Wagner Society in NSW Inc

What was Eating Wagner?

How Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy's early death left ‘underdog’ Richard Wagner to wreak a bitter revenge.’

Under this provocative heading and with this challenging opening, Martin Geck has written a fascinating and stimulating essay to mark the Mendelssohn Bicentenary Year: ‘As unlikely as it may sound, compared with Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy, whose 200th birthday is being celebrated this year on February 3rd, Richard Wagner regarded himself as the underdog. This might help explain why, after Mendelssohn's early death in 1847, he wreaked bitter revenge, lashing out furiously at the little Jewish prince whenever he could.’

After comparing the radically different childhoods of both composers – Wagner in relative poverty; Mendelssohn the son of a wealthy Jewish businessman – Geck notes ‘a number of fundamental similarities between Mendelssohn and Wagner’: ‘Both were disgusted by the superficiality of the music and opera business there. Mendelssohn considered Giacomo Meyerbeer's ‘Robert le Diable’ to be a piece of pure effect, ‘cold and heartless’; and the music in particular lacked ‘warmth and truth’. As far as vaudeville and theatre were concerned, he believed that ‘politics and lewdness were the two key concerns around which everything else revolved’. Wagner was no less harsh in his criticism; he might have showed an initial curiosity in the various strands of Parisian musical theatre, but the longer he longer he stayed, the more his contempt for French and Italian opera deepened’.

Geck speculates about the two composers who were in very close proximity around their 30s: ‘[Mendelssohn] had been the conductor of the Leipzig Gewandhaus, since June 1841 he had also been director of music at the court in Dresden, without regular duties. What would have happened if he had decided to accept a full post in Dresden at that time? Would there have been room at the Dresden court for Richard Wagner as well, who soon afterwards performed ‘Rienzi’ and the ‘Flying Dutchman’ there?’ Geck also points out that Wagner was clearly aware of and possibly attended Mendelssohn concerts during this period.

Geck also notes that both composers ‘were in fundamental agreement regarding questions of music education’, were ‘pioneers in advocating serious concert programs in the sense of today's ‘symphony concerts’; ‘they advocated intensive rehearsal periods and fought against the sloppy treatment of musical scores,’ fought for ‘well-educated and decently paid musicians,’ and ‘worked on behalf of professional reforms’. Mendelssohn ‘founded the Leipzig Conservatory in 1843’ and Wagner proposed ‘a thorough reform of the royal orchestra to the king of Saxony, and ‘later convinc[ed] the Bavarian King Ludwig II to found a Royal School of Music’.

Geck also tackles Wagner’s notorious pamphlet On Jewishness in Music published it in 1850 (and republished in 1869 with an ‘explanatory introduction’, that does little to dampen the fires of outrage):

Wagner's anti-Semitism absolutely needs to be viewed in the context of the revolution of 1848-49, and I would hypothesise that he only became a confirmed anti-Semite as a result of it. Afterwards, he searched for the socioeconomic causes of the revolution's failure and came upon capitalism: The ‘good’ powers of the people could not and cannot accomplish anything as long as Capital rules the day; in this sense, one can understand his aforementioned desire that Paris, as a centre of ‘music capitalism,’ should be razed to the ground.’ And yet this irrational formulation suggests that Wagner, while thoroughly representing Communist ideas in 1849-50 in works such as ‘Art and Revolution’ and ‘Artwork of the Future,’ did not ground himself a la Marx in analysis and reflection but rather personalised matters from the outset: The real villains were the capitalist Jews. They were corroding society to such a degree that it could only perish and, in the state it was in, as far as Wagner was concerned, it deserved to perish.

Your editor is attracted to this political analysis as a partial explanation of Wagner’s ideologically motivated anti-Semitism, but would also suggest that there is a large element of social anguish deriving from Wagner’s early sense of being déclassé (ie reduced or belonging to a lower or low social class, position, or rank, especially in one’s own estimation, with its psychological implications). In response to a combination of sociological and familial influences and psychological predispositions, Wagner increasingly felt that he needed to try and take control of his uncertain, fragmented, directionless world. First, he decided on a career in theatre, initially writing theatrical/operatic works, conducting in provincial regional opera houses with shaky finances. Then he decided to formulate a theatrical-aesthetic credo in response to the inadequacies he was becoming all to familiar with in his new working life. Then he extended his work on the practical aspects of theatre practice in small German towns to a contemplation of the future path of his own and German music.

Imagining what that future might be also required that Wagner analyse what was wrong with past and current conditions and practices. Foremost of the failings of German theatrical culture were its lack of a national focus and its domination, in his view, by an inappropriate group of people, the Jews. Indeed, it would have been difficult to participate in the vanguard art world of the later nineteenth century without coming into contact with Jews in one way or another. Yet, while Wagner was lamenting the absence of German nationalism and the invidious role of the Jews, he was also examining the cultures of other countries, including ancient Greece, and developing a more cosmopolitan understanding a human culture and creativity. These contradictory strands were central to Wagner’s development; sometimes cosmopolitanism dominated his thinking, but as he aged he become more narrowly nationalist and racist.

Geck also shows how much Mendelssohn and Wagner were alike in trying very hard to avoid becoming a’victim of a music business’. But he also points out where Wagner drew the line between himself and the Mendelssohn ‘school’: ‘In anticipation of the upcoming Beethoven year [1870], Wagner complained about the kind of conductor who puts considerable effort into producing the most streamlined performances possible but, in so doing, takes insufficient account of what the composer - for example, Beethoven - wanted to say. In the midst of criticism and all kinds of excitations, there's a critical jab at ‘our contemporary music financiers, who either came out of Mendelssohn's school or who, as beneficiaries of its support, were recommended to the world’.’

Geck’s analysis is subtle and well worth reading at the SignandSight website www.signandsight.com/features/1856.html. Geck’s concluding sentiments are well worth remembering as we rapidly approach not only Wagner’s but Verdi’s bicentenary year in 2013: ‘Anniversary celebration years for composers are welcomed as an opportunity to dispense with actual or alleged clichés…’. Editor]

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