These music-dramas go as far beyond "Lohengrin" in certain directions as
"Lohengrin" goes beyond the operas of Wagner's predecessors. It was a
reckless thing to do, to make another such giant stride before the world
had caught up with his first, and he had to suffer the consequences;
but genius disregards prudence, and looks to the future alone. What he
was now writing was what his enemies tauntingly called "the music of the
future," because, as they said, nobody liked it at present; but what he
himself called the "art work of the future," in which all the fine arts
are inseparably united.

The biggest of his works, the "Nibelung Tetralogy," was conceived and
for the most part written in Switzerland. Before leaving Dresden he had
already written the poem of an opera which he called "Siegfried's
Death." Returning to this in his exile he came to the conclusion,
gradually, that the legend on which it is based, and which he had
sketched out in prose at the beginning, contained the material for two,
three, nay, four operas. Accordingly, he wrote the poems of these:
first, "Götterdämmerung," then "Siegfried," "Die Walküre," and
"Rheingold." The music to these four dramas was, however, composed in
the reverse order, in which they were to be performed.

Wagner indulged in no illusions regarding these music-dramas. He knew
that they were beyond the capacity of even the best royal opera-houses
of that time, and that they could be performed only under exceptional
conditions, such as he finally succeeded, after herculean efforts and
many disappointments, in securing at Bayreuth in 1876. It is of great
interest to note that the germs of a sort of "Bayreuth festival plan"
can be found in his letters as early as 1850,--the year when "Lohengrin"
had its first hearing. Thus a full quarter of a century elapsed between
the conception of this festival plan and its execution. But Wagner had