WAGNER 417 literary cast, and at the Dresden Kreuzschule he was considered an apt scholar. When 12 years old he wrote plays. His thoughts were first fixed upon music as his profession at the age of 15, on becoming acquainted with Beethoven's symphonies. His first systema- tic studies were made under Theodor Weinlig while he was a student at the university of Leipsic. The first of his compositions of which he speaks was a comedie champetre, written under the inspiration of the " Pas- toral Symphony." This was never performed, but in 1833 a symphony written by him was presented at a concert in Leipsic ; and in the same year he wrote a romantic opera entitled Die Feen (" The Fairies "). In the summer of 1834 he became musical director at the Magde- burg theatre, where in 1836 he brought out his opera Das Liebesverlot, of which the words and music were both his own, and which failed. He consequently resigned his place, and became mustcal director at Konigsberg, where in 1836 he married. He soon after removed to Riga, where he remained, direct- ing the music at the theatre, till 1839. To prepare himself for a favorable reception in Paris, he wrote in 1838 the beginning of a more elaborate opera than any he had pre- viously composed, called Rienzi. On arriving in 1839 at the French capital he found that the want of. means and influence interrupted all his plans. Meyerbeer the composer and Mau- rice Schlesinger, a music publisher and jour- nalist, befriended him, and the latter gave him first employment, and afterward the opportu- nity of putting forward his claim to artistic re- cognition. He published songs, but their eccen- tric forms prevented their success. Schlesinger also procured for Wagner a commission to write an overture for the societe des concerts, upon which he prepared his Faust, which was rehearsed once and then set aside, the society not hazarding the experiment of producing so eccentric a work. He also prepared vaude- ville music for the minor theatres, until it was intimated that his compositions were alto- gether too fantastic for the purpose. Writing of these hard experiences, Wagner says : "Manifold difficulties and very bitter want en- compassed my life at this period." He worked nevertheless with the courage of despair at his Rienzi, which he completed. For his support he made "instrumental arrangements of every imaginable kind, down to those for the cornet d piston," and contributed articles on German music to the Gazette mwicale. He also set about the composition of the music to his opera Der Jliegende Hollander ("The Flying Dutch- man"), which he completed in seven weeks and sent to Meyerbeer at Berlin, where sub- sequently it was produced. Wagner went to Dresden in the spring of 1842, and in Octo- ber of that year his Rienzi was there brought out. Its success procured for its composer the Prussian order of the red eagle and the po- sition of chapelmaster at the Dresden opera house. During the time that he held this office he brought out his "Flying Dutchman" and composed Tannhauser, which was produced in October, 1845, but received only two repre- sentations. Failing in this, he began to com- pose Lohengrin, an opera still more identified with his peculiar views of art. It was about to be produced at Dresden in 1849 when the revolutionary outbreak in Saxony took place. Wagner had always held extremely liberal polit- ical principles, having even in 1830 identified himself at the university with the liberal party. He was an active leader in the movement, and when it was suppressed took refuge in Zurich and became a citizen of the canton. In 1850 he was appointed director of the Zurich musi- cal society and of the orchestra at the theatre. Here he remained till 1858, composing while there Tristan und Isolde and a portion of his great series of operas founded on the Nilelun- genlied. Wagner had a steadfast friend and adherent in Franz Liszt, under whose direc- tion and through whose efforts Lohengrin was first produced at Weimar, Aug. 28, 1850 ; and subsequently others of Wagner's works were given in the same city. After an absence of nearly ten years Wagner, having received a political pardon from the king of Saxony, took up his residence at Munich, where in King Louis of Bavaria he soon found an earnest adherent and powerful patron. Through his aid the Tristan und Isolde was produced un- der Von Billow's direction in June, 1865 ; Die Meistersinger von Nurriberg in June, 1868 ; Das Rheingold in 1869 ; and Die WalTcure in 1870. In 1861 an attempt had been made to obtain a hearing for the Tannhauser at the grand opera of Paris, but, in spite of the favor of the emperor, so intense and unrea- soning was the prejudice against the composer that his work met with deliberately planned opposition, and was withdrawn after the third representation. In Vienna in 1862 it was received with great favor. In 1870 Wagner married his second wife, Casina von Bulow, a daughter of Liszt, who had been divorced from Hans von Billow in 1869. In this year he conceived the idea of erecting a theatre in which the four operas which he had built up on the myths of the Nibelungenring might be produced. He found the stage as it existed in Germany out 'of sympathy with his ideas of true German art, and so hampered by for- eign traditions that neither the directors nor the audiences could be relied on to support him in the experiment he was determined on making, of founding an opera that should be thoroughly German in its spirit and purpose, having its motive in the traditional poetry of Germany, and entirely abandoning the musi- cal forms that Italy and France had impressed upon the opera. In order to secure a certain isolation and a new field, he fixed upon the lit- tle city of Baireuth in Bavaria as the place in which to carry out his undertaking. In May, 1871, he issued a circular addressed to "the
