WAGNER AND HIS WORKS THE STORY OF HIS LIFE WITH CRITICAL COMMENTS BY HENRY T. FINCK VOLUME 1 SBVKNTII NEW YORK CHARLES SCRIBNERS SONS 1904 COPYRIGHT, 1893, By CHARLES SCKIliNEKS SONS, TO ANTON SEIDL of whom Wagner wrote in his last letter, Seidl delights me greatly, and who first made Americans acquainted with the greatest of Wagners music-dramas Tristan and Isolde, Die Meistersinger, and the Nibelung Tetralogy this book is dedicated by the author as a slight return for the pleasure so often received from his poetic and ...
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WAGNER AND HIS WORKS THE STORY OF HIS LIFE WITH CRITICAL COMMENTS BY HENRY T. FINCK VOLUME 1 SBVKNTII NEW YORK CHARLES SCRIBNERS SONS 1904 COPYRIGHT, 1893, By CHARLES SCKIliNEKS SONS, TO ANTON SEIDL of whom Wagner wrote in his last letter, Seidl delights me greatly, and who first made Americans acquainted with the greatest of Wagners music-dramas Tristan and Isolde, Die Meistersinger, and the Nibelung Tetralogy this book is dedicated by the author as a slight return for the pleasure so often received from his poetic and inspired interpretations. PREFACE ALTHOUGH only half a century has elapsed since Eich ard Wagner first became prominent as an operatic com poser, it may be safely asserted that more has already been written and printed about him than about any other dramatic author excepting Shakespeare. To add to this collection two more volumes may seem a rash and super fluous proceeding but if the reader will take the trouble to compare these volumes with other works on the same subject, he will see at a glance that the biographic treasures had been very far from exhausted by my prede cessors. There are many short Wagner biographies in the market, written by Tappert, Muncker, Pohl, JSTohl, Gasperini, Hueifer, Dannreuther, Kobb, and others. Several of these are excellent in their way, but they all attempt to present, in from a hundred to two hundred pages, a subject which requires a thousand pages for adequate treatment. The only two elaborate biographies are Glasenapps and Julliens. Glasenapp, having been the first in the field, had to do some hard pioneer work, for which he deserves credit. But his treatise exists only in German, and it will probably never be translated, as it is toover bose, and contains too many dry details of merely local interest. Nor is it complete it ends with the Parsifal Yii viii PREFACE year, and gives no account of Wagners death. Tin operas, too, are not analyzed it is simply a biography. Julliens book is valuable for its numerous portraits, car icatures, and other illustrations, as well as for the light it throws on the French episodes in Wagners life, although in this respect Servieress Wagner Juge en France is more complete and entertaining. For other than French read ers Jullien presents his subject from too Gallic a point of view. Apparently he does not read German, since he gets his views of Wagners literary and theoretical works at second hand, from Groves Dictionary and other sources but his greatest blemish is his total ina bility to understand Wagners character. This character, owing to peculiar circumstances, was, indeed, often as difficult to understand as the Art-work of the Future itself. But in the case of a man who has so many enemies as Wagner had, it is the duty of a biographer to carefully verify all statements, and not to accept as gospel truth stories manufactured by hostile newspapers. Wagners personality, as presented by Jullien, is as much of a caricature as any of the pictures in his book. While Jullien misrepresents his character, the other biographers, including Glasenapp, have very little to say about it, devoting themselves chiefly to his writings, musical and literary. It is, indeed, only since the appearance of all the biographies here mentioned, that an opportunity has been given us to see the real Wagner, The three volumes of letters to Liszt, Uhlig, Fischer, and Heine have thrown a flood of light on hisperson ality, and my cordial thanks are due to the publishers for permission to make use of this invaluable source of information regarding the most important creative period PREFACE IX in Wagners life, the years of his exile. I also wish to thank Messrs. Longmans, Green, and Co. for permission to quote from the interesting new material, including forty Wagner letters, contained in Praegers Wagner as I Knew Him and Mr. Theodore Thomas for kindly plac ing at my disposal all the correspondence relating to the Centennial March...
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