tried to dramatise the most
important moment of the mythos of the Nibelungen in Siegfried's
Tod, I found it necessary to indicate a vast number of antecedent
facts, so as to put the main incidents in the proper light. But
I could only _narrate_ these subordinate matters, whereas I felt
it imperative that they should be embodied in the action. Thus
I came to write Siegfried. But here again the same difficulty
troubled me. Finally I wrote "Die Walkuere" and "Das Rheingold,"
and thus contrived to incorporate all that was needful to make
the action tell its own tale.' The completed poem was privately
printed in 1853, and published 'as a literary product' ten
years later, when the author was in his fiftieth year.

As for the score, it was begun in 1853, and Wagner says:
'During a sleepless night at an inn at Spezzia, the music of
"Das Rheingold" occurred to me; straightway I turned homeward
and set to work.' Such was the energy with which he laboured
that the complete score of the Rheingold was finished in
1854. Two years later the music to the Walkyrie was all done,
and Siegfried begun. But pecuniary difficulties now forced
the master to undertake more immediately remunerative work,
and, 'tired of heaping one silent score upon another,' he
undertook and finished 'Tristan and Ysolde.' He then thought
he would never be able to finish his grand work, and wrote:
'I can hardly expect to find leisure to complete the music, and
I have dismissed all hope that I may live to see it performed.'

Fortunately for him, however, Ludwig II. of Bavaria had heard
'Lohengrin' when only sixteen, and, a passionate lover of
music and art, he had become an enthusiastic admirer of the
great composer. One of the very first acts of his reign was,
therefore, to despatch his own private secretary to Wagner with
the message, 'Come here and finish your work.'

As this message was backed by a small pension which would enable
the musician to keep the wolf from the door, he hopefully went
to Munich. But, in spite of the sovereign's continued favour,
Wagner found so many enemies that the sojourn there became
very unpleasant. It was then that the architect Semper made
the first plans for a theatre, in which the king intended that
'The Nibelungen Ring' should be played, as he had formally
commissioned Wagner to complete the work.

Driven away from his native land once more by the bitterness of
his enemies, Wagner, who still enjoyed Ludwig's entire fav