Soon, as standard bearers strong, From the strand of Isar, we Will go forth with Mastersong Through United Germany.
A Vienna Critic--"Judaism in Music"--The War of 1870--Wagner's Second Wife--"The Thought of Baireuth"--Wagner-Clubs--The "Kaiser March"--Baireuth--Increasing Progress--Concerts--The Corner-Stone of the new Theatre--The Inaugural Celebration--Lukewarmness of the Nation--The Preliminary Rehearsals--The Summer of 1876--Increasing Devotion of the Artists--The General Rehearsal--The Guests--The Memorable Event--Its Importance--A World-History in Art-Deeds.
"_In the beginning was the deed._"--GOETHE.
"As artist and man, I am now approaching a new world," Wagner had already written in 1851.
The Vienna Thersites, with his coarse and confused wits, whom the real irony of his time had termed "the most renowned musical critic of the age," had the hardihood to write for the principal newspaper of Austria as late as the spring of 1872: "Wagner is lucky in everything. He begins by raging against all monarchs, and a generous King meets him with enthusiastic love. Then he writes a pasquinade against the Jews, and musical Jewry pays him homage all the more by purchasing the Baireuth certificates. He proves that all our Hofkapellmeisters are mere artisans, and behold, they organize Wagner-clubs and recruit troops for Baireuth. Opera-singers and theatre directors, whose performances Wagner most cruelly condemns, follow his footsteps wherever he appears and are delighted if he salutes them. He brands our conservatories as being spoiled and neglected institutes, and the scholars of the Vienna conservatory form in line before Richard Wagner and make a subscription to present the master with a token of esteem."
Ah, yes; but this "luck" was the result of his close search for what was true and real.
This moral dignity, which asks for nothing but the truth, gradually drew toward Wagner many estimable friends, among them, through the "Meistersinger" performance in Munich, that simple citizen who organized in Mannheim the first of those Wagner-clubs that called into existence for us the high castle of art and the ideal--"Baireuth."
With that work Wagner had made the last hopeful attempt to improve the domestic stage. The experiences gained in this effort disclosed to him with distinct clearness the radically inartistic and un-German qualities of the theatre, which outwardly and inwardly, morally as well as spiritually, exerted an equally pernicious influence. But while completely alienating himself from it and planning only to "rear with considerate haste his gigantic edifice of four divisions," and thus obtain a stage free from all commercial interests, consecrated only to the ideal of the nation and the human mind, he yet felt impelled once more to withdraw with firm hand the veil from the actual social and art conditions of the nation, and wrote "Judaism in Music."