Sunday, May 3:
Recollections of Ludwig Schnorr
I first heard of the young singer Ludwig Schnorr von Carolsfeld through my old friend Tichatschek who visited me in Zürich in the summer of 1857 and directed my attention to this highly-gifted artistic disciple for the future. He had at that time commenced his theatrical career at the Karlsruhe Court Theatre under the direction of the excellent Eduard Devrient, well known to me from Dresden and a close friend; by the latter, who also visited me that summer, I was informed of Schnorr’s special liking for my music and for my dramatic singing exercises. We agreed on this occasion that I might earmark my ‘Tristan’, the conception of which was at that time engaging me, for a first performance in Karlsruhe, in which connection it was to be hoped that the Grand Duke of Baden, who was very favourably disposed towards me, would be able to overcome the difficulties still making it impossible for me to return unmolested to German Federal territory. A little later I also received an agreeable letter from young Schnorr containing an almost impassioned assurance of his devotion to me.
For reasons, about which there remained much uncertainty, the plan for a performance in Karlsruhe in the summer of 1859 of my completed Tristan finally proved impossible. Of Schnorr himself it had been reported to me in this connection that, his great devotion to me notwithstanding, he did not think it feasible to overcome, in particular, the problem posed in the final act for the singer of the central role; apart from which, the state of his health was described to me as doubtful: he was suffering from a fatty degeneration which marred his youthful appearance. When, in the summer of 1861, I first visited Karlsruhe and new stimulus was given by the ever amicably disposed Grand Duke to the execution of the project previously decided on, I remained unfavourably inclined towards the management’s offer to enter into negotiations with Schnorr, now engaged at the Dresden Theatre, for the part of ‘Tristan’: I declared myself reluctant to make the personal acquaintance of this singer, being afraid that his grotesque appearance might prejudice me to the point of insensitivity to his real artistic talents. When, after this, the projected Vienna performance of my new work proved impossible, I stayed for a while in the summer of 1862 at Biebrich on Rhine, attending from there at Karlsruhe a performance of ‘Lohengrin’ in which Schnorr was appearing as guest artist; I arrived in secret, intending to be seen by no one, so as to conceal my presence from Schnorr, and fearing to be so confirmed in my apprehensions concerning the repellent impression of his supposed deformity that, out of loyalty to my renunciation, I would wish to remain unacquainted with him. This timid attitude on my part was soon altered. If the sight of the Swan Knight landing in his tiny skiff at first created the somewhat astonishing impression of a youthful Hercules, the decided magic of the legendary, God-sent hero worked upon me the instant he appeared so that one did not ask oneself what he was like, but said to oneself: He is like that! This immediate and most heartfelt effect can only be likened to magic: I can remember experiencing it in earliest youth from the great Schröder-Devrient in a manner that was decisive for my whole life, and never again so peculiarly and powerfully thereafter as from Ludwig Schnorr’s appearance in Lohengrin. Presently, as his performance proceeded, I detected much that was immature in his reading; but even this had for me the appeal of unmarred youthful purity, and the chaste capacity for most vigorous artistic development. The warmth and gentle enthusiasm that poured from the wonderfully affectionate eyes of this wholly boyish man, at once bore witness to me of the daemonic fire with which they were to blaze; quickly he became for me one for whom, on account of his infinite gifts, I felt apprehensive. At the end of Act I, I charged a friend sought out for the purpose, to bid Schnorr come and meet me after the performance. This was done; the young giant stepped unfatigued into my hotel room late that evening, and the bond was sealed; we had jocular things to say, but little else. A more protracted period together at Biebrich was agreed upon.
There by the Rhine we soon came together for several weeks to run through my Nibelung works and especially ‘Tristan’ to our hearts’ content, accompanied on the piano by von Bülow who was visiting me at the same time. And here was said and done all that could bring us to the closest understanding regarding every artistic interest of concern to us. On the subject of his doubts about the performability of Act III of ‘Tristan’, he now confessed to me that these were to do not so much with the fear of exhausting voice and strength as with his failure to master the meaning of a single, but, it seemed to him, all important phrase, namely that of the love-curse and especially of the words ‘aus Lachen und Weinen, Wonnen und Wunden’ (from laughter and tears, from raptures and wounds). I showed him how I intended this and, indeed, what great expression I had tried to give this phrase. He swiftly understood, realized that he had mistaken the time, imagining it faster, and now saw that the resultant overhaste was to blame for the failure of expression, as well as for lack of comprehension. I ventured to observe that in the extended tempo of this passage I was making certainly completely unusual, indeed perhaps enormous demands; this suggestion he declared to be of no importance, and immediately demonstrated his ability to extend this passage in performance to complete satisfaction. This one feature has remained as unforgettable as it has instructive: the greatest physical exertion ceased to be an effort once the singer was convinced of the correct expression of the phrase; the mental insight conferred the strength for material mastery. And from this delicate scruple the young man’s artistic conscience had suffered for years, the to him seemingly dubious rendering of a single phrase prejudicing him against the possibility of employing his talent to solve the whole task: cutting, the method so swiftly invoked to their aid by opera singers of the greatest renown, would not of course have served, for he saw this very point to be the tip of the pyramid to which the tragic task of this Tristan towered. — Who will realize what hopes I allowed to animate me now that this wonderful singer had entered my life! — We parted and were not destined to be reunited for the final solution of our task for several years.
From now on, my efforts to secure a performance of ‘Tristan’ coincided with those to secure Schnorr’s collaboration in it: they were not crowned with success until an exalted friend of my art, who had meantime appeared, made over the Munich Court Theatre to me for this purpose. At the beginning of March 1865, Schnorr arrived in Munich on a brief visit for the necessary discussion of the enterprise we were soon to tackle. His presence became the occasion for a performance of Tannhäuser in which, with one rehearsal, he took over the central role, but which was not otherwise prepared any further. To convey my ideas concerning the performance expected of him in this the most difficult of my dramatic singing roles, I was able to avail myself only of verbal discussion. I spoke generally of my sad experience in having, to date, found the theatrical success of my Tannhäuser unsatisfactory, and this by reason of the constant failure to resolve, indeed, to understand, the central role. As its basic feature I indicated extreme force of both ecstasy and remorse without any really comfortable in-between stage, but abrupt and determined in their alternation. To enable him to to grasp this feature of his performance, I referred him to the importance of Scene I with Venus. If the intended deeply moving effect of this misfires, the foundation is laid for the failure of the whole performance, which no vocal rejoicing in the first finale, and no rebelling and breaking out at the Papal ban in Act III is any longer capable of rendering properly effective. My new execution of this Venus scene which had been suggested by its subsequently recognized and, in the first draft, insufficiently clearly expressed importance, had not at that time been rehearsed at Munich, and Schnorr was obliged to make do still with the older version. So his concern should be to express all the more, through the force of his performance, the agonizing struggle in his heart, which here is still left more to the singer solely, and he would, by following my advice, make this possible by interpreting all that preceded only as a powerful climax to the final cry ‘Mein Heil ruht in Maria!’ (My salvation lies in Mary!) This ‘Maria!’ I told him, must come with such force that the miracle that at once occurs, of release from the Venusberg enchantment and of rapture in his home valley, should be understood from it as the needful fulfilment of an irresistible demand by feelings driven to extreme decision. With this cry he adopts the attitude of one lost in the most exalted ecstasy and thus he is now to remain, motionless, his gaze rapturously directed towards heaven, indeed not changing this attitude until addressed by the knights who enter later. How he was to resolve this difficult task, rejected some years before by a highly renowned singer as impossible, I would specify to him direct, standing near him on stage in this scene at the rehearsal. I stood very close, and following the music beat by beat and the events going on about us, from shepherd’s song to procession of pilgrims, whispered what was inwardly happening in the enraptured man’s emotions, from sublimest total unconsciousness to gradually awakening consciousness of his present surroundings, and particularly by the animation of his hearing, whilst he, as if not to destroy the miracle, still resists apprehending again the old homely earthly world with the gaze of eyes enchanted by awareness of ethereal heaven; with gaze still riveted heavenwards, only the play of his expression, and finally the mild relaxing of the tension in the erect attitude betray the increasing emotion of re-birth until every spasm, produced by the divine overwhelming, eases, and at last crying out ‘Allmächtiger, Dir sei Preis! Gross sind die Wunder Deiner Gnade!’ (Almighty, to Thee be praise! Great are the wonders of Thy grace!) he sinks down in submission. With the quiet interest that he then takes in the singing of the pilgrims, his gaze, his head, his whole posture as he kneels, sink lower and lower until, choked by tears in a new, succouring swoon, he lies stretched prone and senseless on the ground. — Quietly advising him in the same spirit, I remained at Schnorr’s side for the whole of the rehearsal. My very brief whispered suggestions and instructions were responded to by an equally quiet glance of inspired fervour on his part, which, while assuring me of a most wonderful harmony, itself in turn gave me new inspirations concerning my own work, and a certainly unprecedented example of the fruitful interaction that may come of a loving and direct communing of differently gifted artists when their gifts are perfectly complementary. —
After this rehearsal we said not another word about Tannhäuser. Even after the performance which took place the following evening, scarcely a word was said about it, and especially no word of praise and appreciation on my part: for on that evening I had, through the quite inexpressibly wonderful performance of my friend, had a sight into my own creative processes such as it has seldom, perhaps never before, been possible for an artist to have. This is the point at which an inviolable feeling of emotion enters, in face of which it is for us to maintain a most reverential silence. —
With that one — never repeated — performance of Tannhäuser, Schnorr had realized absolutely my most fervent artistic intention: the daemonic in rapture and pain was not lost for an instant: the decisively important passage in the second finale: ‘Zum Heil des Sündigen zu führen’, etc. (To lead the sinful man to his salvation), which I have so often longed for in vain, and which is so obstinately omitted by every singer by reason of its great difficulty, and by every conductor by reason of the usual cutting, was, for the first and only time, performed by Schnorr with affecting, and thus powerfully moving, expression, suddenly changing the hero from an object of abhorrence to the epitome of one deserving of compassion. His appearance as a madman in Act III, and, accordingly, his parting from Elisabeth, had been correctly prepared through the impassioned frenzy of remorse in the violently tempestuous finale of Act II; out of a state of numbness, emotion was all the more affectingly released until the renewed outburst of madness brought about the magical reappearance of Venus with the same daemonic force as the appeal to Mary in Act I summoned back, by a miracle, the Christian, homely, everyday world. Schnorr was truly horrifying in this final frenzy of despair, and I do not believe that Kean or L. Devrient can have risen to greater power in Lear.
The impression on the audience was most instructive to me: a great deal, such as the almost mute scene following release from the enchantment of the Venusberg was affecting in the true sense and occasioned stormy outbursts of undivided general emotion. On the whole, however, I observed more amazement and astonishment: in particular, that which was wholly new, like the otherwise always omitted Act II finale passage already discussed, produced, as a result of confusion regarding that which is customary, an effect bordering on alienation. I had straightaway to suffer myself to be instructed by an otherwise highly intelligent friend that I had no right to wish to have Tannhäuser performed my way, as the audience, like my friends who had everywhere received this work favourably, had obviously thereby stated that the more comfortable, more subdued interpretation of hitherto was basically the correct one, even if unsatisfactory to me. Objection that such assertions were foolish was accepted with a friendly and indulgent shrug in order that they might be persisted in. — And this quite general mollycoddling, indeed, beggaring, not only of public taste, but even of the views of our often interfering immediate circle was something that we now had jointly to hold out against: and this, in simple agreement concerning the right and the true, we did, creating and working in silence, undemonstrative save in artistic action.
And this too was now in the making with my fervent associate’s return early the following April for full rehearsals of ‘Tristan’. Never will the most incompetent of singers and musicians have been more ready to receive so much minute instruction as this leading singer at the very peak of mastery: the apparently highly pedantic pertinacity of my directions, since he immediately understood their sense, was greeted always with only the most joyous acceptance, so that I should really have appeared dishonest in my own eyes, had I, thinking to be found not sensitive by him, tried to suppress the slightest criticism. The reason for this lay, however, in my friend’s having derived an ideal understanding of my work from within the work itself, and having made it truly his own. Not a single thread was there of this fabric of mind and heart that escaped him, or was not felt with the utmost sensitivity, and not a single suggestion, however faint, of the most obscure connection. All that now remained was to judge the technical means of singer, musician and actor most precisely in order everywhere to match personal gifts and their peculiarity with the ideal object of the performance. Any who attended these studies are unlikely to recall ever having experienced anything similar in terms of harmony between artists and friends.
Only concerning Act III of ‘Tristan’ did I say nothing to Schnorr ever apart from my earlier explanation of the one passage he did not understand. Having during the rehearsals of Acts I and II riveted both ear and eye on the tension in my actors, at the beginning of Act III I instinctively turned away from the sight of the mortally wounded hero on his bed of pain to sit motionless on my seat, eyes half closed, absorbing myself into myself. At the first rehearsal, the unusual duration of my apparent total apathy, my never once turning towards the singer throughout that immense scene, even at his most impassioned moments — indeed my doing no more than stir, seemed to have caused Schnorr inner embarrassment. For when finally, after the love-curse, I staggered to my feet quietly to tell my wonderful friend, bending to him still stretched on his couch, and in emotive embrace, that I had no judgement to pass on my ideal which, through him, had now been fulfilled, his dark eyes flashed like the star of love: a scarce audible sob, and never another solemn word from either of us concerning this Act III. But, as an indication of my feelings on this subject, I would permit myself jests such as: Writing a thing like this Act III was easy, but having now to listen to it from Schnorr — that was difficult, which was why, at first, I was not able to look. —
In truth, even now, three years later as I write these notes, I still find it impossible to express myself concerning this achievement of Schnorr’s in that performance of ‘Tristan’ Act III, and perhaps for the reason that it defies comparison. At a total loss how to convey merely a rough idea of it, I can, I believe, capture for future consideration so terribly fleeting a miracle of the art of musical and dramatic performance only by recommending friends genuinely disposed towards me and my works, always in future to take up the score of this Act III. They would have, to begin with, to submit only the orchestra to closer examination, and there, from the opening of the act, with ‘Tristan’ stretched out as if lifeless, to his actual dying, follow the musical motives that restlessly arise, evolve, combine, separate then merge anew, grow, diminish, and at last contend, intermingle and almost intertwine themselves. Then let be perceived that these motives which, for the sake of their significant utterance, have required the most detailed harmonization, as also independently agitated orchestral treatment, express a life of feeling that alternates violently between utter desire for bliss and a most determined yearning for death, the like of which could not, hitherto, have been dared with a comparable wealth of combination in a purely symphonic movement, and which, consequently, it has been possible to realize here only by virtue of an abundance of applied instrumental combinations such as hardly any purely instrumental composers have seen themselves obliged to bring so richly into play. Now let one tell oneself that this whole gigantic orchestra should relate to the vocal task of the singer lying stretched on the couch, merely as the accompaniment to a so-called aria, and accordingly draw one’s own conclusions as to Schnorr’s achievement when I invoke every true listener at those Munich performances to testify that from first beat to last all attention and all sympathy was directed towards the performer, towards the singer, and remained riveted upon him, and that never for an instant was there distraction or diversion vis-a-vis as much as a single word of the text, but rather that the orchestra disappeared completely vis-a-vis the singer, or, more correctly, seemed to be included in his performance. Certainly, to characterize the incomparable greatness of this artistic achievement on the part of my friend, all is said to him who has closely studied the score of this act, when I say that it was, on the other hand, by the dress rehearsals that impartial members of the audience were already predicting that this act would prove the most popular success.
As I attended the four performances we had of Tristan, what at first had been awestruck astonishment at the achievement of my friend became intensified within me to the point of veritable dismay. In the end it seemed to me an outrage to have to think of this feat made, say, a part of our repertoire, an achievement to be repeated on demand. And at the fourth performance, after Tristan’s love-curse, I felt constrained to declare determinedly to those around that ‘this was the last performance of Tristan; I would not allow another.’ — It may well be difficult clearly to convey the sense of my feeling over this. Anxiety at the sacrifice of physical strength by my friend was no part of it, for that, as a result of experience, had been completely reduced to silence. On this point, the experienced singer Anton Mitterwurzer, who, as Schnorr’s colleague at the Dresden Theatre, and his companion, as Kurwenal, at the Munich production of Tristan, took the most profound and sympathetic interest in both the achievements and the fate of our friend, expressed himself very accurately and appositely: when his Dresden colleagues cried loudly that Schnorr had destroyed himself with ‘Tristan’, he very sensibly objected that anyone who, like Schnorr, was in the fullest sense master of his task, could never over-extend his physical powers, in which was included the application of those powers to the successful accomplishment of the task as a whole. Indeed, neither during nor after the performance was the slightest weakening of his voice observed or any other sign of physical exhaustion: on the contrary, if, before performances, he was kept in a constant state of excitement by his concern for success, so, following each fine new success a most cheerful and vigorous mood and bearing would immediately make its appearance. It was the results gained through such experiences and very accurately judged by Mitterwurzer which, on the contrary, caused us seriously to consider how these results might be exploited for the founding of a new style of musical and dramatic performance corresponding to the true spirit of German art. And here, out of my meeting with Schnorr, which had blossomed into such fervent association, an unexpectedly favourable prospect was opening for the results of combined work in the future.
The inexhaustibility of the gift of the true genius thus became very clear to us from our experience of Schnorr’s voice. This it was, full, mellow and lustrous, which, the moment it had to serve as the direct instrument for resolving a task completely mastered mentally, produced upon us precisely that impression of genuine inexhaustibility. What no singing teacher in the world is able to teach we found it possible to learn solely from the example of the solving of such tasks. But what are these tasks for which our singers have not yet found the correct style? They present themselves firstly as an unusual demand on the physical stamina of their voices, and if the singing teacher tries to help with this, he believes — and from his point of view, with justice — that he has only to resort to material means for strengthening the voice, and in the sense of an absolute naturalizing of its functions. In this process, the voice is conceived, as in the fundamentals of its training, only as a human and animal organ; if now by further training the musical soul of this organ is at last to be developed, then for this purpose the given examples of the voice’s application can still only serve as the norm, and, accordingly, the problems posed here are what is of importance for all else. But the singing voice has hitherto been trained solely after the model of Italian song: there has been no other kind. But Italian song was inspired by the whole spirit of Italian music: and at their best, it was the castrati who suited it to greatest perfection, this spirit being directed only towards sensual well-being without any real anguish of soul, — the youthful male voice, the tenor, being at that time employed not at all, or, as was later the case, in a falsetto castrato role. But now the tendency of more modern music, under the inevitably acknowledged leadership of German musical art, has, particularly through Beethoven, elevated itself to heights of true artistic dignity by, for the first time, drawing into the domain of its incomparable expression not only the sensually pleasing but also the mentally vigorous and the profoundly passionate. How must the male voice, trained in accordance with the earlier musical tendency, relate now to the tasks offered by modern German music? Developed on a sense-appealing material basis it can see demands made on, in turn, purely material strength and power, and to train voices for these therefore appears to the singing teacher to be the important task. How erroneous this is it is easy to see, for any male voice trained only for material power will, in attempting to resolve the tasks of more modern German music such as are presented in my dramatic works, immediately succumb and wear itself out to no avail if the singer is not completely equal to the mental content of the task. The most convincing example of this was provided for us by Schnorr, and to show quite clearly the far-reaching and wholly disuniting distinction involved, I cite my experience of that passage in the adagio of the second finale of Tannhäuser: ‘Zum Heil des Sündigen’ (For the salvation of the sinful), etc. If nature has in our time produced a miracle in the shape of a masculinely beautiful natural male voice, then it is the tenor voice of Tichatschek which has endured now for forty years, ever powerful and sonorous. Any who, last year, heard the story of the Holy Grail performed in most noble and rich-sounding simplicity, were deeply moved and affected by a miracle experienced in reality. But some twenty-four years ago, after the first performance in Dresden, I had been obliged to delete that passage in Tannhäuser because Tichatschek, who at that time was in most brilliant and powerful possession of his voice, could not, after the bent of his dramatic talent, master its expression as that of ecstatic contrition, but, over some high notes, lapsed into purely physical exhaustion. If now I testify that Schnorr not only performed this passage with most moving expression but also produced the same dynamic high notes of anguish, I certainly do not wish to set Schnorr’s voice above Tichatschek’s as if it surpassed it in natural power, but precisely to vindicate the latter’s uncommonly equipped natural voice vis-a-vis the inexhaustibility in the service of mental comprehension which we had experienced.
With the recognition of Schnorr’s immense importance for my own artistic creation, a new spring of hope arrived in my life. Discovered now was the direct bond which should link my work fruitfully with the present. Here was something to learn and something to teach: what had been universally-doubted, mocked and calumniated was now to be turned into incontestable artistic achievement. The founding of a German style in the performance and acting of works of the German Spirit — that became our watch-word. And making this hope for a great and gradual blossoming my own, I now declared myself opposed to any immediate repetition of Tristan: with this performance, as with the work itself, a too violent, almost.desperate leap forward had been made, and over into ground that was new and to be won for the first time: gulfs and abysses yawned between, and had first carefully to be filled in to prepare for urgently needed associates a way across to that eminence where we stood alone. —
Now Schnorr was to belong to us: the founding of a Royal School for Music and Dramatic Art had been decided upon. The considerations imposed by the difficulty of freeing the artist from his Dresden engagements led us in turn to the particular character of the post for which we, from our side, had good things to offer the singer to make it a worthy one once and for all. Schnorr was to withdraw from the theatre completely, and, as a teacher at our school, be required to collaborate only in special theatrical productions that served to confirm out instructional aim. This too was to declare freed of the drudgery of the common opera repertoire an artist of the noblest mettle. And what it had meant to him to have to languish in this drudgery was something that I could feel and understand most clearly: indeed, throughout my own life, the most insoluble, tormenting and degrading burdens, worries and humiliations have proceeded from that one misunderstanding which, by virtue of the constraints of external position in life and the state of affairs, has presented me to the world and to all aesthetic and social relationships therein contained, simply as opera composer and opera conductor. If this strange quid pro quo has been the cause of placing me in a state of constant confusion concerning all my relationships with the world, and particularly my attitude to its demands on me, then the sufferings which that profoundly inspired, nobly and truly gifted young artist had to endure in the position of opera singer subject to a theatre code devised against recalcitrant stage heroes, and bound in obedience to uneducated and conceited professional managers, were not to be underestimated. Schnorr was intended by nature to be a musician and a poet; like me, he passed from a generally scholarly education to the special study of music; he learnt, apart from musical theory, to play the piano well, and seemed likely to be well on the way to following wholly in my footsteps when he developed the voice which, in its inexhaustibility, was to serve the fulfilment of my most ideal demands. And so no other expedient was offered by our modern culture than to accept theatrical engagements and become ‘a tenor’, rather as Liszt, in a similar way, became ‘a pianist’. But now, under the patronage of a Sovereign high-mindedly inclined towards precisely my ideal of German Art, the scion was at last to be implanted in our culture, that, in growing and blossoming, would have prepared the ground for real German artistic existences, and indeed it was time for this deliverance to be offered to the oppressed spirits of my friend. Here it was that the secret worm lay concealed which was gnawing at the serene life force of this artistic being. And this was borne in ever more plainly upon me when I saw, to my amazement, the impassioned, indeed wrathful, violence with which, in his theatrical dealings, he confronted improprieties such as occur constantly in dealings which are a mixture of bureaucratic narrow-mindedness and professional lack of conscience, and yet are not perceived as such by those affected. Once he complained to me, ‘Oh, it’s not what I do and sing that affects me, but lying still on the ground after the great sweat-producing heat of my scene in the final act, that is fatal. For despite all my efforts I have not been able to get them to shut out the most awful draught that blows over me ice-cold as I lie there, motionless, giving me my death of a cold!’ On our failing to perceive any sign of catarrhal cold, he observed darkly that such colds involved other, more dangerous consequences for him. His irritability during the final days of his stay in Munich assumed an ever darker hue. He appeared finally as ‘Erik’ in The Flying Dutchman, performing this difficult episodic role to our highest admiration, indeed, arousing real horror by the strange sombre violence which — entirely in accordance with my express wishes — he allowed to blaze up like dark consuming fire in the suffering of this unhappy lover. On this evening he gave only brief indications of a deep depression concerning all around him. Also doubts concerning the realization of our pleasing plans and projects seemed to assail him; he seemed unable to grasp how out of this matter-of-fact, wholly unfeeling, indeed, treacherously and hostilely lurking environment to our work, any seriously intended good could accrue. For the time being, all he could hear were urgent demands from Dresden to appear on a certain day to rehearse “Trovatore’ or ‘Huguenots’.
From this sombre and disquieting depression of spirits, which I too began finally to share, we were rescued by the last glorious evening that we spent together. The King had commanded a private audition at the Residenz Theatre and the performance of excerpts from my various works. Out of Tannhäuser, Lohengrin, Tristan, Rhinegold, the Valkyrie, Siegfried and finally The Mastersingers, a characteristic piece was given by singers and full orchestra under my personal direction. Schnorr, hearing here for the first time much by me that was new to him, apart from singing, with ravishing power and beauty, Siegmund’s love song, Siegfried’s sword-forging songs, Loge in the Rhinegold excerpt, and finally Walther von Stolzing in a more lengthy extract from The Mastersingers, felt himself far removed from all the agony of existence. And then, returning from a half-hour interview to which the King, who had been listening entirely alone, most graciously invited him, he impetuously embraced me. ‘God, how grateful I am for this evening!’ he exclaimed. ‘Yes, now I know what it is that strengthens your faith! Oh, between this godlike King and you, I too must still prosper and become something splendid!’ — Now again it was an occasion for not another solemn word. Together with the Bülows we took tea in a hotel; quiet merriment, friendly faith, sure hope were expressed in our almost exclusively jocular conversation. “Well, tomorrow it’s back to the loathsome masquerade! Soon be free of it now, for ever.’ So sure we were of seeing each other again very soon that we thought it almost superfluous and merely inappropriate to take leave. We parted in the street with a good-night in the normal way; next morning my friend left for Dresden. —
About a week after our scarcely-heeded farewell, I received a telegram announcing Schnorr’s death. He had sung at a rehearsal, giving colleagues, who marvelled at his still having any voice, their answer. He was then affected by a dreadful rheumatism in the knee, which led in a few days to a fatal illness. His last lucid, and finally fading, moments of consciousness were occupied with our agreed plans, the acting of Siegfried, and anxiety lest over-exertion as a result of Tristan be blamed for his death. I was hoping to reach Dresden, with Bülow, by the hour for the burial of our jointly beloved friend. In vain. The body had had to be committed to the earth a few hours before the appointed time. We were too late. At that same hour, in bright July sunlight, Dresden was giving a joyous reception to the crowds arriving for the General German Choral Festival. My cabby, urged on violently by me to the house of death, said, whilst trying hard to make his way through the crowd, that nigh on 20,000 singers had gathered. ‘Yes,’ I said to myself, ‘the singer has just gone!’ In haste we turned away from Dresden. —