Uhlig! Uhlig! you are a Herrgottstausendsakramenter! You have again kept me waiting a pretty time for a letter. This time I also have not been so quick with an answer, but have first finished my Walküre. This was yesterday, after a month's work. If you were here I should read you the piece to-day; but it will be some time before I have a copy to spare, for I am again in a very weak state. I work indeed in too impetuous a manner! Now, indeed, when the whole of the big poem is on the point of completion, I begin to ask myself whether I ought not to wish that my friends should become acquainted with it sooner than they would if I first worked out all the music. I feel as if I could not bear so long to know that the poem had not been communicated to them. I cannot possibly give it yet to the printers. It would seem to be a sin against myself now to put into the desecrating hands of our mud-throwing critics that which, in fact, is only half-finished so long as the composition of the music is incomplete. It is something different with my true friends, who, by their sympathy, can only urge me on and assist me while I am at work. I have, therefore, thought of having twenty-five to thirty copies of the whole poem made in facsimile reprint, so as to place them, after careful review, before my friends. Unfortunately, there is this inconvenience, that I, poor wretch, should have to play the "generous" — for how could I allow these copies to be paid for? It could only be thought of if I were approached by a number of my friends, who begged me to lend them my manuscript for the purpose of having copies made, and who had subscribed among themselves to defray the printing expenses. Everything is exceptional with an unlucky bungler such as I am.
To-morrow week I must go to Bâle for the choral festival of the Helvetic confederacy, at which I have been appointed umpire! Unfortunately they got round me here just as I was on the point of refusing the invitation. On my return I shall set out about the middle of July on a real Alpine tour — i.e., I shall visit the Bernese Oberland, go over the Gries glacier down a long, magnificent valley as far as Domo d'Ossola (Sardinia), to the Lago Maggiore, ascend the lake as far as Locarno, from there to Lugano (all in the Tessin canton), where I shall probably stop, for it must be heavenly. Possibly I may finish the verses of the grand prologue to my three dramas. This all depends upon the state of my purse. I have not a farthing as yet, and I know of no other way to help myself than to write to Liszt to get the Weimar honorarium for the Flying Dutchman in advance. I am in daily expectation of an answer from him. Do you think a single creature has given me news of the Ballenstedt musical festival? The beggarly rôle which I play with regard to the rising generation begins to annoy me.
I shall not have the Nibelungen work ready before the autumn (September, October). I must carefully retouch the two Siegfrieds, especially in everything which concerns the myth of the gods, for this has now assumed a much more precise and imposing aspect. I rejoice greatly at the thought of the music.
Do you know anything about the articles of Fétis père in the Gazette Musicale about me? I was told about them here, and found at the Museum already three leading articles, "Richard Wagner," etc., etc., with, as it seems, plenty more to follow. In any case you must try and get them to read. M— is at last bestirring himself: he fears the propagation of my opinions in Paris. What an ass! The caricature of myself with which Fétis regales the French is complete. He gives quotations (in the meanest manner) from my Vorwort, and, with great consistency, represents me as attributing the constant failure of my operas not to any fault of my own, but to the present condition of things; and says that that's the reason I am a revolutionist. A "small protest" against some of the most reckless lies would not be amiss just now. He claims "exact information," and asserts, for example, that my Tannhäuser in Dresden had by the third performance become such a failure that it could never by any possibility be revived. And so on. In this matter R. (whom F. visited in Dresden several years ago) played him a nice hoax; but I fear my own information (in the Vorwort) may likewise have misled dullards, as I express dissatisfaction with the success of my operas. By that I naturally do not mean outward success (for should I have demanded more than to be called before the curtain at every performance of Tannhäuser?), but merely the character of the success, which made me see that the essential in my work had not been grasped, or not grasped in so convincing a manner as must have effectively shown itself in order thoroughly to satisfy me from the one true and decisive point of view. It was just the same here lately with the Flying Dutchman. No one who only looked to the outward result understood my deep dissatisfaction, and understood least of all that this especially concerned the character of the performance, which seemed to all so excellent, and, indeed, had brought about the success (of the "opera").
This last point reminds me to enclose you the accompanying documents in connection with the newspaper war concerning the Flying Dutchman, of which you know something. The rejoinder of the Züricher was followed by a bitter, vulgar, insulting answer, which I did not condescend to notice, and which, besides, was only directed against my "panegyrists," while preserving a demure and respectful demeanour toward myself. The old trick!
The National newspaper also is said to be handling me roughly at the present moment. I do not read it, because, though I should not intend to reply (and I certainly will not any more), yet what is written runs in my head for several days, and that might be occupied with something better. I don't in any way wish to represent myself as more apathetic than I am, and such experiences always make me regret that I ever put pen to paper.
I thank you much for your excellent gathering of literary fruit; also Zur Kritik des Liedes pleased me uncommonly. It was, I freely confess, an oasis in the desert to me. It may well be that your paper should best maintain itself by criticisms of all sorts, and that, to satisfy the demands of your public, you must notice everything pell-mell; and thus not only have to devote your attention to what is unimportant, but are forced to present its "good sides." Only give up all these attempts to make of the paper something different from what it was. I do not complain that it remains what it is, but that Brendel allowed my letter to him to be printed in his paper. He ought to have had the courage to decline its acceptance: that, at any rate, would have been consistent. It grieves me much, however, to have to tell you that the Musikalische Kladderadatsch makes me most unhappy. Nothing is more horrid than a "rubric" for jokes. A good joke that comes naturally is a capital thing, and carries more weight than many a serious remark. But a weekly register of wit, the heading of which calls out in advance to the reader, "Now laugh!" at once locks fast my laughter-muscles, and so it is with every man of the least taste. This Musikalische Kladderadatsch is a mistake, and I tell you this honestly, even though you should have been the cause of it. The very form is trivial, because lacking in originality; the contents are, for the most part, forced, devoid of humour; and, as I have said, inevitably so, since they appear in this ready-made form. I've had my say: I heartily wish that you may not be so deeply concerned in it as to feel really hurt by my words.
E. D. has also written to me: now I'm in for it. Fresh trouble! What shall I do with the man? To my horror I discover that the man is far more shallow and superficial than I had imagined. He can only have read the first part of my Oper und Drama, for nearly his whole letter is a defence of music against my "attacks" on it in this first part.
E. D. defends music against me. Is that not delicious? He appeals to "harmonies of the spheres," and "groanings and sighings of the soul!" Well, I have got a pretty millstone hung about my neck; for with all his stupidity this man, as I perceive, has something respectable and true-hearted about him, and one cannot but regret that one has to kick him so straight out. Well, I will write to him; say that to him with my provisional greetings. Perhaps at the Lugano lake I shall be in the mood for a letter to him.
Greetings, too, to Fischer. I received a letter from him yesterday. As it is impossible for me to answer him to-day, I beg you to set right something mentioned by him in his letter. I wrote to Hähnel about some lithographic sheets to be prepared for the Tannhäuser decorations. Through Fischer he replies: "The lithographer asks twelve thalers for every sheet; so three sheets would cost thirty-six thalers. For that I should receive nine impressions from each sheet (?), but each single sheet would cost 'three thalers' (?); so for a theatre the designs would be 'nine thalers.'"
Now, with the best will in the world, I cannot clearly make out what is meant. If I pay thirty-six thalers for the whole (why exactly nine impressions?), will each theatre still have nine thalers to pay for a copy of the three sheets?
Get an explanation of this for me, so that I can soon decide; for I shall certainly be pleased if I can send the decoration-sketches to the theatres. As for the rest, with regard to the spread of Tannhäuser, I have everything to expect. For the moment I only know of Wiesbaden. From Breslau an inquiry was addressed to Moritz; from Leipzig came the assurance that the director intended shortly to give the opera "in the most complete manner"; from Munich I have no news. Lately, when amid storm and rain I had gone off into the woods, Mantius, from Berlin (the present opera manager), came to pay me a visit, and of course did not find me. He assured my wife, however, that the Berlin management had long been thinking of Tannhäuser, only had not been able to find a suitable tenor. Now they thought they had got him in Formes, and so a speedy performance stood in prospect for Berlin.
From Frankfort I have no news. G. Schmidt has not answered.
I am very glad that you are now living in "Satannesgasse" (Dresden dialect). You are in a nice quarter of the town there: "a young lamb white as snow," etc. Have not your children got raven-black hair? And Siegfried? Good heavens! if you knew what I have now planned in my mind for him. How delighted he will be one day when he sees what has been made of him. I want to see his look of surprise.
Let me know whether you have any "increase" — I mean from Lüttichau. I hear the favours of his lordship have run riot amongst you: Lipinski, a diamond ring; R., two hundred thalers increase of salary; gold and silver medals to the members of the band. Ah! who would not wish to be there? Have you been silvered, gilded, or good-for-nothing'd? With your new dignity the last would be unbecoming treatment. Honour to whom honour is due!
R. — so Fischer writes to me — has expressed himself with all possible enthusiasm about Oper und Drama. The good fellow! I certainly owe that to your notice of his oratorio.
Well, enough of this scribbling! I could say with T. U., "the paper comes to an end." I am, on the whole, in a good humour to-day, for when I have finished such a work as the Walküre I always feel as if I had sweated some fearful anxiety out of my body — an anxiety that constantly increases as the work is drawing to a close; a kind of fear lest I might spoil something. I write my signature, with the date underneath, in as much haste as if the devil were standing behind me, and wished to prevent me from finishing.
Next week we go back into the town. We had bad weather all through June. My wife sends cordial greetings. Proper greetings to yours from me. Adieu!
Some men are not even sheep's heads, but sheep without heads (Lin. ii. 13).
Source: Richard Wagner's Letters to His Dresden Friends, Theodor Uhlig, Wilhelm Fischer, and Ferdinand Heine, trans. J. S. Shedlock (Scribner & Welford, 1890), No. 67