with marked politeness. 'Léon Pillet, Director of the Opera, at that time called 'Académie royale de musique' [see vol. i. p. 6] lui tend les bras, Schlesinger lui fait mille offres de service, Habeneck (Conductor at the Opéra and the Conservatoire) le traite d'égal à égal.' But he soon found that fine speeches meant anything rather than help or goodwill. In fact, Meyerbeer's intervention seems to have told against, rather than for him. 'Do you know what makes me suspicious of this young man?' said Heine; 'it is that Meyerbeer recommends him.'[1] 'When told of Wagner's antecedents and his sanguine hopes of success, Heine devoutly folded his hands in admiration of a German's faith.—There was no chance whatever for 'Rienzi' at the Opéra. 'Quand il lui détaille les merveilles de son Rienzi, le directeur de l'académie enveloppe sa phrase laudative d'épithètes plus réservées: quand il insiste et demands une audition à jour fixe, son interlocuteur recule visiblement, et redouble d'aménités oratoires pour éviter un engagement formel.' A writer for the 'Variétés' undertook a translation of the libretto of 'Das Liebesverbot' for the Théâtre de la Renaissance. Three numbers were tried and found acceptable. 'Wagner quitte à la hâte la rue de la Tonnellerie, trop éloignée de ce monde d'artistes avec lequel il va se trouver journellement en contact. Il achète des meubles et s'établit triomphalement rue du Helder.' On the very day of his removal M. Joli the Director failed, and the doors of the theatre were closed. Wagner attempted to gain a footing at one of the Boulevard theatres. There was a talk of his setting a vaudeville of Dumanoir's, 'La Descente de la Courtille,' and a beginning was made. 'Malheureusement, les choristes du théâtre ne s'étaient pas aguerris encore à cette époque avec la musique de La Belle Hélène, et, après quelques répétitions dérisoires, on déclara celle du jeune Allemand parfaitement inexécutable. On en conserva seulement une chanson: "Allons à la Courtille!" qui eut son heure de celébrité.'[2] Wagner offered himself as a 'choriste' at a still smaller Boulevard theatre. 'I came off worse than Berlioz when he was in a similar predicament. The conductor who tested my capabilities discovered that I could not sing at all, and pronounced me a hopeless case all round.'
He tried song-writing with a view to the Salons. A French version of Heine's 'Die beiden Grenadiere' was made for him, and he set it, in 1839, introducing the 'Marseillaise' at the close—a rather difficult and not altogether satisfactory composition, refused by professional singers with sufficient reason. It appears strange, however, that neither singers nor publishers would have anything to do with three other simple and lovely songs to French words: the delicious little, Berceuse, 'Dors, mon enfant,' Ronsard's 'Mignonne,' and Victor Hugo's 'Attente.' These were, literally, too good for the market. For 'Mignonne' Wagner in the end got a few francs when the song was printed in the music pages of a French periodical. Subsequently (1841–42) it appeared together with 'Attente' and 'Dors, mon enfant,' in the 'Beilagen' to Lewald's 'Europa.' April 1, 1841, is the date of a touching letter to the editor of 'Europa,' to whom Wagner submits the three songs, requesting speedy payment of the 'maximum' fee paid for such contributions, since prices are known to vary from 5 to 9 florins (about 10–18s.), 'Ein Schelm, wer sich besser giebt, als er ist: mich hat man bier so zugerichtet!'
On Feb. 4, 1840, the score of a superb orchestral piece, published 15 years later as 'Eine Faust Ouverture,' was finished. This is the first work that has the true stamp of Wagner. It was conceived after a rehearsal of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony at the Conservatoire in the winter of 1839 (æt 25) and is in some sense a piece of autobiography written in music. As originally planned it was to form the first movement of a Faust Symphony.—After a trial performance at Dresden, July 22, 1844, it was laid aside till 1855, when a revised version was published bearing a motto from Goethe's 'Faust'—
Und so ist mir das Dasein eine Last,
Der Tod erwünscht, das Leben mir verhasst!
It is a masterpiece of construction and instrumentation. The influence of Beethoven is apparent in the concise power of the themes, and the plain direct manner in which they are set forth, yet the work is Wagner's own from beginning to end.
Performances in Paris were not so good as he had anticipated. 'The Académie savours of mediocrity; the mise en scène and decorations are better than the singing.—At the Opéra Comique the representations have a completeness and a physiognomy of their own such as we know nothing of in Germany, but the music written for that theatre is perhaps the worst that has yet been produced in these days of decadence. The miserable quadrille rhythms which now (1842) rattle across the stage have banished the grace of Méhul, Isouard, Boieldieu, and young Auber. For a musician there is but one thing worth attention—the orchestral concerts at the Conservatoire; but these stand alone, and nothing springs from them.' His remarks about the stars at the Opéra—Duprez, Dorus-Gras, Rubini 'with his sempiternal shake'—are rarely without a sting.—The facile success of virtuosi annoyed him.—Liszt, with whom he was to be so closely connected in after days, and who was then at the height of his fame as a virtuoso, appeared quite antipathetic. Wagner called once only at Liszt's lodgings, and left them in a state of irritation. 'Take Liszt to a better world and he will treat the assembly of angels to a Fantaisie sur le Diable.'—Paris at the time harboured many Germans—artists, savants, literati—in needy
- ↑ On the authority of Theodor Hagen, late editor of the New York Musikzeitung. No other well-authenticated utterance of Heine's regarding Wagner has come to light. The so-called letter to Laube which recently appeared in 'Das Orchester' (Dresden), and was reprinted by Herr Kastner in 'Parsifal,' is not a letter at all, but a concoction made up of Laube's words.
- ↑ Gasperini, 'R. Wagner,' p. 27. The chanson has not been traced.
