Beacon Lights of History, Volume 14 | Page 6

in course of the opera; and the
dramatic recitatives are sometimes quite in the "Wagnerian" manner.
But the most remarkable thing is that Weber uses language which
practically sums up Wagner's idea of the music-drama. "'Euryanthe,'"
he says, "is a purely dramatic work, which depends for its success
solely on the co-operation of the united sister-arts, and is certain to lose
its effect if deprived of their assistance."
When Wagner wrote his essay on "The Music of the Future" for the
Parisians (1860) he remembered his obligations to the Dresden idol of
his boyhood by calling attention to "the still very noticeable
connection" of his early work, "Tannhäuser," with "the operas of my
predecessors, among whom I name especially Weber," He might have
mentioned others,--Gluck, for instance, who curbed the vanity of the
singers, and taught them that they were not "the whole show;"
Marschner, whose grewsome "Hans Heiling" Wagner had in mind
when he wrote his "Flying Dutchman;" Auber, whose "Masaniello,"
with its dumb heroine, taught Wagner the importance and
expressiveness of pantomimic music, of which there are such eloquent
examples in all his operas. During his three and a half years' sojourn in
Paris, just at the opening of his career as an opera composer

(1839-1842), he learned many things regarding operatic scenery,
machinery, processions, and details, which he subsequently turned to
good account. Even Meyerbeer, the ruler of the musical world in Paris
at that time, was not without influence on him, though he had cause to
disapprove of him because of his submission to the demands of the
fashionable taste of the day, which contrasted so strongly with
Wagner's own courageous defiance of everything inconsistent with his
ideals of art. The result to-day--Meyerbeer's fall and Wagner's
triumph--shows that courage, like honesty, is, in the long run, the best
policy, and, like virtue, its own reward.
It is important to bear in mind all these lessons that Wagner learned
from his predecessors, as it helps to explain the enormous influence he
exerted on his contemporaries. Wonderful as was the power and
originality of his genius, even he could not have achieved such results
had he not had truth on his side,--truth, as hinted at, in moments of
inspiration, by many of his predecessors.
Wagner was most shamefully misrepresented by his enemies during his
lifetime. A thousand times they wrote unblushingly that he despised
and abused the great masters, whereas in truth no one ever spoke of
them more enthusiastically than he, or was more eager to learn of them,
though, to be sure, he was honest and courageous enough also to call
attention to their shortcomings. In all his autobiographic writings there
is not a more luminous passage than the following, in which he relates
his experiences as conductor at the Riga Opera in 1838, when he was at
work on "Rienzi":--
"The peculiar gnawing melancholy which habitually overpowered me
when I conducted one of our ordinary operas was interrupted by an
inexpressible, enthusiastic delight, when, here and there, during the
performance of nobler works, I became conscious of the incomparable
effects that can be produced by musico-dramatic combinations on the
stage,--effects of a depth, sincerity, and direct realistic vivacity, such as
no other art can produce. I felt quite elated and ennobled during the
time that I was rehearsing Méhul's enchanting 'Joseph' with my little
opera company." "Such impressions," he continues, "like flashes of

lightning" revealed to him "unsuspected possibilities." It was by
utilizing these "possibilities" and hints, and at the same time avoiding
the errors and blemishes of his predecessors, that his superlative genius
was enabled to create such unapproachable masterworks as "Siegfried"
and "Tristan and Isolde."
The way up to those peaks was, however, slow and toilsome. For years
he groped in darkness, and light came but gradually. It has already been
intimated that his genius was slow in developing. A brief review of his
romantic career will bring out this and other interesting points.
At the time when Richard Wagner was born (May 22, 1813), Leipzig
was in such a state of commotion on account of the war to liberate
Germany from the Napoleonic yoke that the child's baptism was
deferred several months. To his schooldays reference has been made
already, and we may therefore pass on to the time when he tried to
make his living as an operatic conductor. Although he was then only
twenty-one years old, he showed remarkable aptitude for this kind of
work from the beginning, and it was through no fault of his that
misfortune overtook every opera company with which he had anything
to do. The bankruptcy, in 1836, of the manager of the Magdeburg
Opera, affected him most disastrously, for it came at the moment when
he had arranged for the first performance of an opera he