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But let us proceed to a consideration of the other reasons which Wagner suggests as an explanation of the retrogression of Darwinism.
One of the traits to which he owes his great success as a Wagner conductor is his instinctive perception of what parts can be omitted with the minimum of injury to the work he is interpreting. Except at Bayreuth, Wagner's later works did not especially prosper at first, because they were either too long or injudiciously cut. Herr Seidl, however, succeeded with them everywhere.
On the ensuing evening, Francisco, Count of Riverola, was seated in one of the splendid saloons of his palace, pondering upon the strange injunction which he had received from his deceased father, relative to the mysterious closet, when Wagner was announced. Francisco rose to receive him, saying in a cordial though melancholy tone, "Signor, I expected you."
From this degrading condition of dullness and distrust, we were roused, one morning, by the happy arrival of Mrs. Wagner, attended by her maid, her courier and Jack Straw. Circumstances had obliged my aunt to perform the last stage of her journey to Frankfort by the night mail.
After a lapse of a year I was taken by him to Leipzig, and handed over for some days to the Wagners, my own father's relatives, consisting of my uncle Adolph and his sister Friederike Wagner. This extraordinarily interesting man, whose influence afterwards became ever more stimulating to me, now for the first time brought himself and his singular environment into my life.
No one could be greater than Grieg was great when he wrote that song. The whole last act of The Twilight of the Gods is not greater than a little song of Grieg's. 'I see, I murmured humbly. 'The Twilight of the Gods that is Wagner, isn't it? 'Yes. Don't you know your Wagner? 'No. 'You don't know Tristan? He jumped up, excited. 'How could I know it? I expostulated.
Just then the moon sailed from under the cloud, and there in the moonlight lay poor Billy Whiskers stunned and nearly frightened to death with a flesh wound in his side. When Mr. Wagner saw what he had done, and that it was only the goat, he pulled down the window, and went to bed, too mad to even go to see if the goat was dead or not.
Unfortunately, the king soon gave his people a plausible excuse for fault-finding by the unbounded favor which he bestowed upon Wagner, whose ideas and whose music were at that time alike obnoxious to the majority of Germans.
Dannreuther see Finck's "Wagner and his Works" that "Mozart's music and Mozart's orchestra are a perfect match; an equally perfect balance exists between Palestrina's choir and Palestrina's counterpoint, and I find a similar correspondence between Chopin's piano and some of his Etudes and Preludes I do not care for the Ladies' Chopin; there is too much of the Parisian salon in that, but he has given us many things which are above the salon."
Wagner wanted a contrast to the imposing displays of the first act, so he simply put in this unnecessary scene. The patricians enter and whine, begging for mercy; Rienzi, now Tribune, joins the senators; and Colonna, Orsini and the rest begin to plot his death.