DRESDEN, 1842-1849.


He was now thirty, and although he had written two long works, one of
them a great one, they constituted the merest prelude to the gigantic
achievements of the next forty years. He was busily engaged at the
opera, but set to work at once on an endless number and variety of
projects. _Tannhäuser_ was finished by 1845, _Lohengrin_ by 1847, and
his brain was occupied with _The Mastersingers of Nuremberg (Die
Meistersinger)_ and _The Nibelung's Ring_, both to be completed long
afterwards. During this period he also composed the _Love-feast of the
Apostles_, and did a bit of mending to Gluck's _Iphigenia in Aulis_.
But, though scheming many things, he seemed by no means sure of his road
at first. With Schröder-Devrient, the singer, and others, he discussed
lengthily the question of whether he should attempt another _Rienzi_ or
go on from the _Dutchman_. If to realize his artistic dreams was dear to
Wagner, so were immediate success, fame and money. Of the last he could
never have enough, for he spent it faster than he gained it--spent it on
himself, needy artists, on any object which suggested itself to him.
However, the creative artist in him had the victory. The notion of a
second _Rienzi_ was abandoned and _Tannhäuser_ commenced. He had come
across the legend of an illicit passion and its punishment somewhere,
and he set to work on the book of words. Of course he sentimentalized
the story--it was a trick he was always given to, especially during
these, his younger, years--and, of course, he made a woman sacrifice
herself for a man. In the older form of the tale Tannhäuser lived