Wagner

'Let me read you this from the Dresdner Anzeiger

'of February 14th, 1883-

"'A heavy and altogether unexpected bereavement has befallen musicians

"'of every race, country and degree.

"'We learn by telegraph from Venice

"'that the greatest of contemporary composers,

"'Richard Wagner, the second husband of Cosima Liszt,

"'died there at four o'clock of yesterday afternoon.

"'He occupied a loftier station

"'than King or Kaiser, Pope or President.

"'No monarch was ever more enthusiastically served

"'than has been Richard Wagner.

"'Lnfallibility, embodied in a Roman pontiff,

"'has never been more implicitly believed in

"'by the most orthodox Catholic

"'than it has been in the person of the...

"'Bayreuth Prophet!"

'Put well, do you not think?

'Put well. '

'It goes on, it goes on -

"'Time and space fail us even to make passing reference to the literary labours

"'with which his busiest years were in great part occupied.

"'A free thinker in matters religious,

"'a democrat in matters political,

"'of a surpassingly combative temperament,

"'Wagner could scarcely fail to involve himself

"'in the revolutionary agitations of 1848,

"'in Dresden, where he held some minor musical appointment. "

'Minor!

'Ln the light of Wagner's future, perhaps,

'but Kapellmeister to King Friedrich August II of Saxony was a post!

'To those of us here in Dresden, a respected post.

'Lrksome to have to visit the King in his castle at Pillnitz,

'a song in one's pocket,

'to have to make music in praise of one of those very princelings

'one's political soul cried out against...

'But that was the condition of Germany in the 19th century.

'Lnsignificant city states.

'And it was a post! '

# Sei uns gegrüßt, Du Deines Volkes Lust!

# Sei uns gegrüßt

# Sei uns gegrüßt...

#... in Deiner Lieben Mitte

# An Deiner Teuren Brust

# Treu Deiner Väter Sitte

# Nah Deines Volkes Lust

# Sei uns gegrüßt, Du Deines Volkes...

Lüttichau...

Majesty?

Who's responsible for this noise?

Reissiger conducted the piece,

and it was got together by Herr Wagner, Your Majesty.

- Wagner? - Wagner.

Very well conducted, the piece.

Herr who? Herr who?

- Reissiger. - Oh... oh.

I lay myself at your feet, Majesty.

The piece does have within it some not inconsiderable...

'Very well composed, Herr Wagner.

'Very well arse-licked, Herr Reissiger.

"'Oh, do you think so, Majesty, do you think so?

"'I did do my best. '

"Then I do dash myself under your feet, dash myself twice. "

It's different every time he relates it. We were not late. As if I'd allow him to be!

Hm? Hm?

There sat I, paws up, tail wagging,

waiting for a pat on the head from von Lüttichau,

begging to have gold put into my mouth

rather than into the mouth and tooth of His Majesty.

But what does it matter? It is the path of the liveried servant here in Saxony.

In the event I said thank you and gave my royal master the lot again.

But so moved my army in its retreat,

my Grande Armée of ill-disciplined musical invalids and veterans,

so moved them, cajoled, nudged, shoved, willed them,

the whole manoeuvre so steadily executed,

thanks to my unexampled activity,

that Reissiger never even knew we had left until von Lüttichau told him so.

The last notes falling on an echoing dream

on the royal ulcerated tooth and ear... mm?

'Wasn't wasted though. Later used it all in Tannhäuser... mm? '

Wagner! Wagner!

There is something to being German altogether curious, you know.

We can take a song like Among The Meadows And Woods,

and set it to music in such a manner that we all dissolve in tears.

And yet when we look about us and see, instead of a united fatherland,

a hotchpotch of 34 kingdoms and principalities,

we are unmoved.

Our eyes remain dry,

our hearts do not beat faster by one note.

Why? Why?

Are we little people with minuscule minds,

mere servants, ruled by and subservient to our "betters"?

I say to them, our rulers, I say,

cast your titles and distinctions from you!

We too, the common people, have ancestors.

And though they had no titles,

were not ushers of the shithouse.

Their deeds of daring, their vassalage,

their sufferings,

are writ reeking in letters of blood!

Their blood,

our blood banner!

Two camps have arisen in Europe.

The cry from one is "Republic",

the cry from the tents of the other is "Monarchy".

Monarchy?

What do you see? You see a blinded and corrupt tribe,

the rulers of Hessen,

Bavaria,

Prussia!

I agree!

What then of our own king?

I, his Kappellmeister, dare say this to him -

become a prince who heeds our advice,

banish the snivelling Junkers and their swooning dames.

Consult instead the free folk, the German folk,

those noblest of children

like unto gods.

Not servants in livery

or slaves of whim,

but elected and free.

Every man with a vote.

Our minds strengthened by understanding of our past,

the myths and legends and religion

of Germany.

Let him, our King, let him say, "I declare Saxony a free state. "

Let him rid himself of his sycophants,

and if he will not, a word of warning, as Christ says,

"If thy right hand offend thee, cut it off!"

Cut it off!

Cut it off!

Your fatherland is called Germany.

Love it above all, and more through action than through words.

Germany must have its place in the sun!

I've read your husband's latest scheme for an opera, Frau Wagner, Lohengrin.

Yes, the Poem of the Swan Knight.

Oh, how wonderful! A swan knight.

I can see all the little elves and fairies dancing before my eyes.

Unfortunately we can't give it.

These unsettled times, your husband writes to the newspapers, Frau Wagner,

makes speeches he ought not to make.

The King himself has had to prevent one of his officers

from challenging your husband to a duel.

Lohengrin, it is stirring and German and wonderful.

If only Herr Wagner were not determined on setting it to music himself.

Meser! Why do you remove my Tannhäuser from your window, all the copies?

Is my work not fit for your shop? What do you replace them with?

What's this?

Meyerbeer! Dear God, we used to admire this man.

And so you should. Meyerbeer is a master, he sells copy on copy.

That's because you are not his publisher. You're an incompetent idiot.

Am I though? Am I?

What are you, then?

This, returned from the Munich court theatre.

This is monstrous! They have not even broken the seal to read it.

Exactly.

You ain't being given, Herr Wagner, that you ain't.

But Meyerbeer is, which is a fact,

hence he can go out where he might be bought. Rienzi?

Outside Dresden, where?

Performed once only in Berlin.

- Yes, and? - And?

Königsberg!

Where?

It is successful every time it is given here in Dresden, so is Tannhäuser,

so too will be Lohengrin.

Damn you, Meser, I'm of a mind to withdraw Lohengrin from you.

Then I would remind you that you are not entirely drawing the town.

I will not go forward with Lohengrin until you give me some money.

Then you will lose a revolutionary work, sir!

And are we not all revolutionaries in these times?

No, we ain't, Herr Röckel. We are not.

We ain't.

You sport with known revolutionaries,

you have ideas above your station

as to unions for musicians

and a total turning of the Dresden Opera on its head,

which you put forward in writing above the noble head of your director

direct to the King!

Direct in writing!

Which king you would have murdered in his bed.

This time we live in is no time for grand opera, no time at all.

And a word to the wise. Hear me.

Herr Director Lüttichau has intimated to me as he ain't going to do Lohengrin,

for your arrogance and your scorn of the established genius

such as Meyerbeer's genius,

all of which gives me no faith in you, young man.

Get rid of this anarchy and all,

then perhaps there'll be time for an opera,

or better still...

...an operetta.

There are going to be new theatres, new music.

All who come between German folk and art will be swept away in the revolution.

- Will they, though? - Barbarossa.

I am considering Barbarossa as a fit subject.

Germany looks for another Barbarossa.

Barbarossa like Lohengrin is not a fit subject for an opera, not at all.

It ain't light enough, no laughs in it.

And what is more, no person will wish to hear it,

in that it involves that which people do not wish to hear.