My very dear Sir,
It is with the most profound gratitude that I acknowledge your kind offer; and my only regret is that it may not prove possible to afford you the desired support.
The work itself which we are discussing here is one from which I have already grown estranged, and I recall only that it was in the course of writing it that I first became fully conscious of my own artistic method. I have always objected to seeing the whole vast apparatus of action, plot and history, supported by the liveliest additions of all the available arts, including painting, sculpture, gymnastics and so on, put to no better use than to drum so many ingratiating tunes into the audience’s heads; I convinced myself that the only goal commensurate with such expenditure of effort could be nothing less than the dramatic art-work itself, and that opera is superior to the spoken drama in that to all other means of artistic expression it adds the richest, most varied and most exhaustive of all, namely music. The Greeks, and perhaps also a handful of our own medieval dramatists, were able to bestow upon drama the advantages of musical expression without thereby altering the drama in any substantial way: in our own day, by contrast, the heroes of absolute music (i.e. music divorced from the art of poetry), and especially Beethoven, have raised the expressive potential of music, notably through their handling of the orchestra, to the level of a completely new artistic force which had earlier scarcely been dreamt of, even by Gluck himself; yet throughout this development, music was bound to have an important influence on drama, since it is in the nature of music to seek to express its own potential. Drama itself had therefore to extend its range of expression and it seemed to me that the musician alone was capable of discovering and developing this quality - a quality which matched the expressive potential of music. Although in this way I elevated the musician to the status of a poet, I could never have allowed him to lose sight of what is very much the central object of drama, not least because his own especial art - music - was now merely being pressed into service in support of a higher - and indeed the highest - artistic goal; and so the musician’s true task was bound to appear as follows: to be fully aware and inwardly conscious of the expressive potential of music and yet desire nothing but the drama itself, albeit a drama which could not come into being without the musical consciousness of the poet. In an attempt to make myself perfectly clear, I would refer you to one of the main scenes in my Tannhäuser, namely the Song Contest; it is evident that it is the poetic intent which should predominate here, indeed I had no choice in the matter, not least because this scene is required to precipitate the ensuing catastrophe; to have had the singers rival each other’s vocal skills with ornaments and cadenzas might have provided the basis for a competition in a concert hall, but it could never have produced a dramatic conflict of ideas and feelings; on the other hand, a contest involving poets, in which the participants are prepared to risk their very souls, could not be made dramatically effective without this highest and most varied potential which music has of expressing itself; and I have discovered to my satisfaction that it is precisely this scene, in which I have taken so many risks, that has claimed the liveliest and most intense interest on the part of the audience at each of the work’s performances: in this way I may triumph in the knowledge that I was able to hold the attention of an audience unaccustomed to such things, and that my appeal was conceptual and not merely emotional.
Let me sum up briefly: the course I am now embarked upon is that of a musician who, setting out from a convinced belief in the most inexhaustible riches of music, wishes to create the highest of all art forms, namely drama. I say wishes, in order to indicate that this is something I am striving towards; whether I can achieve this ideal is not for me to judge, but, if I stray from this ideal, it will be in consequence of my inferior abilities, not because I lack the necessary resolve.
If, on the basis of this brief communication, it is possible for you to gain some idea of the nature of my achievements, it can only be welcome to me: I could send you more words, but not more substance. Please be satisfied with this, and, if possible, continue to show me your kind concern.
Requesting that you convey my very best wishes to Liszt, I am, Sir,
Your most respectful and obedient servant,
Richard Wagner.
Source: Selected Letters of Richard Wagner, trans. and ed. Stewart Spencer and Barry Millington (W. W. Norton & Company, 1988), No. 83