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"Braith and Rex go in for the Meistersinger, Walkuere, and all that rot but I like some tune to my music." "Well, you're going to get it now," said Braith; "the band are taking their places. Now for La Belle Helene." He glanced at Gethryn, who had turned aside and leaned on the table, shading his eyes with his program.
"Die Meistersinger" followed on June 21,1868. Both these works were received with enthusiasm by the ever-growing band of Wagner-lovers. At the suggestion of the eminent pianist, Carl Taussig, Wagner societies were formed in the cities of Europe and America to raise funds for this festival and give Wagner a chance to establish a tradition by showing the world how his operas should be performed.
I have known him to sit down under a parlor-lamp and read over the score of the "Meistersinger" just as easily as you or I would peruse one of the lighter novels of the day. This was one of his refuges. When his spirit was subjected to an extreme tension he relieved his soul by flying to the composers; to use his own very bad joke, when he was in need of composure he sought out the "composures."
When listening to the end of Die Meistersinger I felt how the haughty music of the great march reflected the spirit of this military nation of shop-keepers, bursting with rude health and complacent pride. The most remarkable thing of all is that German artists are gradually losing the power of understanding their own splendid classics and, in particular, Beethoven.
"Tristan und Isolde," 1857-59; Munich, 1865. "Siegfried," 1857-69; Bayreuth, 1876. "Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg," 1861-67; Munich, 1868. "Die Götterdämmerung," 1870-74; Bayreuth, 1876. "Parsifal," 1876-82; Bayreuth, 1882. Richard Strauss was born in Munich June 11th, 1864. His father, Franz Strauss, was first horn-player in the Munich Court Orchestra.
My brother-in-law was not to be deterred by these painful impressions from carrying out the household festivities, which had been arranged beforehand in celebration of my expected triumphs. The Bulows were also invited to one of the banquets, and there was an evening party at which I read the Meistersinger to an imposing array of professors, and met with much appreciation.
"Die Meistersinger" is photographic in many of its scenes, personages, and incidents; but so far as the stage pictures which we are accustomed to see in the opera-houses of New York and the European capitals are concerned, this statement must be taken with a great deal of allowance, owing to the fact that opera directors, stage managers, scene painters, and costumers are blithely indifferent to the verities of history.
The idea of the band, which Evelyn had thought of bringing down in the intention of giving the Forest Murmurs and the Bird Music, had been abandoned, but the finest exponent of Wagner on the piano had come to play the usual things: the closing scene of the "Walküre," the overture of the "Meistersinger" and the Prelude of "Tristan."
It is all very well to sit by some neutral fireside reading Goethe or Schopenhauer, while listening to the Meistersinger von Nurnberg, or the "Melody in F," and lull yourself into the belief that the Germans are a race of idealists. This touch is used to a considerable extent in German propaganda.
There were two selections from Rheingold and two from the Walkure and the Meistersinger, but I kept back the prelude to Tristan for the present, so as not to clash with the performance of the whole work at the Opera which was still being advertised.
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