New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1888-07-29
WAGNER AND LISZT.
MEMORIALS OF A MARVELLOUS FRIEND.
SLIP

CORRESPONDENCE OF WAGNER AND LIST. Trans
lated into English with Preface by Francis ,l%ener
TWO vols. $40, PIP. 3o2-o4O' scrDher "e'ioru'
We have read these volumes with interest
greater than that aroused by any recent work OF
biography or autobiography; yet for the additions
which the letters bring to our knowledge of the
outward lives OF their authors they not re-
merlSable Wagner in his Autobiographical
Sketch written in 1851, Gascnapp in his bog
raphy Of Wagner, Fraculcin Ramann in her vol
umc on List. and a score of writers who have con-
tributcd "reminiscences to the journals OF Germany
since their DEATH had related the Significant IN
cidcnts in the lives of the two men with such fuil-
ness that little remained TO be revealed by study
of their private papers The letters number BIC
and were placed in the hands OF Brekopf q
| IIartel. the German publishers, by Wagncrs WIDOW
and the daughter of the Princess Wittgcnsteih
whose relations with List were the foundation oil
! n romance some traces Of which be found in
these volumes. Inasmuch as Wagner's widow IS
LISTS daughter, it will be seen that in giving
these letters to the public she was performing
double duty of love. If she exposed moral
weakness in one she simultaneously disclosed
moral beauty in the other Her candor" which
DR.. HueTer lauds, is therefore easily explained
and there will be no lack Of those who will say
that the debt which the world owes her. who was
| prdCtcdIy
greater if she had not closed the books just before
a period when her own relations with Wagner lsllc
being at the time the wife OF Hans Won Bulow)
caused temporary arrangement between her
father and her future husband. Something be-
sides pruricnt curiosity makes natural regret
that this should have been the case. Madame
Wagner by publishing these letters has erected
monument to an extraordinary friendship between
two extraordinary mon. 1t would have been in
structive to study them at time when that
friendship was subjected to strain of an eXtraor-
binary kind. Putting aside all other considera-
lions it would have been in the highest degree
interesting to have heard Wagner defend himself
against social conventions before Judge who
cared little for some of those conventions in his
own dealings with mankind, and yet was forced
to concede their value and righteousness when his
own daughter was concerned 1t would have been
the more interesting since neither Cosima Wagner
nor the daughter of the Princess Wittgenstein
seems to have had the lghtest scruYle about max
ing public the attachment between List and the
Princess including tho latter's rapturous protesta-
tons of love and her frequent illusions to an lnl-
pending marriage which never took place. 1t
may be answered that these were matters Of pub
lie notorcty and no harm could come to either OF
the two en- nent personagcs concerned in Them for
between Wagner and her who afterward became
his wife and the world has learned, for good rea-
sons TO look upon that union with almost rever-
entail ave. so beautiful and noble were its fruits.
Rarely has ever wife proved so thoroughly the
complement of her husband as in this case; seldom
has the world seen so lovely an instance Of woman
full and perfect cooperation IN the social and in
tcectual activities Of genius whose needs and
desires were altogether unique. The spectacle has
disarmcd fppant criticism and almost achieved
justification for the pair
But it is ungracious to impugn the motives OF
Madame Wagner in view Of the service she has
done in permitting us to study the artistic and per-
sonal character of the authors Of these letters
and we are not in position to cast discrcdt on her
wisdom Let us be grateful for the new gmpscs
which she enables us to take at friendship
so wonderful that the most callous-heartcd pessl-
mist cannot contemplate it without self-convicuns
admiration, and look briefly at the two friends
in the light thrown upon them by their utteranccs
TO each other From every side that 1T is viewed
this friendship was marvellous The ties that
hound these men together were altogether out OF
the ordinary As members of society their char
acters were in most things in fragrant antithesis
as artists they were, at the beginning OF their
intercourse at least far apart as the two poles
in their relation to the public they were antipodes
-Liszt, the idol of Europe, worshpped OF women.
admired of men, the confdant of princes and friend
Of potentatcs ecclesiastical and lay; Wagner, the
IGNORED prophet Of q new art-evangel, which he
preached in a manner better calculated to deter
than to invite acceptance, political outcast and
refugee convicted of participation in the Revolt
ton of is4S and even suspected of completely in
n plot to burn the opera house wherein he had
acted as conductor. The correspondence covers
twcnty-one years. from s4l to 1851. Within this
sDace OF time falls the period OF Wagners exile and
of LISTS activity Capellmeister at Weimar, in
which capacity he did such service for the out
lawed and misunderstood poetcomposer as never
before or since one artist did for another. Before
this period Wagner had produced the operas which
won him LISTS artistic allegiance, Rienzi, y
The FLYING Dutchman' and Tannhaeuser' as
well as Lohcngrin,' which it was LISTS good
fortune to introduce to the world. Within it falls
the writing of Wagner's polemical works. the com
position of Die Mcistcrslnger' and Tristan uno
ISOLDE and the perfection of the plan Of his Nibel
ung tetralogy. How powerfully did the encourage
; mcnt which List extended to the exile aided hin
in his creative activity it is impossible to estimate
nor would we deprive the reader, by extracting
passages from them, of even modicum of the
pleasure which he can derive from perusal of thu
letters which were exchanged while these work.
were growing in the mind Of Wagner, as well a.
the appreciation of List and the public. between
whom and Wagner he was the mediator.
Those who wish to understand Wagner's work.
ard the significance Of his protest against the art
culture Of half century ago should read these let
tiers in full We can better concern ourselves will
a few OF their lessons. It is a wise philosophy
that finds in all things, and hence also in the lif
histories OF great men, working of that doctrine
of compensatons which transmutcs even ADAM
fall into universal blessing; and we conceive thu
highest value of these letters to lie in the evidences
-. they afford Of the operation Of that Law in thu
, career OF the greater OF the two men who wrote
them. We are far from imagining that there wa
. not enough potency in the genius of Wagner t.
. have brought il to successful assertion agnns