Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg

“ Those who have taken the trouble to investigate the source to which Wagner went for the people and customs introduced in his "Meistersinger von Nürnberg" (Wagenseil's book) know that the names of the master-singers who figure in the comedy once belonged to veritable members of the Nuremberg guild. Wagenseil mentions them as singers whose memories were cherished in his day, and some of them were also mentioned by an older author, whose book, devoted chiefly to the Strassburg guild, which at one time was even more famous than that of Nuremberg, is referred to by Wagenseil. ”

“ The facts as to the origin of Nuremberg are lost in the dim shadows of tradition. When the little town sprang up amid the forests and swamps which still marked the course of the Pegnitz, we know as little as we know the origin of the name Nürnberg. It is true that the chronicles of later days are only too ready to furnish us with information; but the information is not always reliable. The chronicles, like our own peerage, are apt to contain too vivid efforts of imaginative fiction. ”

“ Heinrich von Meissen, surnamed Frauenlob, also visited Nuremberg, but he was the last of the Minnesingers, and was buried at Mainz, 1318. After his time the practice of German poetry devolved almost exclusively on the burgher and artisan class. Close societies were formed: the rules of poetry and singing were taught in their schools. Versecraft became one of the Incorporated Trades. The Sängerzünfte, or Singers’ Guilds, flourished chiefly at Augsburg, and on the Rhine at Strasburg, Mainz, and Worms. ”

“ The latter has been recently reorganized with a new director, in accordance with the Wagner notions somewhat. The young king is cracked about Wagner, and appears to care little for other music: he brings out his operas at great expense, and it is the fashion here to like Wagner whether he is understood or not. The opera of the “Meister-Singer von Nurnberg,” which was brought out last summer, occupied over five hours in the representation, which is unbearable to the Germans, who go to the opera at six o'clock or half-past, and expect to be at home before ten. ”

“ This machine was introduced to Nürnberg in 1533, and is believed to have originated in Spain, and to have been transplanted into Germany during the reign of Charles V., who was monarch of both countries. At this period there were great tumults in Germany and continual quarrels at Nürnberg between the Catholics and Protestants: the men of that city had no doubt to thank “the most holy Inquisition” for this importation of horrors.
The great leading principles of the Reformation interested Dürer as they did other thinking men. ”

“ The city is full of their memories, and the business of the city, aside from its manufactory of endless toys, seems to consist in reproducing them and their endless works to sell to strangers. Nürnberg lives in the past, and (like some people we know) traffics on its ancient reputation. At the fish market we see odd old women with Rembrandt colors in faces and costumes. ”

“ The advantage a trip has with neither laid-out plans nor places to make within a limited number of days or hours, was clearly shown to us. We never knew where we were going, and seldom went where we set forth. Nürnberg is such an exceedingly interesting town that most tourists you meet say, “Don’t miss Nürnberg.” Why it is such a city was the question. All we could find out that they did there to make it such a busy centre, was the manufacture of toys and fancy articles.
Nürnberg is characteristically South German, and the quaintest town in the Empire. ”

“ In 1866, the feeling against Wagner had somewhat declined and the King decided to have model performances of "Tannhäuser" and "Lohengrin" at Munich. The Festival began June 11, 1867. The following year "Die Meistersinger" was performed—June 21, 1868. ”

“ A flourishing extensive city, this old Nürnberg, with valuable adjacent territory, civic and imperial, intricately intermixed; full of commercial industries, opulences, not without democratic tendencies. ”

“ Here he sings Walther’s Prize Song, which wins the approval of the Meistersingers, and the prize—lovely Eva.
Here we get a splendid idea of what Wagner felt about new music, for in the Meistersinger he tried to picture the jealousies of composers, who condemned the beauty of his inspiration and new ideas and methods.
Never was there an opera more delightful for young people, who love the melodies and charming pictures of medieval Nüremberg.
Bayreuth About this time the Valkyrie and Rhinegold had been given at the Court Theatre in Munich (1869–1870) . ”

“ If that glorious future, which the young man had assigned to the manufactory in his imagination at Paris was to become a fact, it would involve carrying on a conflict with all the old perverted notions, to break with the cumbersome progress of former times and upon the ruins of the Nürnberg trade, which beheld itself excluded from the world’s market, to lay the foundations of a new commerce, which alone would be able to reconquer for the venerable commercial city of Nürnberg her ancient renown. ”

“ Hard beset by the surges of the life around you, you wake suddenly from the beautiful dream, and all that remains to you is the deep, endless longing which penetrates your heart with thrills of sweet emotion. Feelings such as those, dear reader, have at all times filled the breast of him who writes those pages for you, when his way has led him to the world-renowned town of Nürnberg. Delaying before the wondrous fabric of the fountain in the market-place, or contemplating the monument in St. Sebald, or the Pyx in St. ”

“ Sachs humorously defends the Master-Singers’ Guild, and closes with the rhyme—
“Though should depart
The pride of Holy Rome,
Still thrives at home
Our sacred German art.”
{222}
The “Marker,” thus pourtrayed in The Meistersingers, is Sigs Beckmesser, who is one of those whom Hans Sachs mentions as having taught him. There is nothing remarkable in Hans Sachs being a shoemaker as well as a Meistersinger, for the Guild was chiefly composed of weavers and shoemakers. What is remarkable is that he was something of a poet as well as a Meistersinger. ”

“ Wagner returned with his friends to the city in a deeply earnest mood. On this his sixtieth birthday his eyes for the first time beheld the goal of his life!
At the celebration, which then took place in the Opera-house, he addressed the following words to his friends and patrons: “It is [Pg 146] the nature of the German mind to build from within. The eternal God actually dwells therein before the temple is erected to His glory. The stone has already been placed which is to bear the proud edifice, whenever the German people for their own honor shall desire to enter into possession with you. ”

“ As a drama it conveys also a perfect picture of the life and customs of Nuremburg of the time in which the story plays. Wagner must have made careful historical researches, but his book lore is not thrust upon us. The work is so spontaneous that the method and manner of its art are lost sight of in admiration of the result. Hans Sachs himself could not have left a more faithful portrait of life in Nuremburg in the middle of the sixteenth century. ”

“ In his next work, Die Meistersinger, Wagner ingeniously made poetry and drama out of an explicit manifesto to musical critics, and proved the depth of his music by developing its everyday resources and so showing that its vitality does not depend on that extreme emotional force that makes Tristan und Isolde almost unbearably poignant. ”

“ Now the eldest of the Guild offered the hand of his young daughter to that master who should win the prize at an approaching public singing-competition. The marker, who has already been wooing the maiden, finds a rival in the person of a young knight, who, fired by reading the ‘Book of Heroes’ and the old Minnesingers, leaves the poor and decaying castle of his ancestors to learn in Nuremberg the art of the master-singers. ”

“ Almost any other little boy would, I think, have been frightened out of his wits at the position in which he found himself; but August was brave, and he had a firm belief that God and Hirschvogel would take care of him. The master-potter of Nürnberg was always present to his mind, a kindly, benign, and gracious spirit, dwelling manifestly in that porcelain tower whereof he had been the maker. ”

“ A simple man, of calm, unruffled temper and fervent faith he must have been, thoroughly representative of the best German spirit of his day. No German artist has portrayed the scenes of Christ’s passion with greater depth of genuine feeling. Happily many of his principal works are at Nuremberg. Probably{200} the earliest examples of Nuremberg sculpture are the figures of Adam and Eve and the prophets round the portal of St. Lorenzkirche. ”

“ At a musicians’ union which met in Weimar in August, 1861, under Liszt’s leadership, Wagner found that the better part of the German artists had also measurably been converted to his views. These experiences and the hope that with a humorous theme selected from German life he might finally obtain possession of the domestic stage and speak heart to heart to his dearly loved people and remind them that even their every day life ought to be transfused with the spirit of the ideal, prompted him to resurrect his “Mastersingers of Nuremberg.” ”

“ The opera, at first intended as a comical pendant to ‘Tannhäuser,’ is, as we have already stated, Wagner's first and only attempt to write in the comic vein, and the text is full of witty and cutting allusions to the thick-headed critics (at whose hands Wagner had suffered so sorely) , who sweepingly condemn everything that does not conform to their fixed standard. During all the Middle Ages, and more especially in the middle of the thirteenth century, the quaint old city of Nuremberg was the seat of one of the most noted musical guilds, or German training schools for poets and musicians. ”

“ It is with this longing and its object that Novalis's principal work deals. It is a work which we must study, and, to understand it aright, we must first see how it came into existence.
Its germ is contained in Goethe's Wilhelm Meister, and we can clearly trace the mental processes by which Wilhelm Meister is slowly transmuted into Heinrich von Ofterdingen. Wilhelm does not act, he is acted upon. He does not strive, he longs. He pursues ideals, seeking them first on the stage, then in real life. Wilhelm too, is the offspring of "soul." The book is pervaded by soul. ”

“ More than once they made pilgrimages to the old fashioned town, the treasury of German art; and the spirit of the past powerfully inspired them. Whilst for Lessing and Winckelmann “Gothic” art only meant barbarian art, the wonders of Nuremberg were now observed with fresh eyes. In a sort of intoxication of art the friends wandered through churches, stood by the graves of Albrecht Dürer and Peter Vischer, and a vanished world rose before them. ”

“ Nuremberg is rich in good sculpture of the 14th century. The church of St Sebald, the Frauenkirche, and the west façade of St Lawrence are lavishly decorated with reliefs and statues, very rich in effect, but showing the germs of that mannerism which grew so strong in Germany during the 15th century. Of special beauty are the statuettes which adorn the “beautiful fountain,” which was formerly erroneously attributed to the probably mythical sculptor Sebald Schonhofer, and is decorated with gold and colour by the painter Rudolf. ”

“ Nothing in the middle ages was more conducive to the prosperity of a town than the reputation of having a holy man within its borders, or the possession of the miracle-working relics of a saint. Just as St. Elizabeth made Marburg so St. Sebaldus proved a very potent attraction to Nuremberg. We shall give some account of this saint when we visit the church that was dedicated to him. Here we need only remark that as early as 1070 and 1080 we hear of pilgrimages to Nuremberg in honour of her patron saint. ”

“ Sebald. There, in a niche facing the altar, stands, thick-set and full-bearded, the modest, pious labourer, whose reputation had spread beyond the limits of Germany, and whose bronze work, if we may believe the chronicler, once “filled Poland, Bohemia, Hungary, and the palaces of princes throughout the Holy Roman Empire.” Seldom did prince or potentate come to Nuremberg without paying a visit to Vischer’s workshop. ”

“ The Mastersingers (Die Meistersinger) , while written after Wagner had set forth on his operatic revolution, is the only one of his music dramas with a recognizable operatic ritual: big arias, huge production numbers, even dances. For The Mastersingers is a comedy, the only one Wagner ever wrote. For purposes of comedy some of the traditions of opera still prove useful to Wagner, even if fused with techniques, approaches and esthetics of the music drama. ”

“ It had noble houses, wealthy and refined families of the middle class and of the learned, and above all, its emperor—if not in music, in all else the most nobly cultured! We have only to think of the other capitals at the time, Paris, London, and even Berlin, to be convinced that a Gluck, a Haydn, a Mozart, or a Beethoven, could never have thrived in any of them. They thrived in Vienna; and the last two artists asserted that it was in Vienna only that they could have thrived, that is developed that art, the germ’s of which they felt themselves to possess as a talent confided to them. ”

“ Opposite the chapel of Saint Sebalt in Nuremberg, at the corner of Trabaus Street, there stands a little tavern, tall and narrow, with a toothed gable and dusty windows, whose roof is surmounted by a plaster Virgin. It was there that I spent the unhappiest days of my life. I had gone to Nuremberg to study the old German masters; but in default of ready money, I had to paint portraits—and such portraits! Fat old women with their cats on their laps, big-wigged aldermen, burgomasters in three-cornered hats—all horribly bright with ochre and vermilion. ”