Old Fogy | Page 5

Wagner's music. I came to Bayreuth to criticize; I go away praying, praying for the mental salvation of his new expounders, praying that this poisonous nonsense will not reach us in America. But it will.
The charm of this little city is the high price charged for everything. A stranger is "spotted" at once and he is the prey of the townspeople. Beer, carriages, food, pictures, music, busts, books, rooms, nothing is cheap. I've been all over, saw Wagner's tomb, looked at the outside of Wahnfried and the inside of the theater. I have seen Siegfried Wagner--who can't conduct one-quarter as well as our own Walter Damrosch--walking up and down the streets, a tin demi-god, a reduced octavo edition of his father bound in cheap calf. Worse still, I have heard the young man try to conduct, try to hold that mighty Bayreuth orchestra in leash, and with painful results. Not one firm, clanging chord could he extort; all were more or less arpeggioed, and as for climax--there was none.
I have sat in Sammett's garden, which was once Angermann's, famous for its company, kings, composers, poets, wits, and critics, all mingling there in discordant harmony. Now it is overrun by Cook's tourists in bicycle costumes, irreverent, chattering, idle, and foolish. Even Wagner has grown gray and the Ring sounded antique to me, so strong were the disturbing influences of my environment.
The bad singing by ancient Teutons--for the most part--was to blame for this. Certainly when Walhall had succumbed to the flames and the primordial Ash-Tree sunk in the lapping waters of the treacherous Rhine, I felt that the end of the universe was at hand and it was with a sob I saw outside in the soft, summer-sky, riding gallantly in the blue, the full moon. It was the only young thing in the world at that moment, this burnt-out servant planet of ours, and I gazed at it long and fondly, for it recalled the romance of my student years, my love of Schumann's poetic music and other illusions of a vanished past. In a word, I had again surrendered to the sentimental spell of Germany, Germany by night, and with my heart full I descended from the terrace, walked slowly down the arbored avenue to Sammett's garden and there sat, mused and--smoked my Yankee pipe. I realize that I am, indeed, an old man ready for that shelf the youngsters provide for the superannuated and those who disagree with them.
I had all but forgotten the performances. They were, as I declared at the outset, far from perfect, far from satisfactory. The Ring was depressing. Rosa Sucher, who visited us some years ago, was a flabby Sieglinde. The Siegmund, Herr Burgstalles, a lanky, awkward young fellow from over the hills somewhere. He was sad. Ernst Kraus, an old acquaintance, was a familiar Siegfried. Demeter Popovici you remember with Damrosch, also Hans Greuer. Van Rooy's Wotan was supreme. It was the one pleasant memory of Bayreuth, that and the moon. Gadski was not an ideal Eva in Meistersinger, while Demuth was an excellent Hans Sachs. The Br��nnhilde was Ellen Gulbranson, a Scandinavian. She was an heroic icicle that Wagner himself could not melt. Schumann-Heink, as Magdalene in Meistersinger, was simply grotesque. Van Rooy's Walther I missed. Hans Richter conducted my favorite of the Wagner music dramas, the touching and pathetic Nuremberg romance, and, to my surprise, went to sleep over the tempi. He has the technique of the conductor, but the elbow-grease was missing. He too is old, but better one aged Richter than a caveful of spry Siegfried Wagners!
I shan't bother you any more as to details. Bayreuth is full of ghosts--the very trees on the terrace whisper the names of Liszt and Wagner--but Madame Cosima is running the establishment for all there is in it financially--excuse my slang--and so Bayreuth is deteriorating. I saw her, Liszt's daughter, von B��low, and Wagner's wife--or rather widow--and her gaunt frame, strong if angular features, gave me the sight of another ghost from the past. Ghosts, ghosts, the world is getting old and weary, and astride of it just now is the pessimist Nietzsche, who, disguised as a herculean boy, is deceiving his worshippers with the belief that he is young and a preacher of the joyful doctrines of youth. Be not deceived, he is but another veiled prophet. His mask is that of a grinning skeleton, his words are bitter with death and deceit.
I stopped over at Nuremberg and at a chamber concert heard Schubert's quintet for piano and strings, Die Forelle--and although I am no trout fisher, the sweet, boyish loquacity, the pure music made my heart glad and I wept.

III
THE WAGNER CRAZE
The new century is at hand--I am not one of those chronologically stupid persons who believes that we are