My Life, Volume II

by Richard Wagner

  Whilst I was discussing the state of music in Strasburg with Conductor Hasselmann, Orsini's famous attempt on the life of the Emperor took place in Paris. I heard some vague rumours of it on my journey the following morning, but it was not until the 17th, on my arrival in Paris, that I heard the full details of it from the waiter in my hotel. I looked upon this event as a malicious stroke of fate, aimed at me personally. Even at breakfast on the following morning, I feared I should see my old acquaintance, the agent of the Ministry of the Interior, walk in and demand my instant departure from Paris as a political refugee. I presumed that as a visitor at the Grand Hotel du Louvre, then newly opened, I should be regarded by the police with greater respect, than at the little hotel at the corner of the Rue des Filles St. Thomas, where I had once stayed for the sake of economy. I had originally intended to take up my quarters at an hotel I knew in the Rue le Pelletier, but the outrage had been perpetrated just at that spot, and the principal criminals had been pursued and arrested there. It was a strange coincidence! Supposing I had arrived in Paris just two days earlier, and had gone there!!!

  After thus apostrophising the demon of my fate, I hunted up M. Ollivier and his young wife. In the former I soon found a very taking and active friend, who at once resolutely took in hand the matter which was my chief object in Paris. One day we called on a notary who was a friend of his, and who seemed to be under an obligation to him. I there gave Ollivier a formal and carefully considered power of attorney, to represent my proprietary rights as author, and in spite of many official formalities in the way of stamps I was treated with perfect hospitality, so that I felt I was well sheltered under my friend's protection. In the course of my walks with my friend Ollivier in the Palais de Justice and in the Salle des pas perdus, I was introduced to the most celebrated lawyers in the world strolling about there in their berrettas and robes, and I was soon on such intimate terms with them that they formed a circle around me, and made me explain the subject of Tannhauser. This pleased me greatly. I was no less delighted by my conversation with Ollivier regarding his political views and position. He still believed in the Republic which would come to stay after the inevitable overthrow of the Napoleonic rule. He and his friends did not intend to provoke a revolution, but they held themselves in readiness for the moment when it should come, as it necessarily must, and fully resolved this time not to give it up again to the plunder of base conspirators. In principle he agreed with the logical conclusions of socialism; he knew and respected Proudhon, but not as a politician; he thought nothing could be founded on a durable basis except through the initiative of political organisation. By means of simple legislation, which had already passed several enactments protecting the public good against the abuses of private privilege, even the boldest demands for a commonwealth based on equal rights for all would gradually be met.

  I now noticed with great satisfaction that I had made considerable progress in the development of my character, as I could listen to and discuss these and other topics without getting into a state of excitement, as I used formally to do in similar discussions.

  Blandine impressed me at the same time most favourably with her gentleness, her cheerfulness, and a certain quiet wit added to a quick mental perception. We very soon understood each other; the slightest suggestion sufficed to create a mutual understanding on any subject in which we were interested.

  Sunday arrived, and with it a concert at the Conservatoire. As I had hitherto been present only at rehearsals, and had never got so far as the performances, my friends succeeded in procuring a seat for me in the box of Mme. Herold, the widow of the composer, a woman of sympathetic disposition, who at once declared herself warmly in favour of my music. It is true her knowledge of it was slight, but she had been won over to it by the enthusiasm of her daughter and son-in-law, who, as I have previously mentioned, had heard Tannhauser during their honeymoon in Vienna and Berlin. This was really a pleasant surprise. Added to this, I now heard for the first time in my life a performance of Haydn's Seasons, which the audience enjoyed immensely, as they thought the steady florid vocal cadences, which are so rare in modern music, but which so frequently occur at the conclusion of the musical phrases in Haydn's music, very original and charming. The rest of the day was spent very pleasantly in the bosom of the Herold family. Towards the end of the evening a man came in whose appearance was hailed with marked attention. This was Herr Scudo, who, I found out afterwards, was the famous musical editor of the Revue des deux Mondes. His influence with other journals was considerable, but so far it had certainly not been in my favour. The kind hostess wished me to make his acquaintance, so that he might have a good impression of me, but I told her such an object could not be attained through the medium of a drawing-room conversation, and later on I was confirmed in my opinion that the reasons why a gentleman of this type, who possesses no knowledge of the subject, declares himself hostile to an artist, having nothing whatever to do with his convictions or even with his approval or disapproval. On a subsequent occasion these good people had to suffer for having interested themselves in me, as, in a report of my concerts by Herr Scudo, they were held up to ridicule as a family of strong democratic tendencies.

  I now looked up my friend Berlioz, whose acquaintance I had recently renewed in London, and on the whole I found him kindly disposed.

  I informed him that I had only just come to Paris on a short pleasure trip. He was at that time busy composing a grand opera, Die Trojaner. In order to get an impression of the work, I was particularly anxious to hear the libretto Berlioz had written himself, and he spent an evening reading it out to me. I was disappointed in it, not only as far as it was concerned, but also by his singularly dry and theatrical delivery. I fancied that in the latter I could see the character of the music to which he had set his words, and I sank into utter despair about it, as I could see that he regarded this as his masterpiece, and was looking forward to its production as the great object of his life.

  I also received an invitation with the Olliviers from the Erard family, at whose house I again met my old friend the widow of Spontini. We spent a rather charming evening there, during which, strange to say, I had to be responsible for the musical entertainment at the piano. They declared they had thoroughly entered into the spirit of the various selections I had played from my operas in my now characteristic fashion, and that they had enjoyed them immensely. At any rate, such intimate heartfelt playing had never before been heard in that gorgeous drawing- room. Apart from this, I made one great acquisition, through the friendly courtesy of Mme. Erard and her brother-in-law Schaffer, who since the death of her husband had carried on the business, in the shape of a promise of one of the celebrated grand-pianos of their manufacture. With this the gloom of my excursion to Paris seemed to be turned into light, for I was so rejoiced at it, that I looked upon every other result as chimerical, and upon this as the only reality.

  After that I left Paris on the 2nd of February in a more cheerful frame of mind, and on my homeward journey went to look up my old friend Kietz in Epernay, where M. Paul Chandon, who had known Kietz since boyhood, had interested himself in the ruined painter by taking him into his house, and giving him a number of commissions for portraits. As soon as I arrived I was irresistibly drawn into Chandon's hospitable house, and could not refuse to remain there for a couple of days. I found in Chandon a passionate admirer of my operas, particularly of Rienzi, the first performance of which he had witnessed during his Dresden days. I also visited the marvellous wine vaults at Champagne, which extended for miles into the heart of the rocky ground. Kietz was painting a portrait in oils, and the opinion entertained by every one that it would very soon be finished rather amused me.

  After much superfluous entertainment I at last freed myself from this unexpected hospitality and returned to Zurich on the 5th of February, where I had arranged by letter for an evening party immediately after my arrival, as I thought I had much to relate which I could tell them all collectively instead of by means
of long and wearisome communications to individual friends. Semper, who was one of the company, was annoyed that he had stayed in Zurich whilst I had been in Paris, and he became quite furious over my cheerful adventures and declared I was an impudent child of fortune, while he looked upon it as the greatest calamity that he should be chained to that wretched hole Zurich. How I smiled inwardly at his envy of my fortune!

  My affairs were making but little progress, as my operas had been sold to almost every theatre and I had very little left out of the proceeds. I now heard nothing about all these performances except that they were yielding very little money. I resigned myself to the fact of bringing out Rienzi, as it was just suited to our inferior class of theatre. Before offering it for sale, it was desirable to have it performed again in Dresden; but this, it was said, was impossible on account of the impression created by the Orsini outrage. So I worked on at the instrumentation of the first act of Tristan, and during that time I could not help feeling that most probably other objections, besides those of political captiousness, would be raised against the spread of this work. I therefore continued my work vaguely and somewhat hopelessly.

  In the month of March Frau Wesendonck informed me that she thought of having a kind of musical entertainment in her house to celebrate her husband's birthday. She had a predilection for a little serenade music, which, with the help of eight instrumentalists from Zurich, I had arranged during the winter for the occasion of her own birthday. The pride of the Wesendonck villa was a spacious hall which had been very elegantly decorated by Parisian stucco-workers, and I had once remarked that music would not sound at all badly there. We had tested it on a small scale, but now it was to be tried on a larger one. I offered to bring together a respectable orchestra to perform fragments of the Beethoven symphonies, consisting mainly of the brighter parts, for the entertainment of the company. The necessary preparations required a good deal of time, and the date of the birthday had to be overstepped. As it was, we had nearly reached Easter, and our concert took place almost at the end of March. The musical At Home was most successful. A full orchestra for the Beethoven pieces played with the greatest eclat under my conductorship, to the assembly of guests scattered about in the surrounding rooms, selections from the symphonies. Such an unprecedented home concert seemed to throw every one into a great state of excitement.

  The young daughter of the house presented me at the beginning of the performance with an ivory baton, carved from a design by Semper, the first and only complimentary one I ever received. There was no lack of flowers and ornamental trees, under which I stood when conducting, and when to suit my taste for musical effect we concluded, not with a loud, but with a deeply soothing piece, like the Adagio from the Ninth Symphony, we felt that Zurich society had indeed witnessed something quite unique, and my friends on whom I had bestowed this mark of distinction were deeply touched by it.

  This festival left on me the most melancholy impressions; I felt as though I had reached the meridian of my life, that I had in fact passed it, and that the string of the bow was over- stretched. Mme. Wille told me afterwards that she had been overcome by similar feelings on that evening. On the 3rd of April I sent the manuscript of the score of the first act of Tristan und Isolde to Leipzig to be engraved; I had already promised to give Frau Wesendonck the pencil-sketch for the instrumentation of the prelude, and I sent this to her accompanied by a note in which I explained to her seriously and calmly the feelings that animated me at the time. My wife had for some time been anxious as to her relations with our neighbour; she complained with increasing bitterness that she was not treated by her with the attention due to the wife of a man whom Frau Wesendonck was so pleased to welcome in her house, and that when we did meet, it was rather by reason of that lady's visits to me than to her. So far she had not really expressed any jealousy. As she happened to be in the garden that morning, she met the servant carrying the packet for Frau Wesendonck, took it from him and opened the letter. As she was quite incapable of understanding the state of mind I had described in the letter, she readily gave a vulgar interpretation to my words, and accordingly felt herself justified in bursting into my room and attacking me with the most extraordinary reproaches about the terrible discovery she had made. She afterwards admitted that nothing had vexed her so much as the extreme calmness and apparent indifference with which I treated her foolish conduct. As a matter of fact I never said a word; I hardly moved, but simply allowed her to depart. I could not help realising that this was henceforth to be the intolerable character of the conjugal relations I had resumed eight years before. I told her peremptorily to keep quiet and not be guilty of any blunder either in judgment or in act, and tried to make her realise to what a serious state of affairs this foolish occurrence had brought us. She really seemed to understand what I meant, and promised to keep quiet and not to give way to her absurd jealousy. Unfortunately the poor creature was already suffering from a serious development of heart disease, which affected her temper; she could not throw off the peculiar depression and terrible restlessness which enlargement of the heart causes, and only a few days after she felt that she must relieve her feelings, and the only possible way in which she could think of doing so was by warning our neighbour, Frau Wesendonck, with an emphasis she thought was well meant, against the consequences of any imprudent intimacy with me.

  As I was returning from a walk I met Herr Wesendonck and his wife in their carriage just starting for a drive. I noticed her troubled demeanour in contrast to the peculiarly smiling and contented expression of her husband. I realised the position clearly when I afterwards met my wife looking wonderfully cheerful. She held out her hand to me with great generosity, assuring me of her renewed affection. In answer to my question, whether she had by any chance broken her promise, she said confidently that like a wise woman she had been obliged to put things into proper order. I told her she would very probably experience some very unpleasant consequences through breaking her word. In the first place, I thought it essential she should take steps to improve her health as we had previously arranged, and told her she had better go as soon as possible to the health resort she had been recommended at Brestenberg on the Hallwyler Lake. We had heard wonderful accounts of the cures of heart disease which the doctor there had effected, and Minna was quite prepared to submit to his treatment. A few days later, therefore, I took her and her parrot to the pleasantly situated and well- appointed watering-place which was about three hours distant. Meantime, I avoided asking any questions as to what had taken place in regard to our neighbours. When I left her at Brestenberg and took my leave she quite seemed to realise the painful seriousness of our position. I could say very little to comfort her, except that I would try, in the interests of our future life together, to mitigate the dreaded consequences of her having broken her word.

  On my return home I experienced the unpleasant effects of my wife's conduct towards our neighbour. In Minna's utter misconstruction of my purely friendly relations with the young wife, whose only interest in me consisted in her solicitude for my peace of mind and well-being, she had gone so far as to threaten to inform the lady's husband. Frau Wesendonck felt so deeply insulted at this, as she was perfectly unconscious of having done any wrong, that she was absolutely astounded at me, and said she could not conceive how I could have led my wife into such a misunderstanding. The outcome of this disturbance was that, thanks to the discreet mediation of our mutual friend Mme. Wille, I was absolved from any responsibility for my wife's conduct; still, I was given to understand that henceforth it would be impossible for the injured lady to enter my house again, or indeed to continue to have any intercourse with my wife. They did not seem to realise, and would not admit, that this would entail the giving up of my home and my removal from Zurich. I hoped that although my relations with these good friends had been disturbed, they were not really destroyed, and that time would smooth things over. I felt that I must look forward to an improvement in my wife's health, when she would admit her folly,
and thus be able to resume her intercourse with our neighbours in a reasonable manner.

  Some time elapsed, during which the Wesendonck family took a pleasure trip of several weeks to Northern Italy.

  The arrival of the promised Erard grand-piano made me painfully conscious of what a tin kettle my old grand-piano from Breitkopf und Hartel had been, and I forthwith banished it to the lower regions, where my wife begged she might keep it as a souvenir 'of old times.' She afterwards took it with her to Saxony, where she sold it for three hundred marks. The new piano appealed to my musical sense immensely, and whilst I was improvising I seemed to drift quite naturally into the soft nocturnal sounds of the second act of Tristan, the composition of which I now began to sketch out. This was at the beginning of May. My work was unexpectedly interrupted by the command of the Grand Duke of Weimar to meet him on a certain day in Lucerne, where he was staying after his return from Italy. I availed myself of this opportunity to have a lengthy interview at the hotel in Chamberlain von Beaulieu's room, with my former nominal patron whose acquaintance I had made at the time of my flight.