The Birmingham age-herald., 1911-08-05
From the Kansas City Star.


 "HE world has long since made up its
 mind concerning Wagner, the mu-
 slclan. It is only now, nearly three decades after his death, that any con- elusive estimate can be made of Richard Wagner the man.
 This uncertainty was not due to any mystery surrounding his person. He lived his turbulent life freely, openly. It was not caused by lack of material, but rather by superabundanoe of 1t. The world knew him as an unruly young stu dent, tasting to the full the dissipations of student life. as a conductor in half a dozen German cities, underpaid except in attentions by charming singers-as an exile escaping by sea from his creditors, and again as aA revolutionary exile firing red hot pamphlets from his refuge in Switzerland-as a youth of many small romances and a man of two great ones, which respectively marred and made his career, and, finally, as the protege of a king. freed from all obligations save the service of his art.
 In all that was known of him only the last phase seemed consistent with the mass of work he left His record made him appear too much a man of the world to bo scholar enough to write the great poems of his music dramas. in them selves literary feats of deep historic and pathological research-too much man of action to conform to the exacting study routine of a composer. The facts needed a solvent, which could only be found in a more intimate account of his life, and in particular of his early days.
 It was not generally known until re- gently that Wagner left an autobiography covering precisely the formative years of bis career. This valuable record, now published in five languages, notice of which was given in the Star yesterday, reveals many things, although 1t does not add substantially to the facts.
 As he llved so he wrote of his life, con- cealing none of the pettiness that filled the years of his first marriage, minimizing none of his youthful excesses. The story of his meeting with Cosima von Bulow and the realization of their love for each other while he was visiting with her hus- hand. is told with the frankness of a man who saw in 1t no cause for moral discussion. His first marriage, under taken with many misgivings, had proven itself a failure. In the impetuous, yet practical, manner that never left him, he formed new ties without any formal rev. erance of the old ones long outworn.
 His experiences, which to another man might have proved merely demoralizing, ;pfn knnUl- edge which he drew upon for the com mon enlightenment. It was no turn or chance that made '"Tannhauser" his first great work The fascination, surfeit ana remorse of a. sensual life formed sub ject very real to the younger wagner His Venus he says after the first hear ing, was a failure. He stigmatizes her as "a sketchy and clumsy portrayal That is not the general impression of the over whelming music of the venusberg. The truth is that the conception belonged to period out of which he was already passing He was learning to discern be- tween wandering desire and self-directins passion This was lacking In his Venus because her creator still had to experi- 4 ence "the will on fire. It came only on acquaintance with Cosima, and with 1t came Tristan and Isolde" In which pas sion is sustained at a high pitch other writers touch only at climax.
 His early days are full of the experi- ence needed for a '"rannhauser." of the romanticism that went to make 'Lo- hengfin" How thoroughly he drew on his experience fund.- freeing himself from any outstanding effect of it-sendins wholesale his crop of wild oats to the mill-is shown by the absence of any marking back to such themes. Verdi might write romantic operas all his lire but not a Wagner. He tried all thinss' held fast to that which was good. Ihe hest of romantcsm is retained in Ihe Meistersingers," but only the best put ting sentiment in normal place ana making the work the greatest comic opera aver written. The best of sensualism IS retained in "Parsifal,' ,makingqhe flower maidens and Kundry the ostlbewitchine temptresses ever depicted.
 Wagner was at one time a friend of Netxsche. On looking back over the musicians life as revealed by the auto