wagner's nuremberg

Wagner's NurembergAuthor(s): Stewart SpencerSource: Cambridge Opera Journal, Vol. 4, No. 1 (Mar., 1992), pp. 21-41Published by: Cambridge University PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/823774 .

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Cambridge Opera Journal, 4, 1, 21-41 Cambridge Opera Journal, 4, 1, 21-41

Wagner's Nuremberg STEWART SPENCER

The Germans are of the day before yesterday and the day after tomorrow; they have no today.

Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil

As far as we know, Wagner paid eight visits to Nuremberg, although I shall be concerned here only with the first four of them.1 The first was the longest - a week-long stay with his sister Clara and her husband Heinrich Wolfram in

January 1834, when he was twenty. According to the much later account in Mein Leben,2 Wagner's only memory of this visit was 'the sociable house' of his brother- in-law and the gemuttlich goings-on in Nuremberg's taverns. In July 1835, when

talent-spotting for Heinrich Bethmann's near-insolvent opera company, he passed through Nuremberg towards the end of the month.3 It was on this occasion that he witnessed that 'extraordinary nocturnal adventure' which, according to Mein Leben,4 was to leave its mark on the final scene of Act II of Die Meistersinger. (What, to my own mind, is even more 'extraordinary' about this account is that it is confirmed neither by Die rothe Brieftasche - the aide-memoire that Wagner began in August 1835 - nor by any of Wagner's letters of the time. It is difficult to avoid the suspicion that this is a case of life imitating art, a suspicion increased when we recall that the passage in Mein Leben was dictated between March and

May 1866, just before Wagner embarked on the first complete draft of Act II of Die Meistersinger.)

The composer's third visit to Nuremberg hardly counts as such. He passed through the town on 27 May 1849 on his flight into exile from Germany to Switzerland.

His fourth visit is potentially the most interesting but it receives only a brief mention in Mein Leben: Wagner had visited Liszt in Weimar in August 1861 and was on his way to Bad Reichenhall in the company of Liszt's daughter Blandine and her husband Emile Ollivier. The party arrived in Nuremberg after midnight on the night of 9/10 August 1861:

Wagner's other visits took place on 13 November 1862, 16/17 April 1871, 22/3 July 1877 and 1 May 1882.

2 Richard Wagner, Mein Leben, ed. Martin Gregor-Dellin (Munich, 1976), 87; trans. Andrew Gray (Cambridge, 1983), 78.

3 In his letter to his mother of 25 July 1835, Wagner writes that he will be visiting Nuremberg 'tomorrow or the day after', Richard Wagner, Sdmtliche Briefe, ed. Gertrud Strobel and Werner Wolf, I (Leipzig, 1967), 212. There is no other evidence to date this visit more accurately.

4Wagner, Mein Leben (see n. 2), 113-16; trans., 104-7.

Wagner's Nuremberg STEWART SPENCER

The Germans are of the day before yesterday and the day after tomorrow; they have no today.

Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil

As far as we know, Wagner paid eight visits to Nuremberg, although I shall be concerned here only with the first four of them.1 The first was the longest - a week-long stay with his sister Clara and her husband Heinrich Wolfram in

January 1834, when he was twenty. According to the much later account in Mein Leben,2 Wagner's only memory of this visit was 'the sociable house' of his brother- in-law and the gemuttlich goings-on in Nuremberg's taverns. In July 1835, when

talent-spotting for Heinrich Bethmann's near-insolvent opera company, he passed through Nuremberg towards the end of the month.3 It was on this occasion that he witnessed that 'extraordinary nocturnal adventure' which, according to Mein Leben,4 was to leave its mark on the final scene of Act II of Die Meistersinger. (What, to my own mind, is even more 'extraordinary' about this account is that it is confirmed neither by Die rothe Brieftasche - the aide-memoire that Wagner began in August 1835 - nor by any of Wagner's letters of the time. It is difficult to avoid the suspicion that this is a case of life imitating art, a suspicion increased when we recall that the passage in Mein Leben was dictated between March and

May 1866, just before Wagner embarked on the first complete draft of Act II of Die Meistersinger.)

The composer's third visit to Nuremberg hardly counts as such. He passed through the town on 27 May 1849 on his flight into exile from Germany to Switzerland.

His fourth visit is potentially the most interesting but it receives only a brief mention in Mein Leben: Wagner had visited Liszt in Weimar in August 1861 and was on his way to Bad Reichenhall in the company of Liszt's daughter Blandine and her husband Emile Ollivier. The party arrived in Nuremberg after midnight on the night of 9/10 August 1861:

Wagner's other visits took place on 13 November 1862, 16/17 April 1871, 22/3 July 1877 and 1 May 1882.

2 Richard Wagner, Mein Leben, ed. Martin Gregor-Dellin (Munich, 1976), 87; trans. Andrew Gray (Cambridge, 1983), 78.

3 In his letter to his mother of 25 July 1835, Wagner writes that he will be visiting Nuremberg 'tomorrow or the day after', Richard Wagner, Sdmtliche Briefe, ed. Gertrud Strobel and Werner Wolf, I (Leipzig, 1967), 212. There is no other evidence to date this visit more accurately.

4Wagner, Mein Leben (see n. 2), 113-16; trans., 104-7.



Stewart Spencer Stewart Spencer

The next day [the 10th] we went to see some of the sights of the town, last of all the Germanisches Museum, which was in such a wretched condition at the time that it earned the contempt of my French friend; though the large collection of instruments of torture, notably a box studded with nails, filled Blandine with disgust blended with compassion.5

It was soon after this that Wagner decided to return to his 1845 sketch of Die Meistersinger and turn it into a 'grand comic opera in 3 acts'.6 How crucial the visit to Nuremberg was in this context we shall never know. There is no evidence in any of his letters of the time that he saw the visit as seminal.7 And in Mein Leben, as we know,8 Wagner falsely attributes his renewed interest in the work to Titian's Assunta, which he saw in Venice's Academy of Arts in early November 1861. Of course, he is at pains here to conceal the rather more mercenary reasons for his decision to return to the work after an interval of sixteen years: he needed money and, as he told his publisher Franz Schott in a letter of 30 October 1861, Die Meistersinger would be 'a popular comic opera' that would soon be taken up by other theatres, not least because on this occasion he needed 'neither a so-called leading tenor nor a great tragic soprano'.9

Wagner sent Schott a copy of the prose draft on 19 November, following it up the next day with a letter in which he once again insisted on the popular appeal of the work: 'I am very much reckoning on the fact that, at the present time, I have struck the real nerve-centre of German life, and have done so, moreover, in a way which, having been recognised as original, is loved for precisely that reason, more especially abroad'.10 That Nuremberg should have been chosen to embody this 'real nerve-centre of German life' is no accident in view of the role that the town had come to play in Germany's cultural history. Indeed, so potent was its image, so resonant its associations, that it scarcely required Wagner to visit Nuremberg at all to be aware of what it symbolised. A brief survey of the town's historical role may serve to underline this claim.

1

The earliest authenticated mention of Nuremberg occurs in a document dated 1050, but it was not until the thirteenth century that the town rose to any promi- nence, when it became increasingly popular with German monarchs who resided and held their diets here. In 1219 Friedrich II conferred on it the rights of a free imperial town. And in 1424 the imperial regalia were brought to Nuremberg.

5Wagner, Mein Leben, 674; trans., 657-8. 6 Richard Wagners Briefwechsel mit B. Schott's Sohne, ed. Wilhelm Altmann (Mainz, 1911), 24;

trans. from Selected Letters ofRichard Wagner, trans. and ed. Stewart Spencer and Barry Millington (London, 1987), 527 (letter of 30 October 1861). I am grateful to Egon Voss of the Richard Wagner-Gesamtausgabe for this information. Emile Ollivier's diary (Journal 1846-1869, 2 vols. [Paris, 1961]) is equally unforthcoming on the subject, entertaining though it is on other aspects of Wagner's personality at this time.

8 Wagner, Mein Leben (see n. 2), 684; trans., 667. 9 Briefwechsel mit B. Schott's Sohne (see n. 6), 23; trans. from Selected Letters ofRichard Wagner (see n. 6), 527.

0 Briefwechsel mit B. Schott's Sohne, 26.

The next day [the 10th] we went to see some of the sights of the town, last of all the Germanisches Museum, which was in such a wretched condition at the time that it earned the contempt of my French friend; though the large collection of instruments of torture, notably a box studded with nails, filled Blandine with disgust blended with compassion.5

It was soon after this that Wagner decided to return to his 1845 sketch of Die Meistersinger and turn it into a 'grand comic opera in 3 acts'.6 How crucial the visit to Nuremberg was in this context we shall never know. There is no evidence in any of his letters of the time that he saw the visit as seminal.7 And in Mein Leben, as we know,8 Wagner falsely attributes his renewed interest in the work to Titian's Assunta, which he saw in Venice's Academy of Arts in early November 1861. Of course, he is at pains here to conceal the rather more mercenary reasons for his decision to return to the work after an interval of sixteen years: he needed money and, as he told his publisher Franz Schott in a letter of 30 October 1861, Die Meistersinger would be 'a popular comic opera' that would soon be taken up by other theatres, not least because on this occasion he needed 'neither a so-called leading tenor nor a great tragic soprano'.9

Wagner sent Schott a copy of the prose draft on 19 November, following it up the next day with a letter in which he once again insisted on the popular appeal of the work: 'I am very much reckoning on the fact that, at the present time, I have struck the real nerve-centre of German life, and have done so, moreover, in a way which, having been recognised as original, is loved for precisely that reason, more especially abroad'.10 That Nuremberg should have been chosen to embody this 'real nerve-centre of German life' is no accident in view of the role that the town had come to play in Germany's cultural history. Indeed, so potent was its image, so resonant its associations, that it scarcely required Wagner to visit Nuremberg at all to be aware of what it symbolised. A brief survey of the town's historical role may serve to underline this claim.

1

The earliest authenticated mention of Nuremberg occurs in a document dated 1050, but it was not until the thirteenth century that the town rose to any promi- nence, when it became increasingly popular with German monarchs who resided and held their diets here. In 1219 Friedrich II conferred on it the rights of a free imperial town. And in 1424 the imperial regalia were brought to Nuremberg.

5Wagner, Mein Leben, 674; trans., 657-8. 6 Richard Wagners Briefwechsel mit B. Schott's Sohne, ed. Wilhelm Altmann (Mainz, 1911), 24;

trans. from Selected Letters ofRichard Wagner, trans. and ed. Stewart Spencer and Barry Millington (London, 1987), 527 (letter of 30 October 1861). I am grateful to Egon Voss of the Richard Wagner-Gesamtausgabe for this information. Emile Ollivier's diary (Journal 1846-1869, 2 vols. [Paris, 1961]) is equally unforthcoming on the subject, entertaining though it is on other aspects of Wagner's personality at this time.

8 Wagner, Mein Leben (see n. 2), 684; trans., 667. 9 Briefwechsel mit B. Schott's Sohne (see n. 6), 23; trans. from Selected Letters ofRichard Wagner (see n. 6), 527.

0 Briefwechsel mit B. Schott's Sohne, 26.

22 22



Wagner's Nuremberg Wagner's Nuremberg

They remained there until 1796, an emblem of the central importance of Nurem- berg in German imperial history.11

Throughout these early centuries of Nuremberg's history the town's prosperity grew. Like Augsburg, it enjoyed a favoured position as intermediary between Italy and the East on the one hand, and northern Europe on the other. Its citizens lived in such luxury that Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini - later Pope Pius II - was able to comment that a simple burgher of Nuremberg was better lodged than the King of Scotland. By 1504 Nuremberg was the most extensive of all the German free imperial cities, with economic power comparable only to the most powerful electorate. Wealth such as this encouraged art. Among the sculptors active in Nuremberg in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries were Adam Kraft, Veit Stofi and the Vischer family of sculptors and metal-founders. The town's most promi- nent painter and engraver was Albrecht Diirer, while its place in literary history was ensured by Hans Sachs and the historical mastersingers. In the decorative arts Nuremberg's craftsmen ministered to the tastes of the luxury-loving burghers, producing fine examples of furniture, gold, silver- and glassware. Further proof of the town's vitality throughout this period may be found in various inventions on the part of its inhabitants, including watches (at first called 'Nuremberg eggs'), the airgun, gunlocks, the terrestrial and celestial globes, the alloy known as brass, and the art of wire-drawing.

The first blow to Nuremberg's prosperity was the discovery of the sea route to India in 1497; the second was inflicted by the Thirty Years' War (1618-48) when Wallenstein laid siege to the town and 10,000 of its inhabitants are said to have perished during the two-month blockade. But the town might well have recovered from these blows had it not been for the illiberal policies of its rulers. The government of the town had been vested at an early date in its patrician families. Contrary to the usual course of events in Germany's other free towns, these patrician families succeeded in permanently excluding the civic guilds from all share of municipal power. As a result its economic and political decline through the eighteenth century was as inevitable as it was dramatic. In the early seventeenth century its population had been 50,000; by 1806 it was half that number. There was constant rivalry between the patricians who ran the council and the middle- class merchants whose taxes more or less kept the town solvent. It was not until 1794 that the middle classes gained control of the city's finances. Two years later, in 1796, Nuremberg offered itself to the King of Prussia on condition that he paid its debts. Prussia declined.

During these three centuries - from the heyday of the Reformation to the annexation of Nuremberg by Bavaria in 1806 -- the face of the inner town remained largely unaltered. Partly the geographical layout of the old town, partly the conservative outlook of the town council had ensured that visitors to Nuremberg in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century were confronted by a town that was essentially unchanged since the sixteenth century. The only major new building erected during this time had been the Italianate Town Hall (destroyed

One of the National Socialists' first actions on coming to power was to return the regalia to Nuremberg.

They remained there until 1796, an emblem of the central importance of Nurem- berg in German imperial history.11

Throughout these early centuries of Nuremberg's history the town's prosperity grew. Like Augsburg, it enjoyed a favoured position as intermediary between Italy and the East on the one hand, and northern Europe on the other. Its citizens lived in such luxury that Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini - later Pope Pius II - was able to comment that a simple burgher of Nuremberg was better lodged than the King of Scotland. By 1504 Nuremberg was the most extensive of all the German free imperial cities, with economic power comparable only to the most powerful electorate. Wealth such as this encouraged art. Among the sculptors active in Nuremberg in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries were Adam Kraft, Veit Stofi and the Vischer family of sculptors and metal-founders. The town's most promi- nent painter and engraver was Albrecht Diirer, while its place in literary history was ensured by Hans Sachs and the historical mastersingers. In the decorative arts Nuremberg's craftsmen ministered to the tastes of the luxury-loving burghers, producing fine examples of furniture, gold, silver- and glassware. Further proof of the town's vitality throughout this period may be found in various inventions on the part of its inhabitants, including watches (at first called 'Nuremberg eggs'), the airgun, gunlocks, the terrestrial and celestial globes, the alloy known as brass, and the art of wire-drawing.

The first blow to Nuremberg's prosperity was the discovery of the sea route to India in 1497; the second was inflicted by the Thirty Years' War (1618-48) when Wallenstein laid siege to the town and 10,000 of its inhabitants are said to have perished during the two-month blockade. But the town might well have recovered from these blows had it not been for the illiberal policies of its rulers. The government of the town had been vested at an early date in its patrician families. Contrary to the usual course of events in Germany's other free towns, these patrician families succeeded in permanently excluding the civic guilds from all share of municipal power. As a result its economic and political decline through the eighteenth century was as inevitable as it was dramatic. In the early seventeenth century its population had been 50,000; by 1806 it was half that number. There was constant rivalry between the patricians who ran the council and the middle- class merchants whose taxes more or less kept the town solvent. It was not until 1794 that the middle classes gained control of the city's finances. Two years later, in 1796, Nuremberg offered itself to the King of Prussia on condition that he paid its debts. Prussia declined.

During these three centuries - from the heyday of the Reformation to the annexation of Nuremberg by Bavaria in 1806 -- the face of the inner town remained largely unaltered. Partly the geographical layout of the old town, partly the conservative outlook of the town council had ensured that visitors to Nuremberg in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century were confronted by a town that was essentially unchanged since the sixteenth century. The only major new building erected during this time had been the Italianate Town Hall (destroyed

One of the National Socialists' first actions on coming to power was to return the regalia to Nuremberg.

23 23




during the Second World War). Domestic architecture remained traditional. This was not because no building work went on, but because building regulations were so stringent as to preclude all experimentation. To quote Michael Brix, 'the four-storey side-gabled house whose only ornamentation consisted of a more or less richly carved dormer window or a decorated oriel or oratory was the modest norm that could be transcended only with difficulty'.12 These building regulations remained in force until 30 June 1864.

The neo-medieval aspect of the town struck visitors in one of two different ways. Enlightenment critics found the town politically and economically back- ward, a place of 'hierarchical oppression, bigotry and superstition', to quote from Christoph Friedrich Nicolai's Beschreibung einer Reise durch Deutschland und die Schweiz of 1783.13 Other writers complained that the houses were dark and uncom- fortable. Romantic writers naturally saw the town in a different light. As a literary movement, German Romanticism was a reaction against the sceptical and utilitar- ian spirit of eighteenth-century Classicism, a denial of its dogmatic and rigid rationa- lism. A new nationalism was born, opposed to the classical glorification of Greece and Rome. This patriotism found concrete expression in the Wars of Liberation of 1813-15 when the German states sought to throw off their Napoleonic yoke. But in the years preceding the Wars of Liberation, and during the period of political reaction that followed, this longing for a powerful, united Germany was inevitably projected on to a vaguely medieval past when Germany had seemed powerful and united. 'The poetry of the ancients was that of possession, ours is that of yearning', Schlegel wrote in 1808.14 And Nuremberg was the most tangible symbol of that yearning for former glories, as is clear from the writings of a number of early Romantics. Wackenroder, in a famous passage in his Herzensergie3ungen eines kunstliebenden Klosterbruders of 1797, apostrophises the town as follows:

Niirnberg! du vormals weltberiihmte Stadt! Wie gerne durchwanderte ich deine krummen Gassen; mit welcher kindlichen Liebe betrachtete ich deine altvaterischen Hauser und Kirchen, denen die feste Spur von unsrer alten vaterlandischen Kunst eingedriickt ist! Wie innig lieb ich die Bildungen jener Zeit, die eine so derbe, kraftige und wahre Sprache fiihren! Wie ziehen sie mich zuriick in jenes graue Jahrhundert, da du, Niirnberg, die lebendigwimmelnde Schule der vaterlandischen Kunst warst, und ein recht fruchtbarer, iiberfliefiender Kunstgeist in deinen Mauern lebte und webte: - da Meister Hans Sachs und Adam Kraft, der Bildhauer, und vor allen, Albrecht Diirer mit seinem Freunde, Wilibal- dus Pirckheimer, und so viel andre hochgelobte Ehrenmanner noch lebten! Wie oft hab ich mich in jene Zeit zuruckgewiinscht! Wie oft ist sie in meinen Gedanken wieder von neuem vor mir hervorgegangen, wenn ich in deinen ehrwiirdigen Biichersalen, Niirnberg, in einem engen Winkel, beim Dammerlicht der kleinen, rundscheibigen Fenster safi, und iiber den Folianten des wackern Hans Sachs, oder uiber anderem alten, gelben, wurmgefresse- nen Papier briitete; - oder wenn ich unter den kiihnen Gewolben deiner diistern Kirchen

12 Nurnberg und Luzbeck im 19. Jahrhundert: Denkmalpflege, Stadtbildpflege, Stadtumbau (Munich, 1981), 16.

13 Quoted in Brix, 21. Uber dramatische Kunst und Litteratur: Vorlesungen von August Wilhelm Schlegel (Heidelberg, 1809-11), I, 24.

during the Second World War). Domestic architecture remained traditional. This was not because no building work went on, but because building regulations were so stringent as to preclude all experimentation. To quote Michael Brix, 'the four-storey side-gabled house whose only ornamentation consisted of a more or less richly carved dormer window or a decorated oriel or oratory was the modest norm that could be transcended only with difficulty'.12 These building regulations remained in force until 30 June 1864.

The neo-medieval aspect of the town struck visitors in one of two different ways. Enlightenment critics found the town politically and economically back- ward, a place of 'hierarchical oppression, bigotry and superstition', to quote from Christoph Friedrich Nicolai's Beschreibung einer Reise durch Deutschland und die Schweiz of 1783.13 Other writers complained that the houses were dark and uncom- fortable. Romantic writers naturally saw the town in a different light. As a literary movement, German Romanticism was a reaction against the sceptical and utilitar- ian spirit of eighteenth-century Classicism, a denial of its dogmatic and rigid rationa- lism. A new nationalism was born, opposed to the classical glorification of Greece and Rome. This patriotism found concrete expression in the Wars of Liberation of 1813-15 when the German states sought to throw off their Napoleonic yoke. But in the years preceding the Wars of Liberation, and during the period of political reaction that followed, this longing for a powerful, united Germany was inevitably projected on to a vaguely medieval past when Germany had seemed powerful and united. 'The poetry of the ancients was that of possession, ours is that of yearning', Schlegel wrote in 1808.14 And Nuremberg was the most tangible symbol of that yearning for former glories, as is clear from the writings of a number of early Romantics. Wackenroder, in a famous passage in his Herzensergie3ungen eines kunstliebenden Klosterbruders of 1797, apostrophises the town as follows:

Niirnberg! du vormals weltberiihmte Stadt! Wie gerne durchwanderte ich deine krummen Gassen; mit welcher kindlichen Liebe betrachtete ich deine altvaterischen Hauser und Kirchen, denen die feste Spur von unsrer alten vaterlandischen Kunst eingedriickt ist! Wie innig lieb ich die Bildungen jener Zeit, die eine so derbe, kraftige und wahre Sprache fiihren! Wie ziehen sie mich zuriick in jenes graue Jahrhundert, da du, Niirnberg, die lebendigwimmelnde Schule der vaterlandischen Kunst warst, und ein recht fruchtbarer, iiberfliefiender Kunstgeist in deinen Mauern lebte und webte: - da Meister Hans Sachs und Adam Kraft, der Bildhauer, und vor allen, Albrecht Diirer mit seinem Freunde, Wilibal- dus Pirckheimer, und so viel andre hochgelobte Ehrenmanner noch lebten! Wie oft hab ich mich in jene Zeit zuruckgewiinscht! Wie oft ist sie in meinen Gedanken wieder von neuem vor mir hervorgegangen, wenn ich in deinen ehrwiirdigen Biichersalen, Niirnberg, in einem engen Winkel, beim Dammerlicht der kleinen, rundscheibigen Fenster safi, und iiber den Folianten des wackern Hans Sachs, oder uiber anderem alten, gelben, wurmgefresse- nen Papier briitete; - oder wenn ich unter den kiihnen Gewolben deiner diistern Kirchen

12 Nurnberg und Luzbeck im 19. Jahrhundert: Denkmalpflege, Stadtbildpflege, Stadtumbau (Munich, 1981), 16.

13 Quoted in Brix, 21. Uber dramatische Kunst und Litteratur: Vorlesungen von August Wilhelm Schlegel (Heidelberg, 1809-11), I, 24.

24 24




wandelte, wo der Tag durch buntbemalte Fenster all das Bildwerk und die Malereien der alten Zeit wunderbar beleuchtet! - - 15

[Nuremberg! O town of erstwhile universal fame! How gladly I wandered through your narrow crooked streets; with what childlike love I observed your ancestral houses and churches which bear the firm imprint of our fatherland's ancient art! What heartfelt love I feel for the creations of that age, creations which speak so vigorous, powerful and true a language! How they draw me back to that grey century when you, Nuremberg, were the life-teeming school of our fatherland's art and when a truly fruitful and prodigal spirit flourished within your walls: - when Master Hans Sachs and Adam Kraft the sculptor and, above all, Albrecht Diirer and his friend Wilibaldus Pirckheimer and so many other highly praised men of honour were still alive! How often I longed to return to that age! How often it has come to life again within my thoughts as I sat in some cramped corner in one of your venerable library-halls, in the fading light of your small bull's-eye windows, brooding over a folio volume of the valiant Hans Sachs or over some other old and yellowing, worm-eaten paper; - or when I wandered beneath the boldly arching vaults of your gloomy churches where the daylight shone through brightly coloured windows, shedding so strange a light on all the carvings and paintings of that ancient time!]

A similar note of nostalgia is struck by E. T. A. Hoffmann in his short story Meister Martin der Kufner und seine Gesellen, first published in 1818, a tale which, as Wagner scholars have long been aware, has left its mark on Die Meistersinger in a number of significant ways, not least its elevation of German art at the expense of Italian Renaissance painting, its insistence that the truly creative artist must be both artist and craftsman, and the Wagnerian setting of the Festwiese in Act III.

Other Romantic writers noted the disordered layout of the town, comparing it favourably with the Classical concern for order. 'Even the irregularity and crookedness of the narrow streets strikes one as not unpleasant', one observer noted, 'for it increases the picturesqueness of the same and, bearing the imprint of freedom, has an attractive side in a figurative sense as well.'16 The iconography of the time underlines this idealising trend: artists tended to stress the verticals, bringing the towers and gables closer together in order to emphasise the Gothic aspect of the architecture, so that the town emerges not as a mere collection of buildings but as a community of houses and spires. This point is underlined by Figure 1, a pencil drawing by (Johann) Christian Xeller from the Hallertor in 1814/15. Figures 2 and 3 are the work of Georg Christian Wilder, whose accurate draughtsmanship and antiquarian interest provide us with a good idea of what the town looked like in the early nineteenth century. The first shows the interior of St Sebaldus's Church with Peter Vischer's shrine. It was here that Wagner originally intended to set Act I of Die Meistersinger. Figure 3 is an etching dating from 1835 and depicting the house popularly associated with Hans Sachs at 17 Hans-Sachs-Gasse (formerly Spitalgasse). The historical Sachs is known to have lived in at least four different houses in the town but is believed to have acquired the present property in 1542 and to have died there on 19 January 1576. 15 Wilhelm Heinrich Wackenroder, Werke und Briefe (Heidelberg, 1967), 57. 16 Quoted in Brix (see n. 12), 25.

wandelte, wo der Tag durch buntbemalte Fenster all das Bildwerk und die Malereien der alten Zeit wunderbar beleuchtet! - - 15

[Nuremberg! O town of erstwhile universal fame! How gladly I wandered through your narrow crooked streets; with what childlike love I observed your ancestral houses and churches which bear the firm imprint of our fatherland's ancient art! What heartfelt love I feel for the creations of that age, creations which speak so vigorous, powerful and true a language! How they draw me back to that grey century when you, Nuremberg, were the life-teeming school of our fatherland's art and when a truly fruitful and prodigal spirit flourished within your walls: - when Master Hans Sachs and Adam Kraft the sculptor and, above all, Albrecht Diirer and his friend Wilibaldus Pirckheimer and so many other highly praised men of honour were still alive! How often I longed to return to that age! How often it has come to life again within my thoughts as I sat in some cramped corner in one of your venerable library-halls, in the fading light of your small bull's-eye windows, brooding over a folio volume of the valiant Hans Sachs or over some other old and yellowing, worm-eaten paper; - or when I wandered beneath the boldly arching vaults of your gloomy churches where the daylight shone through brightly coloured windows, shedding so strange a light on all the carvings and paintings of that ancient time!]

A similar note of nostalgia is struck by E. T. A. Hoffmann in his short story Meister Martin der Kufner und seine Gesellen, first published in 1818, a tale which, as Wagner scholars have long been aware, has left its mark on Die Meistersinger in a number of significant ways, not least its elevation of German art at the expense of Italian Renaissance painting, its insistence that the truly creative artist must be both artist and craftsman, and the Wagnerian setting of the Festwiese in Act III.

Other Romantic writers noted the disordered layout of the town, comparing it favourably with the Classical concern for order. 'Even the irregularity and crookedness of the narrow streets strikes one as not unpleasant', one observer noted, 'for it increases the picturesqueness of the same and, bearing the imprint of freedom, has an attractive side in a figurative sense as well.'16 The iconography of the time underlines this idealising trend: artists tended to stress the verticals, bringing the towers and gables closer together in order to emphasise the Gothic aspect of the architecture, so that the town emerges not as a mere collection of buildings but as a community of houses and spires. This point is underlined by Figure 1, a pencil drawing by (Johann) Christian Xeller from the Hallertor in 1814/15. Figures 2 and 3 are the work of Georg Christian Wilder, whose accurate draughtsmanship and antiquarian interest provide us with a good idea of what the town looked like in the early nineteenth century. The first shows the interior of St Sebaldus's Church with Peter Vischer's shrine. It was here that Wagner originally intended to set Act I of Die Meistersinger. Figure 3 is an etching dating from 1835 and depicting the house popularly associated with Hans Sachs at 17 Hans-Sachs-Gasse (formerly Spitalgasse). The historical Sachs is known to have lived in at least four different houses in the town but is believed to have acquired the present property in 1542 and to have died there on 19 January 1576. 15 Wilhelm Heinrich Wackenroder, Werke und Briefe (Heidelberg, 1967), 57. 16 Quoted in Brix (see n. 12), 25.

25 25




Fig. 1. Johann Christian Xeller, view of the town and castle from the Hallertor. Pencil drawing, 1814/15. From Michael Brix, Nuirnberg und Lz'beck im 19. Jahrhundert (Munich, 1981), 30.

Fig. 1. Johann Christian Xeller, view of the town and castle from the Hallertor. Pencil drawing, 1814/15. From Michael Brix, Nuirnberg und Lz'beck im 19. Jahrhundert (Munich, 1981), 30.

The demolition of the adjacent building in the spring of 1835 brought the house to a state of near collapse, hence the scaffolding in the present engraving. It is symptomatic of the antiquarian interest of the age that attempts were made at this time to rescue the building from total dereliction. Figure 4 shows the back of the house in a photograph dating from 1935. (The house was destroyed in the Second World War and has not been rebuilt.) It gives an idea of the sort of conditions under which the historical Sachs will have lived and worked. Local bye-laws would have prevented him from working in the street, while the dark and airless inner courtyard - a far cry from Wagner's elder-scented enclave - would have stopped him working at the rear of the house.

By the 1840s history painting had become the preferred means of promulgating views of Nuremberg. To understand this change of approach it is necessary to go back to the beginning of the nineteenth century and pick up the thread of the town's history. It was in 1806 that Nuremberg was annexed by Bavaria but, although Bavaria had a relatively modern constitution, the political upheaval of this period of European history meant that it was not until 1818 that the town was able to elect two chambers. The land-owning merchant classes now came

The demolition of the adjacent building in the spring of 1835 brought the house to a state of near collapse, hence the scaffolding in the present engraving. It is symptomatic of the antiquarian interest of the age that attempts were made at this time to rescue the building from total dereliction. Figure 4 shows the back of the house in a photograph dating from 1935. (The house was destroyed in the Second World War and has not been rebuilt.) It gives an idea of the sort of conditions under which the historical Sachs will have lived and worked. Local bye-laws would have prevented him from working in the street, while the dark and airless inner courtyard - a far cry from Wagner's elder-scented enclave - would have stopped him working at the rear of the house.

By the 1840s history painting had become the preferred means of promulgating views of Nuremberg. To understand this change of approach it is necessary to go back to the beginning of the nineteenth century and pick up the thread of the town's history. It was in 1806 that Nuremberg was annexed by Bavaria but, although Bavaria had a relatively modern constitution, the political upheaval of this period of European history meant that it was not until 1818 that the town was able to elect two chambers. The land-owning merchant classes now came

26 26

: ?; ~ ~ : h : ?; ~ ~ : h




Fig. 2. Georg Christian Wilder, St Sebaldus's Church. Watercolour and pen drawing, 1831. From Brix, 83. Fig. 2. Georg Christian Wilder, St Sebaldus's Church. Watercolour and pen drawing, 1831. From Brix, 83.

27 27




Fig. 3. Georg Christian Wilder, Hans Sachs's house. Etching, 1835. From Brix, 36. Fig. 3. Georg Christian Wilder, Hans Sachs's house. Etching, 1835. From Brix, 36.

to dominate the political scene. The nineteenth century thus became a time of economic growth, a period of recovery helped by the early industrialisation of the town and by its concentration on metal processing. Machine-operated textile factories opened in the 1820s. The first state-run railway in Germany was inaugur- ated in 1835; it ran from Nuremberg to Fiirth. Throughout the greater part of the century, moreover, Nuremberg was the centre of Bavaria's wholesale trade, dealing chiefly in groceries, hops and tobacco. And the successful crafts which had been practised in the town for generations were finally allowed to develop after a century of patrician indifference and a misplaced allegiance to traditional conservative practices. Although the northern half of the town (the Sebalder Seite) remained largely unaffected by these developments, the southern half or Lorenzer Seite was transformed after 1850 by the opening up of the railway and the building of hotels and large tenement blocks, so that this quarter at least was beginning

to dominate the political scene. The nineteenth century thus became a time of economic growth, a period of recovery helped by the early industrialisation of the town and by its concentration on metal processing. Machine-operated textile factories opened in the 1820s. The first state-run railway in Germany was inaugur- ated in 1835; it ran from Nuremberg to Fiirth. Throughout the greater part of the century, moreover, Nuremberg was the centre of Bavaria's wholesale trade, dealing chiefly in groceries, hops and tobacco. And the successful crafts which had been practised in the town for generations were finally allowed to develop after a century of patrician indifference and a misplaced allegiance to traditional conservative practices. Although the northern half of the town (the Sebalder Seite) remained largely unaffected by these developments, the southern half or Lorenzer Seite was transformed after 1850 by the opening up of the railway and the building of hotels and large tenement blocks, so that this quarter at least was beginning

28 28

151 i ~ ~ ~~~~~~~~~~:..,, - ;r:?; .g_

.......... ....!

-:'hf !, :,~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~z

151 i ~ ~ ~~~~~~~~~~:..,, - ;r:?; .g_

.......... ....!

-:'hf !, :,~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~z




Fig. 4 Hans Sachs's house, seen from the rear of the building. Photograph, 1935. From Hans Sachs und die Meistersinger in ihrer Zeit, ed. Johannes Karl Wilhelm Willers. Catalogue published on the occasion of an exhibition at the Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Nurem-

berg, 26 July-30 August 1981 (Nuremberg, 1981), 160.

Fig. 4 Hans Sachs's house, seen from the rear of the building. Photograph, 1935. From Hans Sachs und die Meistersinger in ihrer Zeit, ed. Johannes Karl Wilhelm Willers. Catalogue published on the occasion of an exhibition at the Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Nurem-

berg, 26 July-30 August 1981 (Nuremberg, 1981), 160.

29 29

I gi :

Imi1 . .

I gi :

Imi1 . .

. : .. ^ .. a:^ : 1.1 . : .. ^ .. a:^ : 1.1




Fig. 5. Eduard Ille, The Mastersingers of Nuremberg. Watercolour, 1866. Schlofi Berg (Wittelsbacher Ausgleichsfond). From Wagner: A Documentary Study, ed. Herbert Barth, Dietrich Mack and Egon Voss (London, 1975), P1. 161.

to acquire a modern metropolitan appearance. The deliberately grand and noble style of history painting was designed on the one hand to preserve the town's changing image and, on the other, to remind inhabitants of Nuremberg's glorious past, of a time when, far from being the provincial Bavarian town which it had now become, it was a free imperial city. A canvas by Friedrich Carl Mayer, for example, shows a fictional meeting in St Sebaldus's Church between the Emperor Maximilian I and the artists Peter Vischer and Veit Stofi. It was painted in 1851 and is notable for its idealised view of the relationship between middle-class craftsmen and their imperial patrons. Other artists used allegory to make a sociological point. Eduard Ille produced a well-known series of illustrations under the title Aus deutscher Sage und Geschichte, five of which were acquired by King Ludwig for Schlofi Berg. They are only tangentially connected with Wagner's music dramas, but the 1866 Meistersinger watercolour is all the more important in provid- ing independent evidence of the way in which nineteenth-century artists viewed Renaissance Nuremberg. The cartouche at the top of Figure 5 contains lines attri- buted to Max von Schenkendorf:

Wenn Einer Deutschland kennen und Deutschland lieben soll, Wird man ihm Niirnberg nennen der edlen Kiinste voll, Dich, nimmer noch veraltet, du treue, fleii3ige Stadt, Wo Diirers Kraft gewaltet und Sachs gesungen hat.

Fig. 5. Eduard Ille, The Mastersingers of Nuremberg. Watercolour, 1866. Schlofi Berg (Wittelsbacher Ausgleichsfond). From Wagner: A Documentary Study, ed. Herbert Barth, Dietrich Mack and Egon Voss (London, 1975), P1. 161.

to acquire a modern metropolitan appearance. The deliberately grand and noble style of history painting was designed on the one hand to preserve the town's changing image and, on the other, to remind inhabitants of Nuremberg's glorious past, of a time when, far from being the provincial Bavarian town which it had now become, it was a free imperial city. A canvas by Friedrich Carl Mayer, for example, shows a fictional meeting in St Sebaldus's Church between the Emperor Maximilian I and the artists Peter Vischer and Veit Stofi. It was painted in 1851 and is notable for its idealised view of the relationship between middle-class craftsmen and their imperial patrons. Other artists used allegory to make a sociological point. Eduard Ille produced a well-known series of illustrations under the title Aus deutscher Sage und Geschichte, five of which were acquired by King Ludwig for Schlofi Berg. They are only tangentially connected with Wagner's music dramas, but the 1866 Meistersinger watercolour is all the more important in provid- ing independent evidence of the way in which nineteenth-century artists viewed Renaissance Nuremberg. The cartouche at the top of Figure 5 contains lines attri- buted to Max von Schenkendorf:

Wenn Einer Deutschland kennen und Deutschland lieben soll, Wird man ihm Niirnberg nennen der edlen Kiinste voll, Dich, nimmer noch veraltet, du treue, fleii3ige Stadt, Wo Diirers Kraft gewaltet und Sachs gesungen hat.

30 30




[If Germany thou'dst fathom / And Germany thou'dst love, / Hear tell the name of

Nuremberg / Where noble arts once throve: / O faithful and hard-working, / Untouch'd

by mark of time, / Where Diirer's might once flourish'd / And Sachs did sing and rhyme.]

As Peter Johanek suggests, this is an art which, 'untouch'd by mark of time', can still serve as a model for the nineteenth century, an art, moreover, which, embracing the town as a totality, is a municipal, middle-class art.17

Pageants, processions and plays on the subject of Nuremberg and Hans Sachs reinforced this picture.18 By far the most important of these pageants was the Deutsches Sdngerfest held in Nuremberg in July 1861. The whole of the town was pressed into service, with many of the public buildings and private houses

hung with flags, mottoes and paintings, signalling their importance in terms of

Nuremberg's history and presenting a programmatical statement of unity, a unity which, to quote Michael Brix once again, 'took as its theme the relationship between the bourgeoisie and the patriciate, between modern industry and traditional handicrafts, and between artistic genius and an artisan's hard work'.19 But, more than that, it was the theme of German unity which was emphasised. The

portrait of Sachs outside the poet's house, for example, was embellished by the

following lines, penned by a certain Professor Hoffmann:

Die ihr vor meinem Hause steht, Lait euch, bevor ihr firbaf3 geht

Noch sagen einen guten Spruch: Singen ist fein, doch nicht genug.

Miigt treulich was die Meister sagen

17 Peter Johanek, ' "Du treue, fleifgige Stadt": Niirnberg, das Stidtewesen des Mittelalters und Richard Wagners Meistersinger', Programmhefte der Bayreuther Festspiele 1986: VII- 'Die Meistersinger von Nirnberg', 10-34; trans., 41-60. See also Irene S. Cannon-Geary, The Bourgeoisie Looks at Itself: The Sixteenth Century in German Literary Histories of the Ninteenth Century (G6ppingen, 1980).

18 See, for example, Carl Friedrich Baberadt, Hans Sachs im Andenken der Nachwelt: Ein Beitrag zur Hans-Sachs-Literatur (Halle, 1906); and Oswald Georg Bauer, 'Rezeption und Geschichtsbewugtsein: Materialien zur Hans Sachs-Rezeption des 19. Jahrhunderts', Programmhefte der Bayreuther Festspiele 1975: III- 'Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg', 1-13; trans., 19-24. For a more general introduction to Nuremberg festivals, see Reinhold Grimm and Jost Hermand, eds., Deutsche Feiern (Wiesbaden, 1977), and Ludwig Grote, Die romantische Entdeckung Nu'rnbergs (Munich, 1967).

19 Brix (see n. 12), 106. The Sdngerfest, held between 20 and 22 July 1861, is reported in detail in Die Gartenlaube, 35 and 37 [July/August 1861], 571-4 and 587--92. The festival was not a competition in the Wagnerian sense but a gathering of 260 male-voice choirs which met to perform a number of choral works by Vinzenz and Franz Lachner, Franz Abt, Ferdinand Hiller, Duke Ernst von Saxe-Coburg and others. Their titles - All-Deutschland, An das Vaterland, An die deutsche Tricolore, An die Deutschen, FruhlingsgruB an das Vaterland, Der deutsche Landsturm and Ermanne Dich, Deutschland! - give a flavour of the occasion. It was not originally intended to award any prizes, but a silver goblet sent from Bern was presented to Franz Lachner for his Sturmesmythe. Dieter Borchmeyer (Das Theater Richard Wagners [Stuttgart, 1982], 32-3; trans. Stewart Spencer as Richard Wagner: Theory and Theatre [Oxford, 1991], 19) suggests that the influence behind the Festwiese scene may be the Zurich Sechselauten, a spring festival celebrated on the third Monday in April and including a traditional procession of local guilds.

[If Germany thou'dst fathom / And Germany thou'dst love, / Hear tell the name of

Nuremberg / Where noble arts once throve: / O faithful and hard-working, / Untouch'd

by mark of time, / Where Diirer's might once flourish'd / And Sachs did sing and rhyme.]

As Peter Johanek suggests, this is an art which, 'untouch'd by mark of time', can still serve as a model for the nineteenth century, an art, moreover, which, embracing the town as a totality, is a municipal, middle-class art.17

Pageants, processions and plays on the subject of Nuremberg and Hans Sachs reinforced this picture.18 By far the most important of these pageants was the Deutsches Sdngerfest held in Nuremberg in July 1861. The whole of the town was pressed into service, with many of the public buildings and private houses

hung with flags, mottoes and paintings, signalling their importance in terms of

Nuremberg's history and presenting a programmatical statement of unity, a unity which, to quote Michael Brix once again, 'took as its theme the relationship between the bourgeoisie and the patriciate, between modern industry and traditional handicrafts, and between artistic genius and an artisan's hard work'.19 But, more than that, it was the theme of German unity which was emphasised. The

portrait of Sachs outside the poet's house, for example, was embellished by the

following lines, penned by a certain Professor Hoffmann:

Die ihr vor meinem Hause steht, Lait euch, bevor ihr firbaf3 geht

Noch sagen einen guten Spruch: Singen ist fein, doch nicht genug.

Miigt treulich was die Meister sagen

17 Peter Johanek, ' "Du treue, fleifgige Stadt": Niirnberg, das Stidtewesen des Mittelalters und Richard Wagners Meistersinger', Programmhefte der Bayreuther Festspiele 1986: VII- 'Die Meistersinger von Nirnberg', 10-34; trans., 41-60. See also Irene S. Cannon-Geary, The Bourgeoisie Looks at Itself: The Sixteenth Century in German Literary Histories of the Ninteenth Century (G6ppingen, 1980).

18 See, for example, Carl Friedrich Baberadt, Hans Sachs im Andenken der Nachwelt: Ein Beitrag zur Hans-Sachs-Literatur (Halle, 1906); and Oswald Georg Bauer, 'Rezeption und Geschichtsbewugtsein: Materialien zur Hans Sachs-Rezeption des 19. Jahrhunderts', Programmhefte der Bayreuther Festspiele 1975: III- 'Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg', 1-13; trans., 19-24. For a more general introduction to Nuremberg festivals, see Reinhold Grimm and Jost Hermand, eds., Deutsche Feiern (Wiesbaden, 1977), and Ludwig Grote, Die romantische Entdeckung Nu'rnbergs (Munich, 1967).

19 Brix (see n. 12), 106. The Sdngerfest, held between 20 and 22 July 1861, is reported in detail in Die Gartenlaube, 35 and 37 [July/August 1861], 571-4 and 587--92. The festival was not a competition in the Wagnerian sense but a gathering of 260 male-voice choirs which met to perform a number of choral works by Vinzenz and Franz Lachner, Franz Abt, Ferdinand Hiller, Duke Ernst von Saxe-Coburg and others. Their titles - All-Deutschland, An das Vaterland, An die deutsche Tricolore, An die Deutschen, FruhlingsgruB an das Vaterland, Der deutsche Landsturm and Ermanne Dich, Deutschland! - give a flavour of the occasion. It was not originally intended to award any prizes, but a silver goblet sent from Bern was presented to Franz Lachner for his Sturmesmythe. Dieter Borchmeyer (Das Theater Richard Wagners [Stuttgart, 1982], 32-3; trans. Stewart Spencer as Richard Wagner: Theory and Theatre [Oxford, 1991], 19) suggests that the influence behind the Festwiese scene may be the Zurich Sechselauten, a spring festival celebrated on the third Monday in April and including a traditional procession of local guilds.

31 31




Auch heim in Stadt und Hauser tragen, Dafi Fried und Einigkeit erwachs

Durchs deutsche Land: das wiinscht Hans Sachs.20

[You who stand before this house today / Should, ere you pass upon your way, / Repeat the wise and ancient saw: / To sing is fine, but nevermore / Enough. For, as the Masters sing, / To house and town the message bring / That peace and unity shall wax / In German lands: thus wills Hans Sachs.]

As Nuremberg's Biirgermeister observed, 'Our pageant is in fact a unique event in Germany's history. Here in the heart of Germany ... German heart has spoken to German heart'.21 Although the bunting had no doubt come down by the time that Wagner and his friends arrived in Nuremberg less than three weeks after these words were spoken, it is difficult to resist the thought that the town still resonated with their mixture of nationalism and nostalgia.

2

As Timothy McFarland has written in this context, the

central theme of artistic genius and the cultural tradition is presented in the context of an idealised guild of artists in a guild-controlled community. ... The great procession of the final scene of the opera was presented by Wagner to a German public that was just observing the shoemakers, tailors and bakers of their old towns losing their ancient guild privileges and restrictive rights.22

Even the mastersingers themselves could be added to this list: the Nuremberg Society of Mastersingers was disbanded as recently as 1778, although Wackenroder spoke to one of its surviving members on the occasion of his visit to the town in 1793; the Ulm Society survived until 1835 and a company in Memmingen was still in existence as late as 1875.23 McFarland goes on:

Whether he was fully conscious of it or not, Wagner was in fact erecting an idealised monument to a peculiarly German kind of city at the very moment of its historical disappearance. Out of the ashes of the social reality there was arising like a phoenix a potent cultural myth, of which Wagner's opera is the most complete expression. Every- where in Europe, a nostalgia for the communities of the pre-industrial age was beginning to emerge at this time, a return to the values of the skilled craftsman in reaction against the new reality of industrial production.24

Support for McFarland's thesis certainly comes from a comparison between the two main prose drafts of Die Meistersinger. In 1845 Wagner's main concern - 20

Quoted in Die Meistersinger und Richard Wagner: Die Rezeptionsgeschichte einer Oper von 1868 bis heute, ed. Helmut Grosse and Norbert G6tz. Catalogue published on the occasion of an exhibition at the Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Nuremberg, 10 July-11 October 1981 (Nuremberg, 1981), 129.

21 Quoted in Die Gartenlaube (see n. 19), 37 [uly/August 1861], 592. 22 Timothy McFarland, 'Wagner's Nuremberg', The Mastersingers of Nuremberg: ENO/ROH

Opera Guide 19, ed. Nicholas John (London, 1983), 27-34, esp. 33. 23

Johanek (see n. 17), 18; trans., 45. 24 McFarland (see n. 22), 33.

Auch heim in Stadt und Hauser tragen, Dafi Fried und Einigkeit erwachs

Durchs deutsche Land: das wiinscht Hans Sachs.20

[You who stand before this house today / Should, ere you pass upon your way, / Repeat the wise and ancient saw: / To sing is fine, but nevermore / Enough. For, as the Masters sing, / To house and town the message bring / That peace and unity shall wax / In German lands: thus wills Hans Sachs.]

As Nuremberg's Biirgermeister observed, 'Our pageant is in fact a unique event in Germany's history. Here in the heart of Germany ... German heart has spoken to German heart'.21 Although the bunting had no doubt come down by the time that Wagner and his friends arrived in Nuremberg less than three weeks after these words were spoken, it is difficult to resist the thought that the town still resonated with their mixture of nationalism and nostalgia.

2

As Timothy McFarland has written in this context, the

central theme of artistic genius and the cultural tradition is presented in the context of an idealised guild of artists in a guild-controlled community. ... The great procession of the final scene of the opera was presented by Wagner to a German public that was just observing the shoemakers, tailors and bakers of their old towns losing their ancient guild privileges and restrictive rights.22

Even the mastersingers themselves could be added to this list: the Nuremberg Society of Mastersingers was disbanded as recently as 1778, although Wackenroder spoke to one of its surviving members on the occasion of his visit to the town in 1793; the Ulm Society survived until 1835 and a company in Memmingen was still in existence as late as 1875.23 McFarland goes on:

Whether he was fully conscious of it or not, Wagner was in fact erecting an idealised monument to a peculiarly German kind of city at the very moment of its historical disappearance. Out of the ashes of the social reality there was arising like a phoenix a potent cultural myth, of which Wagner's opera is the most complete expression. Every- where in Europe, a nostalgia for the communities of the pre-industrial age was beginning to emerge at this time, a return to the values of the skilled craftsman in reaction against the new reality of industrial production.24

Support for McFarland's thesis certainly comes from a comparison between the two main prose drafts of Die Meistersinger. In 1845 Wagner's main concern - 20

Quoted in Die Meistersinger und Richard Wagner: Die Rezeptionsgeschichte einer Oper von 1868 bis heute, ed. Helmut Grosse and Norbert G6tz. Catalogue published on the occasion of an exhibition at the Germanisches Nationalmuseum, Nuremberg, 10 July-11 October 1981 (Nuremberg, 1981), 129.

21 Quoted in Die Gartenlaube (see n. 19), 37 [uly/August 1861], 592. 22 Timothy McFarland, 'Wagner's Nuremberg', The Mastersingers of Nuremberg: ENO/ROH

Opera Guide 19, ed. Nicholas John (London, 1983), 27-34, esp. 33. 23

Johanek (see n. 17), 18; trans., 45. 24 McFarland (see n. 22), 33.

32 32




as it had been in Tannhduser and as it was to be in Lohengrin - had been the role of the artist in an alien and uncomprehending society. Hence the depiction of the mastersingers as a 'petty-bourgeois society whose entirely comical poetical pedantry, with its insistence on the Tabulatur', was encapsulated in the figure of the Marker.25 Wagner appears to have been unable at this stage to work out his relationship with the mastersingers as a group or with Sachs in particular, and so he let the subject drop. The town of Nuremberg provided an historical backdrop for the proposed action in much the same way that thirteenth-century Thuringia and tenth-century Brabant supplied the local colour for Tannhduser and Lohengrin respectively.

By the 1860s such historical specificity was beginning to look decidedly anachron- stic in Wagner's thinking. Rightly or wrongly, we associate the mature Wagner with the world of myth and with timeless settings which, in his own words, were 'true for all time' and 'inexhaustible throughout the ages'.26 'Nuremberg, about the middle of the sixteenth century' - to quote the stage direction at the beginning of Die Meistersinger - is something of a non sequitur after the mythic vagueness of the Ring and Tristan. But so keen was Wagner to re-create sixteenth- century Nuremberg on the stage of the Munich Court Theatre that he demanded 'practicable houses' for Act II, in other words, solid, three-dimensional sets, an unheard-of demand in terms of nineteenth-century theatrical practice. The set designers Angelo II Quaglio and Heinrich Doll were despatched to Nuremberg in June 1867 to study the local architecture and to create sets that were historically authentic. In the event neither of the first two acts was based on any obvious Nuremberg locale, but they remained true to the spirit, if not the letter, of the original. The setting of Wagner's opening act is the interior of St Catherine's Church, an austerely Gothic structure destroyed at the end of the Second World War. (The site is now used for open-air theatre performances.) Figure 6 is a drawing by Theodor Pixis showing Quaglio's gothicising design for Act I, a riot of oriel windows, tracery and elaborate workmanship in stone, metal and wood more reminiscent of the Transitional and Radiating Gothic of St Sebaldus's, the original setting for Act I.

The basic design for Act II was defined by Wagner himself, possibly with a real location in mind, if we may believe an entry in Cosima Wagner's diary of 23 July 1877. The 1845 prose draft contains a marginal addition showing Sachs's house on the left, divided by a street from the 'Haus des Altesten'. (The Altester or alderman became Thomas Bogler in 1861 and Veit Pogner in 1862.) This ground plan was taken over by Quaglio, who began a tradition in the design of this act which survived unchallenged for decades. In Michael Echter's illustration of Act II scene 5 (see Fig. 7) Sachs is seen hammering away on the left, with Beckmesser lurking in the shadows behind him, trying vainly to serenade Eva. A rather matronly Eva clings to Walther's side beneath the spreading branches of a linden tree on the right.

The second scene of Act III is set on the Festwiese, a reminiscence of the old 25 Richard Wagner, Gesammelte Schriften und Dichtungen, 4th edn (Leipzig, 1907), IV, 284-5. 26

Wagner, Gesammelte Schriften und Dichtungen, IV, 64.

as it had been in Tannhduser and as it was to be in Lohengrin - had been the role of the artist in an alien and uncomprehending society. Hence the depiction of the mastersingers as a 'petty-bourgeois society whose entirely comical poetical pedantry, with its insistence on the Tabulatur', was encapsulated in the figure of the Marker.25 Wagner appears to have been unable at this stage to work out his relationship with the mastersingers as a group or with Sachs in particular, and so he let the subject drop. The town of Nuremberg provided an historical backdrop for the proposed action in much the same way that thirteenth-century Thuringia and tenth-century Brabant supplied the local colour for Tannhduser and Lohengrin respectively.

By the 1860s such historical specificity was beginning to look decidedly anachron- stic in Wagner's thinking. Rightly or wrongly, we associate the mature Wagner with the world of myth and with timeless settings which, in his own words, were 'true for all time' and 'inexhaustible throughout the ages'.26 'Nuremberg, about the middle of the sixteenth century' - to quote the stage direction at the beginning of Die Meistersinger - is something of a non sequitur after the mythic vagueness of the Ring and Tristan. But so keen was Wagner to re-create sixteenth- century Nuremberg on the stage of the Munich Court Theatre that he demanded 'practicable houses' for Act II, in other words, solid, three-dimensional sets, an unheard-of demand in terms of nineteenth-century theatrical practice. The set designers Angelo II Quaglio and Heinrich Doll were despatched to Nuremberg in June 1867 to study the local architecture and to create sets that were historically authentic. In the event neither of the first two acts was based on any obvious Nuremberg locale, but they remained true to the spirit, if not the letter, of the original. The setting of Wagner's opening act is the interior of St Catherine's Church, an austerely Gothic structure destroyed at the end of the Second World War. (The site is now used for open-air theatre performances.) Figure 6 is a drawing by Theodor Pixis showing Quaglio's gothicising design for Act I, a riot of oriel windows, tracery and elaborate workmanship in stone, metal and wood more reminiscent of the Transitional and Radiating Gothic of St Sebaldus's, the original setting for Act I.

The basic design for Act II was defined by Wagner himself, possibly with a real location in mind, if we may believe an entry in Cosima Wagner's diary of 23 July 1877. The 1845 prose draft contains a marginal addition showing Sachs's house on the left, divided by a street from the 'Haus des Altesten'. (The Altester or alderman became Thomas Bogler in 1861 and Veit Pogner in 1862.) This ground plan was taken over by Quaglio, who began a tradition in the design of this act which survived unchallenged for decades. In Michael Echter's illustration of Act II scene 5 (see Fig. 7) Sachs is seen hammering away on the left, with Beckmesser lurking in the shadows behind him, trying vainly to serenade Eva. A rather matronly Eva clings to Walther's side beneath the spreading branches of a linden tree on the right.

The second scene of Act III is set on the Festwiese, a reminiscence of the old 25 Richard Wagner, Gesammelte Schriften und Dichtungen, 4th edn (Leipzig, 1907), IV, 284-5. 26

Wagner, Gesammelte Schriften und Dichtungen, IV, 64.

33 33




Fig. 6. Theodor Pixis, Act I scene 1 of Die Meistersinger von Niurnberg. Pencil drawing, 1868. From Wagner: A Documentary Study, P1. 160. Fig. 6. Theodor Pixis, Act I scene 1 of Die Meistersinger von Niurnberg. Pencil drawing, 1868. From Wagner: A Documentary Study, P1. 160.

Hallerwiese outside Nuremberg. Figure 8 shows D6ll's design for this scene, with the familiar outline of Nuremberg's roofs and towers in the distance.

So is Die Meistersinger about nostalgia? A flight into the past to escape the indus- trialised present? There is no lack of evidence to support this view. Musically the work is indebted to historical forms in a way that is true of no other work by the composer. And Wagner, like a number of his contemporaries, was openly critical of many of the developments that were taking place around him in nineteenth-century society. Time and again in his writings we find him inveighing against what he saw as the unfeeling, technologically orientated utilitarianism of a state increasingly geared to militaristic expansion. As early as 1849, for example, he had blamed the utilitarianism of Christian thought for the social evils of his day. In Art and Revolution he claims to see 'the spirit of Christianity quite clearly embodied in modern cotton factories: for the benefit of the rich, God has been turned into an industry which keeps the poor Christian worker alive until such time as heavenly constellations in trade bring about the merciful necessity of releasing him into a better world'.27 Wagner had little time for the revolution in mechanised transport that transformed nineteenth-century travel. The railways,

Hallerwiese outside Nuremberg. Figure 8 shows D6ll's design for this scene, with the familiar outline of Nuremberg's roofs and towers in the distance.

So is Die Meistersinger about nostalgia? A flight into the past to escape the indus- trialised present? There is no lack of evidence to support this view. Musically the work is indebted to historical forms in a way that is true of no other work by the composer. And Wagner, like a number of his contemporaries, was openly critical of many of the developments that were taking place around him in nineteenth-century society. Time and again in his writings we find him inveighing against what he saw as the unfeeling, technologically orientated utilitarianism of a state increasingly geared to militaristic expansion. As early as 1849, for example, he had blamed the utilitarianism of Christian thought for the social evils of his day. In Art and Revolution he claims to see 'the spirit of Christianity quite clearly embodied in modern cotton factories: for the benefit of the rich, God has been turned into an industry which keeps the poor Christian worker alive until such time as heavenly constellations in trade bring about the merciful necessity of releasing him into a better world'.27 Wagner had little time for the revolution in mechanised transport that transformed nineteenth-century travel. The railways,

27 Gesammelte Schriften und Dichtungen, III, 25-6. 27 Gesammelte Schriften und Dichtungen, III, 25-6.

34 34




Fig. 7. Michael Echter, Act II scene 5 of Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg. Pencil, watercolour and tempera, undated [1871]. From Richard Wagner 1813-1883: Ur- und Erstauffihrungen seiner Werke in Muznchen (Munich, 1983), 19.

Fig. 7. Michael Echter, Act II scene 5 of Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg. Pencil, watercolour and tempera, undated [1871]. From Richard Wagner 1813-1883: Ur- und Erstauffihrungen seiner Werke in Muznchen (Munich, 1983), 19.

he argued, served no useful function;28 and he looked back fondly to the days of sailing ships.29 The use of electricity merely added to the 'crippling conditions' to which modern man was subjected;30 and even the invention of the phonograph filled him with fear of the future: 'Recently, when the phonograph was mentioned', Cosima recorded in her diary, 'he spoke of the foolishness of expecting anything from such inventions - people were turning themselves into machines'.31

Against this background, it is tempting to see Die Meistersinger as the ideal embodiment of a pre-industrial self-reliant community of craftsmen-artists. And no doubt it is, in part. But this is only half the story. The other half comes from the letters and essays which Wagner wrote during the 1860s and which provide the ideological background to the opera. In a letter of 24 July 1866, for example, we find Wagner attempting to dissuade Ludwig from his plans to abdicate and describing the hopes he has placed in Die Meistersinger. The work, Wagner insists, belongs in Nuremberg: 28 Cosima Wagner, Die Tagebutcher, ed. Martin Gregor-Dellin and Dietrich Mack, 2 vols.

(Munich and Zurich, 1976-77), II, 503; trans. by Geoffrey Skelton as Cosima Wagner's Diaries, 2 vols. (London and New York, 1978-80), II, 450 (entry of 14 March 1880).

29 Cosima Wagner, Die Tagebucher, II, 561; trans., II, 503 (entry of 2 July 1880). 30 Cosima Wagner, Die Tagebu'cher, II, 915; trans., II, 830 (entry of 25 March 1882). 31 Cosima Wagner, Die Tagebucher, II, 1017; trans., II, 924 (entry of 7 October 1882).

he argued, served no useful function;28 and he looked back fondly to the days of sailing ships.29 The use of electricity merely added to the 'crippling conditions' to which modern man was subjected;30 and even the invention of the phonograph filled him with fear of the future: 'Recently, when the phonograph was mentioned', Cosima recorded in her diary, 'he spoke of the foolishness of expecting anything from such inventions - people were turning themselves into machines'.31

Against this background, it is tempting to see Die Meistersinger as the ideal embodiment of a pre-industrial self-reliant community of craftsmen-artists. And no doubt it is, in part. But this is only half the story. The other half comes from the letters and essays which Wagner wrote during the 1860s and which provide the ideological background to the opera. In a letter of 24 July 1866, for example, we find Wagner attempting to dissuade Ludwig from his plans to abdicate and describing the hopes he has placed in Die Meistersinger. The work, Wagner insists, belongs in Nuremberg: 28 Cosima Wagner, Die Tagebutcher, ed. Martin Gregor-Dellin and Dietrich Mack, 2 vols.

(Munich and Zurich, 1976-77), II, 503; trans. by Geoffrey Skelton as Cosima Wagner's Diaries, 2 vols. (London and New York, 1978-80), II, 450 (entry of 14 March 1880).

29 Cosima Wagner, Die Tagebucher, II, 561; trans., II, 503 (entry of 2 July 1880). 30 Cosima Wagner, Die Tagebu'cher, II, 915; trans., II, 830 (entry of 25 March 1882). 31 Cosima Wagner, Die Tagebucher, II, 1017; trans., II, 924 (entry of 7 October 1882).

35 35




Fig. 8. Heinrich D6ll, set design for Act III scene 5. From Wagner: A Documentary Study, PI. 158. Fig. 8. Heinrich D6ll, set design for Act III scene 5. From Wagner: A Documentary Study, PI. 158.

Nuremberg, the old, true seat of German art, German uniqueness and splendour, the powerful old free city, well-preserved like a precious jewel, reborn through the labours of its serenely happy, solid, enlightened and liberal populace under the patronage of the Bavarian throne. It is there, my beloved, that I wanted to invite you next year. ... it was a question ... of restoring and elevating the dear old town of Nuremberg. Our success cannot be judged too highly: there - and there alone, the eyes of all Germany would suddenly have been opened to the significance of what lies behind our 'model performances'.32

What precisely this 'significance' was is spelt out in a series of diary entries dated 14-27 September 1865 and written especially with Ludwig in mind.33 Here Wagner repeatedly and emphatically states that his 'great artistic enterprises' have a 'political significance'; they are bound up with 'the political life of the nation'.34 The German princes, he maintains, have failed to understand 'the German people and the true popular spirit'. The German spirit, Wagner argues, is alive and well

among the populace or Volk. Inspired by the artistic renaissance of the eighteenth century, that spirit had found its most glorious expression in the Wars of Liber- ation, a resurgence of national feeling which Germany's princes had seen as the 32

Kdnig Ludwig II. und Richard Wagner: Briefwechsel [ =Kdnigsbriefe], ed. Otto Strobel, 5 vols. (Karlsruhe, 1936-9), II, 78; trans. from Selected Letters of Richard Wagner (see n. 6), 701.

33 These diary entries were published in abridged form in vol. X of Wagner's Gesammelte Schriften (see n. 25) under the title 'Was ist deutsch?' The complete text was published for the first time in 1936 in Kdnigsbriefe, IV, 5-34.

34 Konigsbriefe, IV, 7-8.

Nuremberg, the old, true seat of German art, German uniqueness and splendour, the powerful old free city, well-preserved like a precious jewel, reborn through the labours of its serenely happy, solid, enlightened and liberal populace under the patronage of the Bavarian throne. It is there, my beloved, that I wanted to invite you next year. ... it was a question ... of restoring and elevating the dear old town of Nuremberg. Our success cannot be judged too highly: there - and there alone, the eyes of all Germany would suddenly have been opened to the significance of what lies behind our 'model performances'.32

What precisely this 'significance' was is spelt out in a series of diary entries dated 14-27 September 1865 and written especially with Ludwig in mind.33 Here Wagner repeatedly and emphatically states that his 'great artistic enterprises' have a 'political significance'; they are bound up with 'the political life of the nation'.34 The German princes, he maintains, have failed to understand 'the German people and the true popular spirit'. The German spirit, Wagner argues, is alive and well

among the populace or Volk. Inspired by the artistic renaissance of the eighteenth century, that spirit had found its most glorious expression in the Wars of Liber- ation, a resurgence of national feeling which Germany's princes had seen as the 32

Kdnig Ludwig II. und Richard Wagner: Briefwechsel [ =Kdnigsbriefe], ed. Otto Strobel, 5 vols. (Karlsruhe, 1936-9), II, 78; trans. from Selected Letters of Richard Wagner (see n. 6), 701.

33 These diary entries were published in abridged form in vol. X of Wagner's Gesammelte Schriften (see n. 25) under the title 'Was ist deutsch?' The complete text was published for the first time in 1936 in Kdnigsbriefe, IV, 5-34.

34 Konigsbriefe, IV, 7-8.

36 36




embodiment of Jacobin radicalism and which they had suppressed accordingly. This is a typically Romantic view filtered through the vdlkisch ideology of the middle of the nineteenth century. But, unlike the Romantics, Wagner has no illusions about the ostensible greatness of Germany's past: the German king had been dependent for his power on Rome, and only with the end of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806 could the true German spirit begin to develop. 'In this yearning for "German glory"', Wagner writes, 'the German can normally'dream only of restoring something similar to the Holy Roman Empire. ... He forgets how pernicious an influence Roman political thinking has already had on the growth of the German peoples'.35 This, Wagner goes on, is particularly noticeable in the area of religion.

There follows a section on what Wagner sees as the baleful influence of Jews on the spiritual life of Germany, but I do not propose to say any more on this subject here since it is dealt with by Barry Millington in the last issue of this journal.36 Suffice it to mention only the contrast which Wagner draws between the rootless Jews and the German nations who are said to comprise 'those Germanic tribes who have preserved their language and customs on their native soil'. The individual German is at one with his literary roots: 'In inhospitable forests, throughout the long winter, at the warming hearth of a castle chamber soaring high into the air, he cherishes ancestral memories, transforming the autochthonous myths of his gods into inexhaustibly manifold legends'.37 It is impossible not to be reminded here of Walther von Stolzing, who introduces himself to the assembled mastersingers with the words:

Am stillen Herd in Winterszeit, wenn Burg und Hof mir eingeschnei't, wie einst der Lenz so lieblich lacht', und wie er bald wohl neu erwacht', ein altes Buch, vom Ahn' vermacht,

gab das mir oft zu lesen: Herr Walther von der Vogelweid',

der ist mein Meister gewesen.38

[By silent hearth one winter's day, / When locked in snow the castle lay, / How once the spring so sweetly smiled, / And soon should wake to glory mild, / An ancient book bequeathed to me / Set all before me duly: / Sir Walther von der Vogelweid' / Has been my master truly.]

The German, Wagner insists, is essentially conservative in art as in life: that essential conservatism must be acknowledged by the country's rulers if the German spirit is to survive. Its destruction is closer to hand than the Germans themselves realise, not least because their contemplative cast of mind all too readily predisposes them to sloth and inactivity. The Germans are being presented with a false image of

Knigsbriefe, IV, 16. 6'Nuremberg Trial: Is there Anti-semitism in Die Meistersinger?, this journal, 3 (1991), 247-60.

37 KGnigsbriefe, IV, 21. 38 Gesammelte Schriften und Dichtungen (see n. 25), VII, 178.

embodiment of Jacobin radicalism and which they had suppressed accordingly. This is a typically Romantic view filtered through the vdlkisch ideology of the middle of the nineteenth century. But, unlike the Romantics, Wagner has no illusions about the ostensible greatness of Germany's past: the German king had been dependent for his power on Rome, and only with the end of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806 could the true German spirit begin to develop. 'In this yearning for "German glory"', Wagner writes, 'the German can normally'dream only of restoring something similar to the Holy Roman Empire. ... He forgets how pernicious an influence Roman political thinking has already had on the growth of the German peoples'.35 This, Wagner goes on, is particularly noticeable in the area of religion.

There follows a section on what Wagner sees as the baleful influence of Jews on the spiritual life of Germany, but I do not propose to say any more on this subject here since it is dealt with by Barry Millington in the last issue of this journal.36 Suffice it to mention only the contrast which Wagner draws between the rootless Jews and the German nations who are said to comprise 'those Germanic tribes who have preserved their language and customs on their native soil'. The individual German is at one with his literary roots: 'In inhospitable forests, throughout the long winter, at the warming hearth of a castle chamber soaring high into the air, he cherishes ancestral memories, transforming the autochthonous myths of his gods into inexhaustibly manifold legends'.37 It is impossible not to be reminded here of Walther von Stolzing, who introduces himself to the assembled mastersingers with the words:

Am stillen Herd in Winterszeit, wenn Burg und Hof mir eingeschnei't, wie einst der Lenz so lieblich lacht', und wie er bald wohl neu erwacht', ein altes Buch, vom Ahn' vermacht,

gab das mir oft zu lesen: Herr Walther von der Vogelweid',

der ist mein Meister gewesen.38

[By silent hearth one winter's day, / When locked in snow the castle lay, / How once the spring so sweetly smiled, / And soon should wake to glory mild, / An ancient book bequeathed to me / Set all before me duly: / Sir Walther von der Vogelweid' / Has been my master truly.]

The German, Wagner insists, is essentially conservative in art as in life: that essential conservatism must be acknowledged by the country's rulers if the German spirit is to survive. Its destruction is closer to hand than the Germans themselves realise, not least because their contemplative cast of mind all too readily predisposes them to sloth and inactivity. The Germans are being presented with a false image of

Knigsbriefe, IV, 16. 6'Nuremberg Trial: Is there Anti-semitism in Die Meistersinger?, this journal, 3 (1991), 247-60.

37 KGnigsbriefe, IV, 21. 38 Gesammelte Schriften und Dichtungen (see n. 25), VII, 178.

37 37




themselves and they are in imminent danger of believing that the distorted picture of expansionist self-interest that is held out to them represents their true selves:

The German people are for the most part already playing along with this humiliating comedy, and not without horror can the pensive German spirit contemplate those foolish festive gatherings with their theatrical processions, stupid speeches and desperately vapid songs with which attempts are made to make the German people believe that they are something special and that they do not need to become so.39

In the context of this passage it is difficult to avoid the impression that the Festwiese scene in Die Meistersinger represents Wagner's view of what such 'festive gatherings' should really be like. This interpretation is, I believe, supported by the final entry in Wagner's diary for King Ludwig, in which he returns to the point that the people or Volk must be set an example: 'we must show them, clearly and unequivo- cally, in golden letters of fire, what is truly German, what the genuine German spirit is: the spirit of all that is genuine, true and unadulterated [der Geist des Achten, Wahrhaften, Unverfalschten]'.40 Drawing on identical language, Sachs informs Walther and the assembled populace in the closing moments of the opera that the art that has been preserved by the mastersingers is 'genuine ... German and true [acht ... deutsch und wahr]'.41

That this is not just an artistic message but also a political one is clear not only from the foregoing summary but from a slightly later letter to Ludwig of 22 November 1866 in which Wagner, expatiating on the theme of Wahn, describes Nuremberg as 'the abode of the "art-work of the future", the Archimedes point at which we shall move the world - the inert mass of the stagnating German spirit!'42

Wahn - normally translated 'illusion'43 - is a highly ambiguous concept in Wagner's thinking, embracing both a constructive and a destructive potential. Its constructive force lies in the artist's ability to manipulate it for the greater good of the community. Thus the Volk, which had been the embodiment of an irrational and wilful Wahn at the end of Act II, is manipulated by Sachs and made to acclaim the new form of art - Sachs's art and Wagner's art - which is 'genuine, German and true'. And thus Wagner the Saxon composer - the coinci- dental similarity between his own designation as der Sachs' and the name of his hero was not lost on him44 - hoped to manipulate his audience. In this he failed, as he himself was the first to admit. His disappointment found expression in the essay Wollen wir hoffen? of 1879:

So leitete mich bei der Ausfiihrung und Auffiihrung der >Meistersinger?, welche ich zuerst 39 Kdnigsbriefe, IV, 29. 40 Kdnigsbriefe, IV, 33. 41

Wagner, Gesammelte Schriften und Dichtungen (see n. 25), VII, 270. 42

Kdnigsbriefe, II, 103; trans. from Selected Letters ofRichard Wagner (see n. 6), 708. 43 In the opera, of course, musical constraints require monosyllabic alternatives such as 'mad'

or 'crazed'. The best articles on the subject of Wahn are Richard Turner's "'Die Meistersinger von Niirnberg": The Conceptual Growth of an Opera', Wagner, 3 (1982), 2-16; and Iris Gillespie's 'The Theory and Practice of "Wahn"', Wagner, 5 (1984), 79-85.

44 Knigsbriefe, II, 79; trans. in Selected Letters ofRichard Wagner, 702.

themselves and they are in imminent danger of believing that the distorted picture of expansionist self-interest that is held out to them represents their true selves:

The German people are for the most part already playing along with this humiliating comedy, and not without horror can the pensive German spirit contemplate those foolish festive gatherings with their theatrical processions, stupid speeches and desperately vapid songs with which attempts are made to make the German people believe that they are something special and that they do not need to become so.39

In the context of this passage it is difficult to avoid the impression that the Festwiese scene in Die Meistersinger represents Wagner's view of what such 'festive gatherings' should really be like. This interpretation is, I believe, supported by the final entry in Wagner's diary for King Ludwig, in which he returns to the point that the people or Volk must be set an example: 'we must show them, clearly and unequivo- cally, in golden letters of fire, what is truly German, what the genuine German spirit is: the spirit of all that is genuine, true and unadulterated [der Geist des Achten, Wahrhaften, Unverfalschten]'.40 Drawing on identical language, Sachs informs Walther and the assembled populace in the closing moments of the opera that the art that has been preserved by the mastersingers is 'genuine ... German and true [acht ... deutsch und wahr]'.41

That this is not just an artistic message but also a political one is clear not only from the foregoing summary but from a slightly later letter to Ludwig of 22 November 1866 in which Wagner, expatiating on the theme of Wahn, describes Nuremberg as 'the abode of the "art-work of the future", the Archimedes point at which we shall move the world - the inert mass of the stagnating German spirit!'42

Wahn - normally translated 'illusion'43 - is a highly ambiguous concept in Wagner's thinking, embracing both a constructive and a destructive potential. Its constructive force lies in the artist's ability to manipulate it for the greater good of the community. Thus the Volk, which had been the embodiment of an irrational and wilful Wahn at the end of Act II, is manipulated by Sachs and made to acclaim the new form of art - Sachs's art and Wagner's art - which is 'genuine, German and true'. And thus Wagner the Saxon composer - the coinci- dental similarity between his own designation as der Sachs' and the name of his hero was not lost on him44 - hoped to manipulate his audience. In this he failed, as he himself was the first to admit. His disappointment found expression in the essay Wollen wir hoffen? of 1879:

So leitete mich bei der Ausfiihrung und Auffiihrung der >Meistersinger?, welche ich zuerst 39 Kdnigsbriefe, IV, 29. 40 Kdnigsbriefe, IV, 33. 41

Wagner, Gesammelte Schriften und Dichtungen (see n. 25), VII, 270. 42

Kdnigsbriefe, II, 103; trans. from Selected Letters ofRichard Wagner (see n. 6), 708. 43 In the opera, of course, musical constraints require monosyllabic alternatives such as 'mad'

or 'crazed'. The best articles on the subject of Wahn are Richard Turner's "'Die Meistersinger von Niirnberg": The Conceptual Growth of an Opera', Wagner, 3 (1982), 2-16; and Iris Gillespie's 'The Theory and Practice of "Wahn"', Wagner, 5 (1984), 79-85.

44 Knigsbriefe, II, 79; trans. in Selected Letters ofRichard Wagner, 702.

38 38




sogar in Niirnberg selbst zu veranstalten wiinschte, die Meinung, mit dieser Arbeit ein dem deutschen Publikum bisher nur stiimperhaft noch vorgefiihrtes Abbild seiner eigenen wahren Natur darzubieten, und ich gab mich der Hoffnung hin, dem Herzen des edleren und tiichtigeren deutschen Biirgerthumes einen ernstlich gemeinten Gegengrufi abzugewin- nen. Eine vortreffliche Auffiihrung auf dem Miinchener k6niglichen Hoftheater fand die warmste Aufnahme: sonderbarer Weise waren es aber einige hierbei anwesendefranzosische Gaste, welche mit grofier Lebhaftigkeit das volksthiimliche Element meines Werkes erkann- ten und als solches begriiften; nichts verrieth jedoch einen gleichen Eindruck auf den hier namentlich in das Auge gefafiten Theil des Miinchener Publikums. Meine Hoffnung auf Niirnberg selbst tauschte mich dagegen ganz und gar. Wohl wandte sich der dortige Theaterdirektor wegen der Acquisition der >neuen Oper<< an mich; ich erfuhr zu gleicher Zeit, dafi man dort damit umgehe, Hans Sachs ein Denkmal zu setzen, und legte nun dem Direktor als einzige Honorarbedingung die Abtretung der Einnahme der ersten Auf- fiihrung der >Meistersinger<< als Beisteuer zu den Kosten der Errichtung jenes Monumentes auf: worauf dieser Direktor mir gar nicht erst antwortete. So nahm mein Werk seine anderen und gew6hnlichen Wege iiber die Theater; es war schwer auszufiihren, gelang nur selten ertraglich, ward zu den 'Opern' gelegt, von den Juden ausgepfiffen und vom deutschen Publikum als eine mit Kopfschiitteln aufzunehmende Kuriositat dahingehen gelassen. Dem Denkmal des Hans Sachs gegeniiber stellte sich aber in Niirnberg eine imponirende Synagoge reinsten orientalischen Styles auf. Diefi waren meine Erfahrungen an der deutschen Biirgerwelt.45

[In composing and performing my 'Mastersingers', which I initially desired to be given in Nuremberg itself, I was encouraged by the belief that in this work I was offering the German public a reflection of its own true nature of a kind only bunglingly presented in the past, and I gave myself up to the hope that I would meet with a serious response on the part of the nobler and more capable members of the German bourgeoisie. An outstanding performance at the Royal Court Theatre in Munich was accorded the warmest reception; strangely enough, however, it was a number of French visitors who had travelled here for the occasion who were quickest to recognise the popular element in my work and who welcomed it as such; nothing, however, led me to think that a similar impression had been left on that section of the Munich public which I had particularly had in mind. My hopes for Nuremberg itself, by contrast, were disappointed in the extreme. The director of the theatre there wrote to me about acquiring the 'new opera'; at the same time I discovered that plans were being made to erect a monument to Hans Sachs in the town and so I suggested to the director that, as the only condition I would make with regard to a fee, I would make over the receipts from the first performance of the 'Mastersingers' as a contribution to the costs of erecting the monument: to which the said director did not so much as reply. My work thus entered the theatre through other, more mundane, channels: it was difficult to perform, rarely met with even a tolerable degree of success and was lumped together with ordinary 'operas', shouted down by the Jews and treated by German audiences as a curiosity to be greeted with a shake of the head. Opposite the monument to Hans Sachs in Nuremberg, meanwhile, there appeared an imposing 45 Gesammelte Schrifren und Dichtungen (see n. 25), X, 119-20. The French friends mentioned

by Wagner include Jules Etienne Pasdeloup, Leon Leroy and Paul Chandon (see Richard Wagner, Das braune Buch: Tagebuchaufzeichnungen 1865 bis 1882, ed. Joachim Bergfeld [Zurich, 1975], 199; trans. by George Bird [London, 1980], 167); it has not been possible to identify the Nuremberg opera director. Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg received its first performance in the town on 24 March 1874; the Hans Sachs Monument was unveiled on 24 June 1874.

sogar in Niirnberg selbst zu veranstalten wiinschte, die Meinung, mit dieser Arbeit ein dem deutschen Publikum bisher nur stiimperhaft noch vorgefiihrtes Abbild seiner eigenen wahren Natur darzubieten, und ich gab mich der Hoffnung hin, dem Herzen des edleren und tiichtigeren deutschen Biirgerthumes einen ernstlich gemeinten Gegengrufi abzugewin- nen. Eine vortreffliche Auffiihrung auf dem Miinchener k6niglichen Hoftheater fand die warmste Aufnahme: sonderbarer Weise waren es aber einige hierbei anwesendefranzosische Gaste, welche mit grofier Lebhaftigkeit das volksthiimliche Element meines Werkes erkann- ten und als solches begriiften; nichts verrieth jedoch einen gleichen Eindruck auf den hier namentlich in das Auge gefafiten Theil des Miinchener Publikums. Meine Hoffnung auf Niirnberg selbst tauschte mich dagegen ganz und gar. Wohl wandte sich der dortige Theaterdirektor wegen der Acquisition der >neuen Oper<< an mich; ich erfuhr zu gleicher Zeit, dafi man dort damit umgehe, Hans Sachs ein Denkmal zu setzen, und legte nun dem Direktor als einzige Honorarbedingung die Abtretung der Einnahme der ersten Auf- fiihrung der >Meistersinger<< als Beisteuer zu den Kosten der Errichtung jenes Monumentes auf: worauf dieser Direktor mir gar nicht erst antwortete. So nahm mein Werk seine anderen und gew6hnlichen Wege iiber die Theater; es war schwer auszufiihren, gelang nur selten ertraglich, ward zu den 'Opern' gelegt, von den Juden ausgepfiffen und vom deutschen Publikum als eine mit Kopfschiitteln aufzunehmende Kuriositat dahingehen gelassen. Dem Denkmal des Hans Sachs gegeniiber stellte sich aber in Niirnberg eine imponirende Synagoge reinsten orientalischen Styles auf. Diefi waren meine Erfahrungen an der deutschen Biirgerwelt.45

[In composing and performing my 'Mastersingers', which I initially desired to be given in Nuremberg itself, I was encouraged by the belief that in this work I was offering the German public a reflection of its own true nature of a kind only bunglingly presented in the past, and I gave myself up to the hope that I would meet with a serious response on the part of the nobler and more capable members of the German bourgeoisie. An outstanding performance at the Royal Court Theatre in Munich was accorded the warmest reception; strangely enough, however, it was a number of French visitors who had travelled here for the occasion who were quickest to recognise the popular element in my work and who welcomed it as such; nothing, however, led me to think that a similar impression had been left on that section of the Munich public which I had particularly had in mind. My hopes for Nuremberg itself, by contrast, were disappointed in the extreme. The director of the theatre there wrote to me about acquiring the 'new opera'; at the same time I discovered that plans were being made to erect a monument to Hans Sachs in the town and so I suggested to the director that, as the only condition I would make with regard to a fee, I would make over the receipts from the first performance of the 'Mastersingers' as a contribution to the costs of erecting the monument: to which the said director did not so much as reply. My work thus entered the theatre through other, more mundane, channels: it was difficult to perform, rarely met with even a tolerable degree of success and was lumped together with ordinary 'operas', shouted down by the Jews and treated by German audiences as a curiosity to be greeted with a shake of the head. Opposite the monument to Hans Sachs in Nuremberg, meanwhile, there appeared an imposing 45 Gesammelte Schrifren und Dichtungen (see n. 25), X, 119-20. The French friends mentioned

by Wagner include Jules Etienne Pasdeloup, Leon Leroy and Paul Chandon (see Richard Wagner, Das braune Buch: Tagebuchaufzeichnungen 1865 bis 1882, ed. Joachim Bergfeld [Zurich, 1975], 199; trans. by George Bird [London, 1980], 167); it has not been possible to identify the Nuremberg opera director. Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg received its first performance in the town on 24 March 1874; the Hans Sachs Monument was unveiled on 24 June 1874.

39 39




synagogue in the purest oriental style. These were my experiences of the world of the German bourgeoisie.]

Disillusioned by Nuremberg, Wagner turned his attentions to Bayreuth and Parsi- fal, leaving Nuremberg and Die Meistersinger to take whatever course they would.

synagogue in the purest oriental style. These were my experiences of the world of the German bourgeoisie.]

Disillusioned by Nuremberg, Wagner turned his attentions to Bayreuth and Parsi- fal, leaving Nuremberg and Die Meistersinger to take whatever course they would.

Fig. 9. Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg, Act II. Bayreuth Festival 1956. Producer and designer: Wieland Wagner. Conductor: Andre Cluytens. Hans Sachs: Hans Hotter. From Oswald Georg Bauer, Richard Wagner: Die Bzhnenwerke von der Urauffiuhrung bis heute (Frankfurt am Main, Berlin, Vienna, 1982), 167.

It is, I think, futile to speculate on how Wagner would have reacted to the subse- quent performance history of his work. Nor is this the place to examine in detail the role of Nuremberg in twentieth-century German politics. But it cannot be denied that, as the nineteenth-century cult of Nuremberg grew more and more stridently and self-assertively nationalistic, so the nationalist, not to say racist, content of Die Meistersinger allowed the work to be exploited as part of the National Socialist propaganda machine. It is no coincidence that Hitler chose Nuremberg as the scene of his party rallies and that he declared that Die Meistersinger should be performed there annually for ever after. Nor was it mere accident that the Allies chose 20 April 1945 - Hitler's birthday - to launch their final and most

Fig. 9. Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg, Act II. Bayreuth Festival 1956. Producer and designer: Wieland Wagner. Conductor: Andre Cluytens. Hans Sachs: Hans Hotter. From Oswald Georg Bauer, Richard Wagner: Die Bzhnenwerke von der Urauffiuhrung bis heute (Frankfurt am Main, Berlin, Vienna, 1982), 167.

It is, I think, futile to speculate on how Wagner would have reacted to the subse- quent performance history of his work. Nor is this the place to examine in detail the role of Nuremberg in twentieth-century German politics. But it cannot be denied that, as the nineteenth-century cult of Nuremberg grew more and more stridently and self-assertively nationalistic, so the nationalist, not to say racist, content of Die Meistersinger allowed the work to be exploited as part of the National Socialist propaganda machine. It is no coincidence that Hitler chose Nuremberg as the scene of his party rallies and that he declared that Die Meistersinger should be performed there annually for ever after. Nor was it mere accident that the Allies chose 20 April 1945 - Hitler's birthday - to launch their final and most

40 40



Wagner's Nuremberg 41

devastating offensive against the town, or that the German war criminals were tried and punished in Nuremberg. With the streets and houses of medieval Nurem- berg reduced to rubble and the image of German aspirations irredeemably tainted, it is small wonder that Wieland Wagner sought to dispense with Nuremberg altogether in his first post-war production of the opera in 1956 (see Fig. 9). We may perhaps be guilty of regarding this production as more symbolic than it

actually was, since it had, after all, been preceded in 1951 by a staging of the work by Rudolf Hartmann to designs by Hans Reissinger which, for all their post-war economies, were still largely traditional in style. But Wieland Wagner's Mastersingers without Nuremberg was important for stripping away one layer of the work and allowing audiences to explore what lay behind the neo-medieval house fronts. My concern in the present article has been, so to speak, this neo- medieval masonry, but no one is more conscious than I of how partial a view of the work this is.

Wagner's Nuremberg 41

devastating offensive against the town, or that the German war criminals were tried and punished in Nuremberg. With the streets and houses of medieval Nurem- berg reduced to rubble and the image of German aspirations irredeemably tainted, it is small wonder that Wieland Wagner sought to dispense with Nuremberg altogether in his first post-war production of the opera in 1956 (see Fig. 9). We may perhaps be guilty of regarding this production as more symbolic than it

actually was, since it had, after all, been preceded in 1951 by a staging of the work by Rudolf Hartmann to designs by Hans Reissinger which, for all their post-war economies, were still largely traditional in style. But Wieland Wagner's Mastersingers without Nuremberg was important for stripping away one layer of the work and allowing audiences to explore what lay behind the neo-medieval house fronts. My concern in the present article has been, so to speak, this neo- medieval masonry, but no one is more conscious than I of how partial a view of the work this is.



wagner's nuremberg

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