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Since the sojourn in Marienbad, where I had conceived the Meistersinger and Lohengrin, I had never occupied myself again with that poem; now its noble possibilities struck me with overwhelming force, and out of my thoughts about Good Friday I rapidly conceived a whole drama, of which I made a rough sketch with a few dashes of the pen, dividing the whole into three acts.
Except in the "Meistersinger," all Wagner's personages are heroic, and for the most part those supreme sublimations of humanity, the people of legend, Tannhauser, Tristan, Siegfried, Parsifal, have at once all that is in humanity and more than is hi humanity.
Good old Conductor Esser tried hard to persuade me to assign the part of Tristan to another tenor of the theatre named Walter, but the very idea of him was so odious to me that I could not even bring myself to hear him in Lohengrin. I therefore let the matter sink into oblivion, and concentrated myself exclusively on getting into touch with the Meistersinger again.
Not his theories, but his artist's instinct, taught him how to do it as it is done in the Meistersinger. His theories try to explain his work, but by just so much as his work is consciously founded on his theories, by just so much is it less perfect than it would have been had he preserved his unconsciousness.
His only significant essay in the field of comedy was made in "Die Meistersinger," and this is as faithful to the old conception of comedy as the dramas mentioned are to that of tragedy. It deals with the manners, vices, and follies of the common people; and, therefore, it has local environment and illustrates a period in history.
Herr von Hulsen declared that he would not countenance my visit to Berlin, while as to giving a concert at the great Kroll Restaurant, Bulow found after much deliberation that it would be quite impracticable. Whilst I was busily engaged on a detailed scenic sketch of the Meistersinger, the arrival of Prince and Princess Metternich in Vienna seemed to create a favourable diversion on my behalf.
Many musicians, on the other hand, have felt Wagner's wilful avoidance of the possibilities of choral effect to detract seriously from the musical interest of the opera, and for that reason have found 'Tristan und Isolde' less satisfying as a work of art than 'Parsifal' or 'Die Meistersinger, in which the chorus takes its proper place.
In 1865 "Tristan und Isolde" was performed at Munich, and was followed three years later by a comic opera, "Die Meistersinger," the first sketches of which date from 1845. His first wife, from whom he had been separated in 1861, died at Dresden in 1866.
She led me through a room where were enormous barrels, ten feet in diameter, lying fatly on their sides; then through a large stone-clean kitchen, with bright pans, ancient as the Meistersinger; then up some steps and into the long guest-room, where a few tables were laid for supper. A few people were eating.
A melody from Die Meistersinger came to her mind, the hymn that the good people of Nuremberg sing when Hans Sachs, their favorite singer, as bounteous and gentle as the Eternal Father, steps out on the platform for the contest in poetry.
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