Scan 5
Musical Courier 1892-06-15: Vol 24 Iss 643, 1892
44 lines. Read by computer on 23 September 2026. Printed page 6. See the scan on archive.org.
1Wagner was writing to Liszt on an average once a fortnight while in Mr. Praeger's company in London; and when Liszt is referred to it is done in a manner that shows no excess of recognition: "Liszt was good and sheltered him, and interested himself so far as to go the police official at Weimar" &c.; or that scarcely laudatory allusion on page 331.
3It is important to bear this overstatement of claim in mind, in view of the many other inaccuracies which militate against the author's strength of memory. But how far back was memory taxed? Is the book built mainly upon notes of conversation and incidents recorded at the time? Mr. Praeger nowhere directly states so, and I can scarcely conceive it to have been the case, for there then could hardly have arisen such confusion as to the dates of this or that occurrence.
5Thus Chapter XXI, recording the visit to Zurich, is headed "1856," and the said visit is so repeatedly alluded to as falling in that year that we cannot presuppose a misprint in this instance; moreover, the chapter opens with "a domestic picture of the creator of the 'Walkyrie' while that work was actually in hand," whereas Liszt thanks Wagner on August 1, 1856, for the full score of that work. But it is impossible that the visit should have taken place until 1857, for Wagner was at Mornex in the summer of 1856; he did not go to his chalet until the spring of 1857; the offer of the Emperor of Brazil reached him in the summer of 1857; and finally he writes to Fischer in October, 1857: "I have had German visitors—Ed. Devrient, Praeger," &c.—the accuracy of the date of this letter being established by the words: "I am now composing 'Tristan und Isolde.'" This involves a question also as to the correctness of the date of Wagner's letter to Mr. Praeger on page 287, looking forward to the visit, for "a bit of the 'Siegfried'" music is spoken of, and I cannot but think that "May, 1856" is incorrect, since I find Wagner writing to Liszt in July, '56: "I hope I shall soon have the courage to begin my 'Siegfried' at last," and in December of that year alluding to its inception, while in May, '57, he is full of "Siegfried" again. The same remark applies to the letter on page 300 of "Wagner As I Knew Him," given as dating after the Zurich visit, "July 17" and apparently 1857. In my belief, founded on internal evidence, this letter was sent in '57; but that is long before "the next" of October, 1858, and the Zurich visit must have come between. Now, the force of these deductions lies herein: Firstly, that Mr. Praeger's claim, advanced since Wagner's death, to have suggested the subject of "Tristan" for a music drama is shown to have been quite out of date; secondly, that no careful record can have been kept even of one of the most important events in the acquaintanceship of the two men, and therefore one can never feel quite certain how much besides has been left, longo intervallo, to imperfect reminiscence.
7While touching on this Zurich visit I desire most strongly to protest against its concluding episode. Had there been any foundation for these "reproaches" and petty tittle-tattlings it would have been a most cruel thing to revive them, after so many years of oblivion, with the full name of the lady accused, and pointedly to couple them with a "similar episode at Bordeaux." But to give such a "scandal" fresh breathing room, and wind up, entirely regardless of the lady's feelings, with "I can testify that Wagner suffered severely from thoughtlessness!" The "scandal," however, was a base calumny. It is shown to have been such: First, by Wagner's letter on page 299, which, together with its predecessor, ought surely to have been considered as inviolably "confidential," and, given as they are in fragmentary extracts, can only excite the curiosity of the prurient; secondly, by the fact that both this lady and her husband remained Wagner's friends until his death; thirdly, by this lady's indignant denial, conveyed to me by herself, in a letter concerning the book under review, and fourthly, by the respect and honor of the highest circles in Germany, in which she is regarded as the type of all that is pure and womanly.
9Unfortunately the inaccuracies of this book well over into the quotations. I have already in a contribution to the "Musical News" of April 22 pointed out how Mr. Praeger takes a fragment of a sentence of Wagner's writings and leaves aloof all consideration of its context, drawing thus the most erroneous conclusions. But in some places he adds a "gloss" between his inverted commas; thus on page 130, referring to August Roeckel, he inserts "unquestioned" before the word "talents," and adds "cast to the winds his own chances of worldly success. This companion of my gloom was Roeckel." Undoubtedly it was Roeckel; but this is tampering with quotation. Again, compare with the letter to Fischer of June 15, 1855 (Letters to Uhlig, Fischer, &c., page 401). "I need scarcely tell you that the representations of my friends who escorted me home," the interpolation given on page 254. "I need not tell you that it was only the entreaties of Ferdinand Praeger and those who accompanied me home." Further, on page 174, there stands: "In a sketch of these exciting days, written and published by Roeckel at my instigation, he states that Wagner became aware that his friend Roeckel was to be taken prisoner," &c. Now, upon reference to this sketch, which is none other than "Sachsen's Erhebung," I find Roeckel (page 142 of "S. E.") stating nothing of the kind, for he mentions no names at all!
11This insertion of the name of Wagner without authority is carried to a remarkable extent in Chapter XV., dealing with the Dresden insurrection. Thus on page 176 we have the "pitch rings" incident, given as in Roeckel's book excepting for the insertion of the name of Wagner; on page 181, "a witness who swore to the part actually played by Wagner during the rising," whereas the evidence actually sought and extorted is stated by Roeckel to have applied to nothing but the Prague friends of the latter; and, to omit other instances, I may finally select the crowning "gloss" on pages 182-3, where we read "The official accusation of my friend" (i.e. Roeckel) "is before me, and as Richard Wagner is concerned I will summarize the charge." This summary is condensed from that given on page 224 of Roeckel's book, with the important exception that Roeckel does not once mention Wagner's name in connection with his own trial; and, so far from that "letter from Richard Wagner" being instrumental in Roeckel's condemnation, Roeckel distinctly states that the authorities had discarded, as against himself, even the charge connected with the Prague incident.
13Apart from interpolations, there are many other errors in this important chapter (XV.), and while relying upon Roeckel's "Sachsen's Erhebung" for almost the entire account of the insurrection, Mr. Praeger has on several points misread that author with whose work he should have been the most acquainted. I need only refer to page 182, where Roeckel is represented as "declining" to attempt an escape from prison; whereas, in fact, he was on two occasions (given here as one) upon the point of effecting it. Again, on page 183 Mr. Praeger says that Wagner "was consulted regularly by the heads" of the provisional government, and on 185, referring to Heubner—one of these heads—and Bakunin, that "he was constantly with them;" whereas Heubner, in a letter to Dr. Kohut, dated September, 1887, and given in Kohut's recently published "Aus dem Zauberlande Polyhymnia's," says: "I am not in a position to give you the desired information about Wagner. I did not move in the same political circle as he did, and, so far as my memory will carry back to that tempestuous time, I never saw or spoke to him excepting on one day, May 9, 1849, when Bakunin and myself, accompanied by our retreating forces, had set foot in Freiberg," i.e., some hours after the Dresden insurrection was quelled. This letter also carries us one stage farther on Wagner's journey from Dresden to Weimar, and points to the conclusion that he could have told Mr. Praeger but little about the whole insurrection; for otherwise the latter must have been curious to know, and eager to recount the method of his hero's departure from Dresden, and moreover would have understood Wagner's reference to Heubner and Bakunin contained in that letter to Edward Roeckel on page 188, which clearly shows what a minor rôle the Kapellmeister played in the revolt.
15I have no space to discuss the unfounded charge against Glasenapp of making a "totally inaccurate" statement regarding Roeckel, nor to give my reasons for denying that Wagner "permitted almost an untruth to be inferred" ament his own share in the events of 1848-9; both points are dealt with in my communication to the "Musical News" above referred to. But passing over these and other specific objections, I hasten to a general estimate of the book.
17Apart from the grave blemishes to which I have alluded, as examples proving that we cannot treat "Wagner As I Knew Him" as a firm basis for historical reliance; apart from the many instances of application of the magnifying glass to Wagner's faults—for Wer ist gut?—and of judgment by that "Mrs. Grundy"-ism which Wagner, on page 287, begged his friend to lay aside; apart from the contradictory estimates of character; apart from the countless errors in dates and "proper names," caused by want of careful revision, there is a certain charm about the unsophisticated manner of narration, the stray touch, here and there, of genuine pathos, and even the way in which the author clings lovingly to the belief that he was the friend par excellence of one whose friendship was showered so widely as by scarcely another leader of men. But if we approach this volume expecting a view into the deeper chambers of Wagner's heart we shall be wholly disappointed, excepting for the indications in those thirty letters from the master which lighten up the work like gems. Whenever the scanty fragments of conversation here related turn upon more solid matter, one is astonished to find that, "original thinker" as Wagner was, it was always Mr. Praeger who got the best of the argument, and one cannot smother the impression of an encounter between a schoolboy and his tutor. This is entirely due to the attention paid by the author to mere externals; and I cannot help thinking that occasionally the Bayreuth master played upon his friend a trick like that practiced upon Minna, page 293.
19Thus I come at last to the brightest feature in the whole account, namely, the abundant tribute paid to Minna, first wife of Richard Wagner. For Mr. Praeger's chivalrous defense of that poor woman whose homely mind so little fitted her for companionship with the brilliant genius Richard Wagner none of us can have anything but unqualified praise. Would that the same could be said of the allusions to Mrs. Cosima Wagner, that noble woman to whom the art world owes so large a debt of gratitude!
21In conclusion I sincerely regret that Mr. Praeger's work was not published before his own decease, that thus we might have had many a doubt cleared up by free discussion. As it is, however ungracious a thing it may be to criticise the work of a dead man, we must remember that its subject also is dead and cannot now defend himself from friend or foe.
23THE MANAGING EDITOR AGAIN.
25SOME time ago THE MUSICAL COURIER had cause to animadvert against the managing editors of our great metropolitan dailies because of their stupid treatment of music and the music critic in their respective sheets.
27Now Mr. W. J. Henderson, the music critic of the "Times," who occupied the editorial tripod of the Boston "Musical Herald" while Mr. Wilson was in Europe, did some fine writing on the aforesaid tripod in true Sibylline fashion. He writes thus in the June number about the true state of affairs:
29Gentle reader, let me tell you this: The musical critics, whom you and the rest of the public hold responsible for all the musical matter in the dailies, have nothing to do with this puffery of small fry. They dislike it a great deal more than you do, but they are altogether powerless to prevent it. The secret of it all is tickets—tickets for the publisher, tickets for the proprietor, tickets for the editor in chief, tickets for the managing editor. These people never go near the symphony or the chamber music concert, never go to the pi no recital (except when it is a fashionable craze—Paderewski), never look upon music as an art at all. But the comic opera, the popular concert, Fatti and Morrissey claim them for their own. They go to this kind of show two or three times a week and they furnish tickets to all their friends. What is the result? The managers of the silly season have a "pull" that no musical critic can withstand, because it is exerted on those in authority.
31Harry Askin, manager of Digby Bell's company, can get anything he wishes in most of the New York papers. If a critic goes to the first performance of a new opera under Askin's management, and insinuates that the work is not a boon to the human race, Askin calls on the managing editor, and two days later the paper will contain a notice—not written by the musical man—stating that Digby Bell's new opera has made a tremendous success, that there are more encores than were ever before known in that theatre, that Mr. Bell's part gives him finer opportunities than he ever had before in the whole extent of his career, and so on ad nauseam.
33Now, then, you have the secret of the "pull" which these persons have with the New York daily papers. I know whereof I speak. I know one musical critic, who labors in the same town with me, who is doing his level best to be scrupulously honest in an office where no less than three persons in authority are doing all they can, short of a positive command or a dismissal, to make him dishonest.
35If this sort of thing stopped at the comic operetta it would be bad enough, but still it could be borne; but it goes into the opera, the grand opera. Everyone knows that all sorts of unmusical persons, who never set foot in the concert room, go to the opera. The news paper owner, editor, managing editor, et id omne genus, are no exceptions. They like to go to the opera, too. But they take their opera in the same spirit as the other unmusical persons, and if they find themselves brought face to face with a serious art work, they don't understand it and they don't like it. Therefore they wish their musical critic to condmn it, and to praise the meretricious, superficial thing which they do understand and like.
37And there you are.
39"IN RECOGNITION."
41UNDER the above heading our esteemed German contemporary, the New York "Figaro," published on last Saturday the following highly complimentary and most flattering editorial comment on THE MUSICAL COURIER, which we herewith translate and reproduce with sincerest thanks to its writer:
43"Amid the generally still very sober and meagre American art life the cultivation of music stands out like an oasis in a desert. It is the only art domain in which, in reproduction at least, we can bear a comparison with Europe. The fact of a single musical season like the past one suffices to demonstrate this to doubting persons ad oculos. But we do not want to revert to this direct argument, for we could only repeat what has often been stated before. We want to call attention, however, to an indirect corpus delicti—lucus a non lucendo. One of the most striking proofs of the liveliness and the brilliant growth of the music life of the United States is the fact of the existence of so excellent a class weekly as is THE MUSICAL COURIER, which appears here in English. Not only does the weekly exhaustingly complete news department of this journal furnish documentary evidence of the surplus of musical events in this country, but also the quality of the editorial, elucidating, musico-scientific, polemic, critical, not to forget the causerie and feuilletonistic portions of THE MUSICAL COURIER are such as to make it a class paper of the very first rank, and the like of which one could hardly find in Europe. That such a journal could have been born on American soil, could have grown here so beautifully, nay, could have become a pressing necessity—that is the best proof for the flourishing of musical art life in America."
The computer misreads some letters and numbers. Where a name matters to you, read the scan.