Читать книгу Wagner as I Knew Him - Ferdinand Praeger - Страница 8

AT SCHOOL AND UNIVERSITY.

His entrance to the St. Nicolas school in 1827, where he remained three years, was as the passing through a dark cloud. The whole training here differed vitally from that at the Kreuzschule. The masters and their mode of tuition was unsympathetic to him. I did not wonder at this when he told me. I had been at the school, too, and experienced similar feelings of resentment. The Martinet system of discipline was irksome to high-spirited boys. No attempt was made to develop individuality of character. This was unfortunate for Wagner. He was just then at an age when personal interest and sympathetic guidance would have been invaluable. Filled with wild dreams of a glorious future that was to follow his self-dedication to the drama, he threw himself with ardour into the completion of a play he had begun to work at. Ambition had prompted him to base it on the model of Shakespeare’s tragedies. The plot was as wild and impossible as the unrestricted exuberance of so extravagant a fancy might suggest. It occupied him for upwards of two years, and greatly interfered with his legitimate school work. When in later life he surveyed this period he describes himself as “wild, negligent, and idle,” absorbed with one thought, his great drama.

HIS ARTISTIC CRISIS.

From the St. Nicolas school he passed to St. Thomas’s school, where he stayed but a few months, leaving it for the University. At the University he attended occasional lectures only, showing none of that assiduity which distinguished him at the Kreuzschule. His University days were marked by a profligacy to which he afterwards referred with regret and even disgust. He was young and wild, and had determined with his insatiable nature to drain to the dregs the cup of dissoluted frivolity. I should not be performing the duty of an honest biographer were I to omit an incident which occurred at this period, regrettable as it might seem. His mother still received her modest pension. On one occasion Richard was commissioned to receive it for her. Returning home with the money in his pocket he chanced to pass a public gambling house. There was one sensation he had not yet experienced. At that moment he felt that in the throw of the fascinating dice lay the fateful omen of his future. The money was not his, yet he entered and risked the hazard of the dice. He was unfortunate; lost all but a small sum he had kept back. Yet he could not resist the alluring excitement. He staked this too. Fortune, happily for the wide world of art, befriended him, and he left the debasing den with more than he had entered, “But,” inquired I, “what would you have done had you lost all?” “Lord!” he replied, “before going into the house I had firmly resolved that should I lose I would accept the omen and seek my end in the river.” A man in years calmly telling me this so long after the incident had occurred urged me again to ask, “Would you really have done that?” “I would,” was the short determined answer. He was unable to keep the story back from his mother, and at once on his return told her all. “Instead of upbraiding me,” Wagner said, “she fell with passionate love around my neck, exclaiming, ‘You are saved. Your free confession tells me that never again will you commit so wicked a wrong.’ ” This Wagner related to me when I was staying with him at Zurich in 1856. This hazardous throw of the dice was not the only occasion on which he had boldly defied fate. He was ever buoyed up with an implicit faith in his destiny, which sustained him through many trials, though at the same time it urged him to act in a manner where more thoughtful minds would have hesitated.

I now come to what was undoubtedly the crisis of Wagner’s artistic career. It was the practice at German theatres, between the acts, for the orchestra to play movements of Haydn’s symphonies or similar excerpts by other masters. The rule was to hurry through them in the most indifferent manner. Not the slightest attention was paid to expression, and if it happened that the manager’s bell rang while the “playing” was going on, the performance would terminate with a jerk, each artist seemingly anxious not to play a note more, and heedless of finishing the “phrase” together.

At Leipzic, the entire music was particularly slovenly, played under the cynical Matthey. And yet the very men who played so reprehensibly in the stage orchestra, when performing at the famous Gewandhaus concerts seemed to be moved by feelings of reverence for their work, unknown to them in the theatre. It would be an interesting investigation to discover why this was. The symphonies of Beethoven in the concert-room compelled their whole worship; the symphonies of Haydn in the theatre were treated like “dinner” music. Perhaps the explanation is, that the symphonic movements played in the theatre bore no relation to the drama enacted, whereas music played for itself went with a verve and spirit, and attention to its meaning quite unknown to the stop-gap-music-scrambling of the theatre.

RESOLVE TO BECOME A MUSICIAN.

From the unsatisfying scrambling performances of the theatre, Wagner, fifteen years old, went to the Gewandhaus concerts. There he heard Beethoven’s symphonies. What a revelation were they to him, played with the artistic perfection for which that orchestra was so justly celebrated, although there was room for improvement. They forced open in him the floodgates of a torrent of emotion. A new world dawned upon him. Music that had hitherto lain dormant, suddenly awakened into a vigorous existence truly electrifying. His future career was decided. Henceforth he, too, would be a musician. And what was there in Beethoven that should so startle him into new life? He had heard Haydn, Mozart, and earlier masters without being so completely awed and fascinated. What was there in these symphonies that should exercise such a determining influence over him? It was the overpowering earnestness of the unhappy composer. Beethoven dealt with life problems according to the spirit of his age—the demand for freedom of thought and liberty of the person. Beethoven had been baptized in that mighty wave, the struggle for freedom, which rolled over Germany at the beginning of this century. He could not help being eloquently earnest. He was the creature of his time, and when called upon to declare himself, was not found wanting in rugged, bold earnestness. Yet although Haydn and Mozart, I too, were earnest, their utterances were of a subjective character. The world to them presented none of the doubts and philosophic speculations which convulsed Beethoven’s period. Their view of life was pure optimism. A vein of bright joyousness runs through all their works, aye, even their most serious. But Beethoven was a pessimist, and his works betray him. When he has a sunshiny moment it serves only to show how deep is his prevailing gloom. Wagner at fifteen was a poet, and the energetic, suggestive music of Beethoven was mentally transformed into living personalities. He has said that he felt as if Beethoven addressed him “personally.” Every movement formed itself into a story, glowed with life, and assumed a clear, distinct shape. I do not forget the earlier influence of Weber over him, but then that was more due to emotion than to reason. The novelty of “Der Freischütz,” the freshness of its melodic stream, and the wild imaginative treatment of the romantic story captivated his first affection and enchained it to the last. The whole of his impressions of Beethoven (whom, by the way, Wagner never saw) were embodied by him in a sketch written for a periodical and entitled, “A Pilgrimage to Beethoven.” Although the incidents painted there are not to be taken as having happened to the pilgrim, Wagner, yet the story is clear on one point—the unbounded spell Beethoven exercised over him.

As he was now determined to become a musician, and seeing the necessity of acquiring some theoretical knowledge of his new art, with his usual perseverance he began studying alone. His progress was so disappointing that he made arrangements with a local organist, with whom, too, he advanced but little. However, he was resolved. Music he wanted for his own play; without music he felt it was incomplete, and although he worked assiduously, theory seemed a long, dreary road which, instead of helping him to the goal he yearned to reach, presented innumerable obstacles in the path. He wanted to compose, yet all the grammarian’s rules were so many caution-boards, warning him against doing this or that, impediments that prevented him accomplishing what he strove to perform. It was always what should not be done instead of what should be done. With youthful impetuosity he then revolted against all grammarianism, and to the end of his life maintained an attitude of derisive defiance towards all who fought behind the shield inscribed fugue, canon and counterpoint.

Although conscious of how unsatisfactory his theoretical progress had been, ambition prompted him to write an overture for the orchestra. The young composer was seventeen. The overture is characterized by Wagner’s besetting sin—extravagance of means. Through his sister’s connection with the stage he became acquainted with the music director of the Leipzic theatre, a young man, Heinrich Dorn, a few years older than Wagner. I knew Dorn as a friendly, easy-going, good-tempered fellow. Impressed with the unusual enthusiasm of the youth, Dorn kindly offered to perform his overture at the theatre. It was performed. The audience laughed at it, and Wagner was not slow to admit the justice of its reception.

A PUPIL OF CANTOR WEINLIG.

Of the caligraphy displayed in this work I must say a few words. The score was written in different-coloured inks, the groups of strings, wood, and brass, being distinguished by special colours. His extreme neatness and care at all times of his life, when using the pen, was wonderful. Before putting word or note to paper every thought had been so fully digested that there was never any need of erasure or correction. In strange contrast with Richard Wagner’s clean, neat, distinct writing, stand Beethoven’s hieroglyphics, whole lines of which were sometimes smudged out with the finger.

Wagner accepted the judgment upon his overture, though not without a painful feeling of disappointment. But as he was determined to be a musician, his family now encouraged him, and for that purpose placed him under Cantor Weinlig of Leipzic. The Cantor was on intimate terms with my father, and therefore was well known to me. He had a great name as a skilled contrapuntist. Gentle and persuasive in demeanour, he soon won the affection of his pupil, and although his tuition lasted for about six months only, it was sufficient to cause Wagner to refer with affection to this, his only real master.

The immediate result of Weinlig’s tuition was the production of a sonata for the pianoforte. It is in strict form, but Wagner’s conscientious adherence to the dogmatic principles he had learned seem to have dried up all sources of inspiration. He was evidently in a straight jacket, for the sonata does not contain one original idea, not one phrase of more than common interest. It is just the kind of music that any average pupil without gift might have written. Time was wanting before the careful, orthodox training of Weinlig could thoroughly assimilate itself to the peculiarity of Wagner’s genius.

It is curious that he should have produced such a very inferior work as regards ideas and development while he was at the same time a most ardent student of Beethoven. It can only be explained by regarding the period as one of transition and receptivity. He was not full grown nor strong enough to wing himself to independent flight.

Beethoven was his daily study. He was carefully storing up all the grand thoughts of the great master, but his fiery enthusiasm had not yet come to that burning-point when it should ignite his own latent powers. His acquaintance with the scores of Beethoven has never been equalled. It was extraordinary. He had them so much by heart that he could play on the piano, with his own awkward fingering, whole movements. Indeed, beyond Weber, the idol of his boyhood, and Beethoven, there was no master whose works interested him at that period. His family considered him Beethoven-mad. His eldest brother, Albert, then engaged actively in the profession, and more of a practical business man, particularly condemned the exclusive hero-worship of a master not then understood or acknowledged by the general public. But Richard persevered with his study, and as a testimony of his affection for Beethoven it may be mentioned that, at eighteen, he produced a pianoforte arrangement of the whole of the “Ninth Symphony.”

WEBER AND BEETHOVEN HIS MODELS.

In the school of Weber and Beethoven did Wagner form himself. The musical utterances of both his models were in harmony with their time. Weber was romantic, Beethoven pessimistic. The cry for liberty which ran throughout Europe at the end of the eighteenth century affected the republic of letters sooner than the world of music. It was Wagner’s “idol,” his “adored” master, who first musically portrayed the revolutionary spirit of the dawn of this century. It was he who founded the romantic school of musicians. His ideality, his “romantic” genius, taking that word in its highest and noblest sense, place him in an entirely separate niche of the temple of art. His inventive faculty, the irresistible charm of his melody, his entirely new delineation and orchestral colouring of character, are immeasurably superior to anything of the kind which preceded him. He was the basis, the starting-point of a new phase in the art of music. And yet, with it all, the great Weber fell short in one important feature of his art—the consequential development of his themes. All his chamber music testifies to this. Even in his three great overtures, “Der Freischütz,” “Euryanthe,” and “Oberon,” the “working-out” of the subjects is feeble and unskilful, and only compensated for by the ever gushing forth of new and potent ideas. Weber had not passed through the crucible of a serious study of the classical school. In his early period he had treated music more as an amateur than as an earnest-thinking musician. Nor was he gifted with the brain power of Beethoven. It was the latter master’s causal strength of brain, combined with his deep, serious studies and his incessant striving to express exactly what he felt, which have secured for him that exceptional position in modern tonal art.

STUDY OF INSTRUMENTATION.

Coming now to Wagner, we find him possessing, to a truly remarkable degree, the special powers of both. His wondrous inventive genius was controlled by a brain power as solid as rare. It enabled him to fuse in his own work the gifts of the idealist, Weber, and of the thinker, Beethoven. The latter’s mastery of workmanship, his reasoned sequence of ideas, are vastly surpassed in Wagner’s dialectic treatment. As an instrumental colourist Weber was superior to Beethoven. The deafness of the latter sometimes led him to mark the wrong instrument in his scores. He could not hear, and therefore was not fully able to comprehend the qualities of every instrument, like Weber. The greatness of his power as an orchestral writer is undeniable, yet many instances could be quoted where he has misapplied a particular instrument of whose character, through his deafness, he had lost the exact knowledge. Wagner based his instrumentation on that of Weber. In spite of an almost unlimited admiration of Beethoven, Wagner has not refrained from pointing to certain defects of scoring in him. He shows that whilst Beethoven modelled his orchestra after Haydn and Mozart, his conceptions went immeasurably beyond them and clashed with the somewhat inadequate means of their orchestra. Beethoven had neither the modern keyed brass instruments to support the wood-wind against the doubled and trebled strings, nor did he dare to venture beyond the then supposed range of the wood, brass, and string instruments. Often when reaching what was thought to be the topmost note on either, he suddenly jumps in an almost childishly anxious manner to an octave below, interrupting the melody and producing an irritating effect. Wagner has asserted that had Beethoven heard the tonal effect of portions of his marking, he would unquestionably have rewritten them or altered the instruments. But whilst deploring his great predecessor’s deafness as the cause of certain defective instrumentation he renders unstinted homage to the general orchestration of the symphonies. The enormous amplification of deeply reasoned detail in those nine grand works demands from each individual of the orchestra an attention and refinement of expression to be expected only from an orchestra composed of virtuosi.

It was shortly after his return to Leipzic that Wagner began to study instrumentation. The Gewandhaus concerts and Beethoven’s symphonies had stirred him. He thumped the piano, was conscious of his lack of skill, but nevertheless bought the scores of the symphonies and studied them with heart and soul. The magnificent colouring charmed him. To work the score at the piano, and see where the secret lay, was his careful study, and then, when he found it, he saw how necessary was individual excellence of performance. Even the Gewandhaus performances failed to completely satisfy him. The members of the orchestra were familiar with the works, yet was the performance far from conveying that lasting impression which the delineation of the intensely grand ideas were capable of, and which from his piano-reading he expected. The dissatisfaction he experienced induced him to seek further for the explanation, and after careful thought he fixed the blame on the shortcomings of the conductor. The head of an orchestra, he asserted, should study the work to be played under him until every phrase, its meaning, and bearing to the whole composition were thoroughly assimilated by him. He should, further, have a perfect acquaintance with the capabilities of every instrument, and an excellent memory. Works performed under conductors not possessing these qualifications never produce their legitimate effect. “It was only when I had conducted Mozart’s works myself,” says Wagner, “and had made the orchestra execute every detail as I felt it, that I took real pleasure in their performance.”