BY H.A. GUERBER, Author of “ MYTHS OF GREECE AND ROME ,” “ MYTHS OF NORTHERN LANDS ,” “ CONTES ET LÉGENDS ,” etc. NEW YORK: DODD, MEAD, AND COMPANY. 1905. Copyright 1895 , By Dodd, Mead and Company. University Press: John Wilson and Son, Cambridge, U.S.A. Dedicated to my Friend, M.A. McC. University Press: John Wilson and Son, Cambridge, U.S.A. Dedicated to my Friend, M.A. McC....

These short sketches, which can be read in a few moments' time, are intended to give the reader as clear as possible an outline of the great dramatist-composer's work. The author is deeply indebted to Professor G.T. Dippold, to Messrs. Forman, Jackman, and Corder, and to the Oliver Ditson Company, for the poetical quotations scattered throughout the text....

Wagner was greatly troubled in the beginning of his career about the choice of subjects for his operas. His first famous work, ‘Rienzi,’ is founded upon the same historical basis as Bulwer's novel bearing the same name, and is a tragic opera in five acts. The composer wrote the poem and the first two acts of the score in 1838, during his residence at Riga, and from there carried it with him to Boulogne. There he had an interview with Meyerbeer, after his memorable sea journey. Wagner submitted h

After leaving Riga, where he had accepted the position of Music Director, which he filled acceptably for some time, Wagner went to Pillau, where he embarked on a sailing vessel bound for London. He was accompanied by his wife and by a huge Newfoundland dog, and during this journey learned to know the sea, and became familiar with the sound of the sailors' songs, the creaking of the rigging, the whistling of the wind, and the roar and crash of the waves. This journey made a deep impression upon h

In 1829, when Wagner was only sixteen years of age, he first became acquainted, through Hoffmann's novels, with the story of the mastersingers of Nürnberg, and with the mediæval legend of Tannhäuser, as versified by Ludwig Tieck. The ‘mystical coquetry and frivolous catholicism’ of this modern poem repelled him, and it was not until twelve years later, when he chanced upon a popular version of the same story, that he was struck by its dramatic possibilities. A chance mention of the Sängerkrieg o

During a summer vacation at Teplitz in Bohemia, in 1845, Wagner wrote the first sketch of the opera of ‘Lohengrin.’ The poem was written at Dresden in 1845, but the score was finished only in 1848. The opera was first performed at Weimar in 1850, under the leadership of Liszt, who was greatly interested in it, and determined to make it a success. The poet composer had taken the idea for this poem from a mediæval legend, based upon the old Greek myth of Cupid and Psyche. Its poetical and musical

It was in 1854, when still an exile from his native land, that Wagner, weary of his long work, ‘The Ring of the Niblungs,’ of which only the first two parts were completed, conceived the idea of using the legend of Tristan as basis for a popular opera. Three years later the poem was finished, but the opera was played in Munich only in 1865 for the first time. The libretto is based on an ancient Celtic myth or legend, which was very popular during the Middle Ages. It was already known in the seve

When Richard Wagner was only sixteen years of age he read with great enthusiasm one of Hoffmann's novels entitled ‘Sängerkrieg,’ giving a romantic account of the ancient musical contests at the Wartburg in Bavaria. The impression made upon him by this account was first utilised in his opera of ‘Tannhäuser,’ when his attention was attracted also to the picturesque possibilities of the guilds formed by the burghers. It was not until 1845, however, that he made definite use of this material, and be

It was in 1848, after the completion of Tannhäuser, that Wagner looked about for a subject for a new opera. Then ‘for the last time the conflicting claims of History and Legend presented themselves.’ He had studied the story of Barbarossa, intending to make use of it, but discarded it in favour of the Nibelungen Myths, which he decided to dramatise.  1  His first effort was an alliterative poem entitled ‘The Death of Siegfried,’ which, however, was soon set aside, a part of it only being incorpo

Wotan—made secretly uneasy by Erda's dark prediction that ‘Nothing that is ends not; A day of gloom Dawns for the gods;— Be ruled and waive from the ring’— relinquishes the ring which he had wrested from Alberich, as has been seen. His restlessness however daily increases, until at last he penetrates in disguise into the dark underground world and woos the fair earth goddess. So successfully does he plead his cause, that she receives him as her spouse and bears him eight lovely daughters. She al

Sieglinde, having dragged herself into the depths of the great untrodden forest, dwelt there in utter solitude until the time came for her son Siegfried to come into the world. Sick and alone, the poor woman went about in search of aid, and finally came to Mime's cavern, where, after giving birth to her child and intrusting him to the care of the dwarf, she gently breathed her last. Here, in the grand old forest, young Siegfried grew up to manhood, knowing nothing of his parentage except the lie

The Norns, or Northern goddesses of fate, are seen in the dim light before dawn, busily weaving the web of destiny on the rocky hillside where the Walkyries formerly held their tryst. As they twist their rope, which is stretched from north to south, they sing of the age of gold. Then they sat beneath the great world-ash, near the limpid well, where Wotan had left an eye in pledge to win a daily draught of wisdom. They also sing how the god tore from the mighty ash a limb which he fashioned into

It was while he was searching for the material for Tannhäuser, that Wagner came across Wolfram von Eschenbach's poems of ‘Parsifal’ and ‘Titurel,’  4  and, as he reports, ‘an entirely new world of poetical matter suddenly opened before me.’ Wagner made no use of this idea, however, until 1857, some fifteen years later, when he drew up the first sketch of his Parsifal, during his residence at Zurich; twenty years later he finished the poem at Bayreuth. He then immediately began the music, althoug