Part 17

An orchestral society in Vienna gave Wolf's Penthesilea a trial reading; and it was rehearsed, in disregard of all good taste, amid shouts of laughter. When it was finished, the conductor said: "Gentlemen, I ask your pardon for having allowed this piece to be played to the end; but I wanted to know what manner of man it is that dares to write such things about the master, Brahms."

Wolf got a little respite from his miseries by going to stay a few weeks in his own country with his brother-in-law, Strasser, an inspector of taxes. He took with him his books, his poets, and began to set them to music.

* * * * *

He was now twenty-seven years old, and had as yet published nothing. The years of 1887 and 1888 were the most critical ones of his life. In 1887 he lost his father whom he loved so much, and that loss, like so many of his other misfortunes, gave fresh impulse to his energies. The same year, a generous friend called Eckstein published his first collection of Lieder. Wolf up to that time had been smothered, but this publication stirred the life in him, and was the means of unloosing his genius. Settled at Perchtoldsdorf, near Vienna, in February, 1888, in absolute peace, he wrote in three months fifty-three Lieder to the words of Eduard Moerike, the pastor-poet of Swabia, who died in 1875, and who, misunderstood and laughed at during his lifetime, is now covered with honour, and universally popular in Germany. Wolf composed his songs in a state of exalted joy and almost fright at the sudden discovery of his creative power.

In a letter to Dr. Heinrich Werner, he says:

"It is now seven o'clock in the evening, and I am so happy--oh, happier than the happiest of kings. Another new Lied! If you could hear what is going on in my heart!... the devil would carry you away with pleasure!...

"Another two new Lieder! There is one that sounds so horribly strange that it frightens me. There is nothing like it in existence. Heaven help the unfortunate people who will one day hear it!...

"If you could only hear the last Lied I have just composed you would only have one desire left--to die.... Your happy, happy Wolf."

He had hardly finished the Moerike-Lieder when he began a series of Lieder on poems of Goethe. In three months (December, 1888, to February, 1889) he had written all the Goethe-Liederbuch--fifty-one Lieder, some of which are, like Prometheus, big dramatic scenes.

The same year, while still at Perchtoldsdorf, after having published a volume of Eichendorff Lieder, he became absorbed in a new cycle--the Spanisches-Liederbuch, on Spanish poems translated by Heyse. He wrote these forty-four songs in the same ecstasy of gladness:

"What I write now, I write for the future.... Since Schubert and Schumann there has been nothing like it!"

In 1890, two months after he had finished the Spanisches-Liederbuch, he composed another cycle of Lieder on poems called Alten Weisen, by the great Swiss writer Gottfried Keller. And lastly, in the same year, he began his Italienisches-Liederbuch, on Italian poems, translated by Geibel and Heyse.

And then--then there was silence.

* * * * *

The history of Wolf is one of the most extraordinary in the history of art, and gives one a better glimpse of the mysteries of genius than most histories do.

Let us make a little resume. Wolf at twenty-eight years old had written practically nothing. From 1888 to 1890 he wrote, one after another, in a kind of fever, fifty-three Moerike Lieder, fifty-one Goethe Lieder, forty-four Spanish Lieder, seventeen Eichendorff Lieder, a dozen Keller Lieder, and the first Italian Lieder--that is about two hundred Lieder, each one having its own admirable individuality.

And then the music stops. The spring has dried up. Wolf in great anguish wrote despairing letters to his friends. To Oskar Grohe, on 2 May, 1891, he wrote:

"I have given up all idea of composing. Heaven knows how things will finish. Pray for my poor soul."

And to Wette, on 13 August, 1891, he says:

"For the last four months I have been suffering from a sort of mental consumption, which makes me very seriously think of quitting this world for ever.... Only those who truly live should live at all. I have been for some time like one who is dead. I only wish it were an apparent death; but I am really dead and buried; though the power to control my body gives me a seeming life. It is my inmost, my only desire, that the flesh may quickly follow the spirit that has already passed. For the last fifteen days I have been living at Traunkirchen, the pearl of Traunsee.... All the comforts that a man could wish for are here to make my life happy--peace, solitude, beautiful scenery, invigorating air, and everything that could suit the tastes of a hermit like myself. And yet--and yet, my friend, I am the most miserable creature on earth. Everything around me breathes peace and happiness, everything throbs with life and fulfils its functions.... I alone, oh God!... I alone live like a beast that is deaf and senseless. Even reading hardly serves to distract me now, though I bury myself in books in my despair. As for composition, that is finished; I can no longer bring to mind the meaning of a harmony or a melody, and I almost begin to doubt if the compositions that bear my name are really mine. Good God! what is the use of all this fame? What is the good of these great aims if misery is all that lies at the end of it?...

"Heaven gives a man complete genius or no genius at all. Hell has given me everything by halves.

"O unhappy man, how true, how true it is! In the flower of your life you went to hell; into the evil jaws of destiny you threw the delusive present and yourself with it. O Kleist!"

Suddenly, at Doebling, on 29 November, 1891, the stream of Wolf's genius flowed again, and he wrote fifteen Italian Lieder, sometimes several in one day. In December it stopped again; and this time for five years. These Italian melodies show, however, no trace of any effort, nor a greater tension of mind than is shown in his preceding works. On the contrary, they have the air of being the simplest and most natural work that Wolf ever did. But the matter is of no real consequence, for when Wolf's genius was not stirring within him he was useless. He wished to write thirty-three Italian Lieder, but he had to stop after the twenty-second, and in 1891 he published one volume only of the Italienisches-Liederbuch. The second volume was completed in a month, five years later, in 1896.

One may imagine the tortures that this solitary man suffered. His only happiness was in creation, and he saw his life cease, without any apparent cause, for years together, and his genius come and go, and return for an instant, and then go again. Each time he must have anxiously wondered if it had gone for ever, or how long it would be before it came back again. In letters to Kaufmann on 6 August, 1891, and 26 April, 1893, he says:

"You ask me for news of my opera. Good Heavens! I should be content if I could write the tiniest little Liedchen. And an opera, now?... I firmly believe that it is all over with me.... I could as well speak Chinese as compose anything. It is horrible.... What I suffer from this inaction I cannot tell you. I should like to hang myself."

To Hugo Faisst he wrote on 21 June, 1894:

"You ask me the cause of my great depression of spirit, and would pour balm on my wounds. Ah yes, if you only could! But no herb grows that could cure my sickness; only a god could help me. If you can give me back my inspirations, and wake up the familiar spirit that is asleep in me, and let him possess me anew, I will call you a god and raise altars to your name. My cry is to gods and not to men; the gods alone are fit to pronounce my fate. But however it may end, even if the worst comes, I will bear it--yes, even if no ray of sunshine lightens my life again.... And with that we will, once for all, turn the page and have done with this dark chapter of my life."

This letter--and it is not the only one--recalls the melancholy stoicism of Beethoven's letters, and shows us sorrows that even the unhappy Beethoven did not know. And yet how can we tell? Perhaps Beethoven, too, suffered similar anguish in the sad days that followed 1815, before the last sonatas, the Missa Solemnis, and the Ninth Symphony had awaked to life in him.