WAGNER
BY JOHN F. RUNCIMAN
Bell's Miniature Series of Musicians
LONDON
G. BELL AND SONS, LTD.
[Second Edition] 1913
CONTENTS
MAGDEBURG, RIGA, PARIS, 1834-1842.
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
(From a portrait by Egusquita.)
(From a portrait by Simon.)
AUTHORIZATION, SIGNED BY WAGNER
, TO THEODOR UHLIG, TO DELIVER TO THE
DIRECTOR OF THE THEATRE AT WURZBURG, ON PAYMENT OF FIFTY THALERS,
A CORRECTED COPY OF THE MUSIC AND WORDS OF "TANNHÄUSER"
(British Museum.)
(From a drawing by Lekmann.)
(From a photograph.)
RICHARD WAGNER IN THE LAST DAYS OF HIS LIFE
LIFE OF WAGNER
HIS YOUTH 1813-1834.
The old world is very remote from us now, but it is worth while making a small attempt to realize how it stood to Wagner. When he was born, in 1813, Bach had been dead only a little over sixty years; Mozart had been dead about twenty years, and Haydn about ten; Beethoven was in the full splendour of his tremendous powers; Weber and Schubert had still their finest work to do. To grasp all that this means, let us consider our relation to Mendelssohn. He died nearly sixty years ago; yet, whatever we may think of him as a composer, we can scarcely call him old-fashioned: he remains indisputably one of the moderns. Now, Wagner can never have looked upon Bach as a modern. He spoke of him and his old periwig almost as one might allude to an extinct race of animals. The history of an art cannot be measured off in years: in some periods it moves slowly, in others with startling rapidity. Since Mendelssohn's day composers have sought rather to develop old resources and forms than to find and cre