, Beethoven, Spontini, and even Palestrina in the most artistic manner. He produced “Tannhäuser” at Dresden, Oct. 19, 1845, with Tichatschek in the title rôle; Schroeder-Devrient as Venus; his niece, Johanna Wagner, as Elizabeth; and Mitterwurzer, as Wolfram. The work pleased neither the public nor the critics. The music, except the simple broad march and chorus of Act. II., was pronounced ugly. Even the mellifluous “Evening Star” song was disliked; Tannhäuser’s dramatic story of his pilgrimage was called “a pointless and empty recitation,” and Wagner was blamed for not marrying his hero and heroine. Even Spohr, though he saw much that was “new and beautiful,” was troubled. Schumann alone declared of the work: “It contains deeper, more original, and altogether an hundred-fold better things than his previous operas; at the same time, a good deal that is musically trivial.” Wagner was discouraged, but instead of losing faith in his ideals, he decided on a course of literary propagandism: “to induce the public to understand and
## participate in my aims as an artist.” From this resolve sprang his
subsequent theoretical writings: “Art and Revolution” (1849), “The Art Work of the Future” (1850), “Opera and Drama” (1851), etc.
[Illustration:
RICHARD WAGNER’S MOTHER.
Reproduction of a portrait painted by Ludwig Geyer. Original now in possession of the Brockhaus family in Leipsic. ]
Before the production of “Tannhäuser,” he had made sketches for the books of “Lohengrin” and “Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg” (“The Mastersingers of Nuremberg”). He finished the former work in March, 1848. In the mean time failure had brought debt and trouble upon him. Even his wife, though an admirable woman in other respects, did not comprehend his intellect, and grieved at his preference of artistic works over paying operas of the familiar sort. Restless and irritated, he plunged into the revolutionary movement and gave utterance to radical opinions, even arguing in a lecture that the king ought to proclaim Saxony a free state. In May, 1849, Dresden streets were barricaded against troops sent to disperse rioters, and in spite of assertions to the contrary, there is good evidence that Wagner was fighting on the people’s side.[1] The Prussian troops scattered the revolutionists, and Wagner fled to Weimar, where he was received with open arms by Franz Liszt, thenceforward his most devoted friend. The police were on his track, however, and he hastened by way of Paris to Zurich, Switzerland.
Wagner’s exile lasted from 1849 till 1861, and this period embraces the climax of his creative labors. He began his career as a citizen of Zurich by pouring forth a long series of literary works, of which those above mentioned and “Judaism in Music” may be regarded as the most important. There will be occasion to speak later of those bearing on his operatic ideas, but the “Judaism” article produced bitter comment at the time, and has remained a source of offence to many. It was published in the _Neue Zeitschrift für Musik_, over the _nom de plume_ K. Freigedank. The chief contentions of the article were that the Jews, being of no nation, but of all nations, are without national feeling; that their art work, especially in music, lacks that genuineness which is one of the products of nationality; and that an instinct for gain causes them to sacrifice pure art for the profitable fashion of the time. His examples were Mendelssohn and Meyerbeer, the latter of whom he again censured in “Opera and Drama.” The authorship of the strictures on the Jews was speedily suspected, and a host of pamphlets appeared in answer to it. The principal result was that Wagner’s writings sold well. In a letter written in 1847 he declared that he esteemed Meyerbeer as a man, but as a composer viewed him as the embodiment of “all that is repellent in the incoherency and empty striving after outward effect of the operatic music of the day.” This was his only answer to the charge that he had repaid Meyerbeer’s early assistance with ingratitude.
[Illustration:
VILLA TRIEBSCHEN.
Richard Wagner’s Residence on Lake Lucerne, where the “Meistersinger,” “Rheingold,” and “Götterdämmerung” were composed. ]
His opera, “Lohengrin,” was produced by Liszt at Weimar, Aug. 28, 1850, with the following cast: Lohengrin, Beck; Telramund, Milde; King Henry, Höfer; Elsa, Frl. Agthe; Ortrud, Frl. Faisstlinger. It was received very much as “Tannhäuser” had been, but it gradually won its way through Germany, being brought out at Wiesbaden in 1853, Leipzic, Schwerin, Frankfurt, Darmstadt, Breslau, and Stettin, in 1854; Cologne, Hamburg, Riga, and Prague, 1855; Munich and Vienna, in 1858; Berlin and Dresden, 1859. In the mean time Wagner was laboring on the largest, if not the greatest, of his works, “Der Ring des Nibelungen” (“The Nibelung’s Ring”). In 1848 he had considered two subjects, the story of Frederick Barbarossa and that of Siegfried, the hero of the “Nibelungen Lied.” The latter was his choice, and he wrote an essay entitled “Der Nibelungen Mythus als Entwurf zu einem Drama” (“The Nibelung Myth as Subject for a Drama”). Immediately afterward, in the fall of 1848, he wrote “Siegfried’s Tod” (“Siegfried’s Death”) in three acts and a prologue, and even conceived some of the musical ideas for the setting. In May, 1850, he had this poem printed and read parts of it as illustrations in a lecture on the music-drama delivered at Zurich. The prospects of “Lohengrin” moved him to take it up again, and we find him writing to Liszt thus:—
“You offer to me the artistic association which might bring ‘Siegfried’ to light. I demand representatives of heroes, such as our stage has not yet seen; where are they to come from? Not from the air, but from the earth, for I believe you are in a good way to make them grow from the earth by dint of your inspiring care.... Well, then, as soon as you have produced ‘Lohengrin’ to your own satisfaction, I shall also produce my ‘Siegfried,’ but only for you and for Weimar. Two days ago I should not have believed that I should come to this resolution; I owe it to you.”[2]
[Illustration:
WAHNFRIED.
The home of Richard Wagner in Bayreuth. From a photograph. ]
The immediately subsequent letters are full of his determination soon to begin work on “Siegfried’s Death”; but when he attempted it, he found that there was too much explanatory matter, and he decided to embody that in a prefatory drama to be called “Young Siegfried.” Here again, however, he found the same difficulty, and on Nov. 20, 1851, he writes to Liszt that “this ‘Young Siegfried’ also is no more than a fragment.” He continues thus:—
“Two principal motives of my myth, therefore, remain to be represented, both of which are hinted at in ‘Young Siegfried,’ the first in the long narrative of Brünnhilde after her awakening (Act III.), and the second in the scene between Alberich and the Wanderer in the second act, and between the Wanderer and Mime in the first. That to this I was led not only by artistic reflection, but by the splendid and, for the purpose of representation, extremely rich material of these motives, you will readily understand when you consider the subject more closely. Think then of the wondrously fatal love of Siegmund and Sieglinde, of Wotan, in his deep, mysterious relation to that love, in his dispute with Fricka, in his terrible self-contention when, for the sake of custom, he decrees the death of Siegmund; finally of the glorious Valkyrie Brünnhilde, as, divining the innermost thought of Wotan, she disobeys the god, and is punished by him; consider this wealth of motive indicated in the scene between the Wanderer and the Wala, and at greater length in the above-mentioned tale of Brünnhilde, as the material of a drama which precedes the two ‘Siegfrieds’; and you will understand that it was not reflection, but rather enthusiasm, which inspired my latest plan. That plan extends to three dramas: (1) ‘The Valkyrie’; (2) ‘Young Siegfried’; (3) ‘Siegfried’s Death.’ In order to give everything completely, these three dramas must be preceded by a grand introductory play, ‘The Rape of the Rhinegold.’ The object is the complete representation of everything in regard to this rape; the origin of the Nibelung treasure, the possession of that treasure by Wotan, and the curse of Alberich, which in ‘Young Siegfried’ occur in the form of narration.”
[Illustration:
RICHARD WAGNER’S STUDIO IN BAYREUTH.
From a photograph of a painting by R. Steche. ]