He tells me that Wagner spoke of himself as “one crying in the desert.” But few sympathized with him, his breaking away from the “Rienzi” period being frowned upon, but that through all disappointment Wagner’s inexhaustible animal spirits never left him. The following letter is dated March, 1844:--
Wagner has returned from Berlin, very morose in temper; the “Flying Dutchman” did not touch the scoffing Berliners, who certainly have less poetical feeling than most Germans; they only saw in Schroeder-Devrient a star, and in the touching drama an opera like other operas; yet they pose as profound art critics. Bah! they are simply stupid!
Since then we have had “Hans Heiling” and “Vampyr.” Wagner thinks much of Marschner’s natural gifts, but finds that his general intelligence is not on a level with his musical gifts, and that this is often painfully evident in his recourse to commonplace padding.... I wish you could have witnessed the work of the old Gluck “Armide,” most tenderly cared for by Wagner. I doubt that it ever was rendered with such reverence,--nay, not even in Paris. We have also had what Wagner considers the masterwork of Mendelssohn, “Midsummer Night’s Dream,” with which he also took considerable pains, although fully aware of the composer’s unfriendly feeling towards himself.
You cannot conceive what a system of espionage has grown up about Wagner, how keenly all his actions are criticised. He deemed it advisable to rearrange the seating of the band (I send you a plan); but oh! the hubbub it has produced is dreadful. “What! change that which satisfied Morlacchi and Reissiger?” They charge Wagner with want of reverence for tradition and with taking delight in upsetting the established order of things.
In the middle of the year it seems the “Faust” overture was performed; the reception was disheartening. It was another disappointment, and showed Wagner how little the public was in sympathy with his art ideal. Although performed twice, it produced no effect.
This is not to be wondered at [writes Roeckel]; for in the judgment of some here it compares favourably with the grandest efforts of Beethoven. Such a work ought to be heard several times before its beauties can be fully perceived.