قراءة كتاب Wagner as I Knew Him
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Leipzic personally to supervise the rehearsals and to acquaint my father, then the conductor of the theatre, as to the special reading of certain parts. The work excited the utmost enthusiasm in Leipzic, and was performed there innumerable times. I, the son of the conductor, having free entry to the theatre, went nightly, and acquired thus early a thoroughly intimate acquaintance with the work, such as Wagner also had gained by his frequent visits to the Dresden theatre through his family’s connection with the stage. In after-life we found that Weber and his works had exercised over both of us the same fascination. In 1844, the remains of the loved idol, Weber, were removed from Moorfields Chapel, London, to Dresden. At that time I was residing in London, and, in conjunction with Max von Weber, the composer’s eldest son, and others, obtained the necessary authority and carried out the removal. Wagner was in Germany. There he received the body, and on its final interment pronounced the funeral oration over the adored artist.
In this country, where I have now lived for an unbroken period of fifty-one years, I was Wagner’s first and sole champion, and, notwithstanding all the calumny with which he was persistently assailed (which even now has not entirely ceased), stood firmly by him.
It was through my sole exertions that the Philharmonic Society in 1855 offered Wagner the post of conductor. His acceptance and retention of the post for one season are now matters of history.
Wagner returned to London in 1877 to conduct the “Wagner Festival” concerts at the Albert Hall. As his sixty-fourth birthday fell during these concerts, some ardent friends promoted a banquet in his honour at the Cannon Street Hotel on the 23d May. To that banquet I was invited, and great was my amazement when Wagner, the applauded of all, spontaneously and without the least hint to me, warmly and affectionately said:—
“It is now twenty-two years ago since I came to this country, unacknowledged as a composer and attacked on all sides by a hostile press. Then I had but one friend, one support, one who acknowledged and boldly defended me, one who has clung to me ever since with unchanging affection; this is my friend Ferdinand Praeger.”
My Lord, I have felt it desirable to address these preliminary remarks to you as indicative of the manner in which I propose to treat my friend’s life and work. Wagner was extremely voluble, and, with his intimate friends, most unreserved. He was a man of strong affections and strong memory, and to those he loved he freely spoke of those whom he loved, and thus I believe I am the sole recipient of many of his early impressions and reminiscences, of his thoughts and ambitions in after-life. Therefore shall I tell the story of his life and work, as he made me see it and as I knew him, keeping back nothing, believing as I do that the world has a right to know how its great men live: their lives are its lawful inheritance.
It is with deep affection that I undertake a work prompted by your Lordship’s love for the true in art, and it is to you that I dedicate the result of my labour.
Ferdinand Praeger.
London, 15th June, 1885.
CONTENTS.
| CHAPTER I. | |
| 1813-1821. | |
| PAGE | |
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“The child is father to the man”—Musician, poet, and dramatist—Stage reformer—His grandfather a customs officer—His father, Frederick Wagner, an officer of police, student, and amateur actor—Death of Frederick, 1813—His mother—Eldest brother, Albert, a tenor singer—Sisters Rosalie, Louisa, and Clara, actresses of repute—Ludwig Geyer, a Leipzic actor—Marries Widow Wagner—Family removes to Dresden—Affection of his step-father and mother for him—The girls receive piano-forte lessons—Richard receives a few lessons in drawing from Geyer—Beyond this, up to his ninth year, no regular education is attempted with him—Geyer not of a robust constitution—Wagner plays the bridal chorus from “Der Freischütz” by ear—Geyer’s prediction and death |
1 |
| CHAPTER II. | |
| 1822-1827. | |
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His visit to an uncle Geyer at Eisleben—The Kreuzschule, Dresden—His facility for languages—His modesty—Wagner a small man—Personal appearance described—Wonder of school professors at unusual mental activity of the delicate small boy—A prey to erysipelas—Love of practical joking—Incident of the Kreuzschule roof—An adept in all bodily exercises—His acrobatic feats—Love for his mother—Affection for animals |
10 |
| CHAPTER III. | |
| 1822-1827. Continued. | |
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Richard Wagner enters the Kreuzschule, Dresden, December, 1822—Translation of part of the “Odyssey” by private work—Begins to learn English to read Shakespeare—Writes prize elegy in Germany at eleven years of age—Theodore Körner, pupil of the Kreuzschule and poet of freedom—Metrical translation of Romeo’s monologue—His first lessons on the piano—Hatred of finger exercises—Berlioz—Up to fourteen his aspirations distinctly musical |
20 |
| CHAPTER IV. | |
| LEIPZIC, 1827-1831. | |
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Return to Leipzic—The Stadttheater; Rosalie and Louise—Jews, their treatment by Leipzic townspeople—Wagner’s attitude towards them—His first love a Jewess—At the St. Nicolas school three years, St. Thomas school and the University a few months each—Describes himself during his Leipzic school-days as “wild, negligent, and idle”—Reprehensible gambling of his mother’s pension—Crisis of his life—Haydn’s symphonies at the theatres and Beethoven’s symphonies in the concert-room—Beethoven a pessimist—Haydn and Mozart optimists—Resolve to become a musician—Private study of theory—His first overture, 1830, laughed at—His marvellously neat penmanship—Takes lessons from Cantor Weinlig—Writes a sonata without one original idea or one phrase of more than common interest—Beethoven his daily study—Weber and Beethoven his models—Combines in himself the special gifts of both, the idealism of the former and the reasoned working of the latter |
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