RICHARD WAGNER’S PROSE WORKS. BY BASIL CRUMP. VOLUME I.
The world knows Richard Wagner as a daring musical genius; a few know him as a poet who wrote the poems for his own dramas; fewer still know him as a writer, philosopher and mystic. His voluminous prose works are being translated into English by Mr. W. Ashton Ellis, of the London branch of the Wagner Society, and the work will be completed by the end of the century. When these writings become familiar to the reading public, Wagner will be much better understood than he is now; the vast scope of his work, and its harmonious relation to other universal schemes of work which make for the elevation of the human race, will be more fully recognized. Then the narrow and ignorant criticisms of a Nordau or a Tolstoi, will have no foothold in the mind of an enlightened public.
In the previous series of articles entitled “Richard Wagner’s Music Dramas,” my purpose was to throw some light on the inner meaning of those dramas. In doing this some quotations were made from the prose writings, where Wagner has made actual explanations or thrown out hints of his meaning. In dealing with the prose works themselves, my aim will be to show the basis of Wagner’s reform in the field of dramatic art, and the great motives which led him to strike out a totally new path. And here at the outset let me say that no brief review of these volumes can possibly convey any clear conception of their contents; it will therefore be necessary to devote several of these articles to the more important essays. The volume with which I am about to deal opens with an
Wagner wrote this in 1843, at the request of a German editor. In it we see the germs of his future genius, and I will select such details as serve to indicate them. Wilhelm Richard Wagner was born at Leipzig on May 22, 1813, and learnt to play a little on the piano at the age of seven. Two years later, when the family migrated to Dresden, he used to watch Weber “with a reverent awe,” as the composer of _Der Freischütz_ passed to and fro to rehearsals. Thereupon his piano exercises were speedily neglected in favor of the overture to _Der Freischütz_ executed “with the most fearful fingering.”