Zurich to
conduct a society whose membership was compact of trim and prim
mediocrity, and whose directors were mostly duffers. Can we wonder
that both sides were disappointed? These amiable directors never quite
recovered from the honour of having Mendelssohn to conduct for them;
and they undoubtedly looked upon Wagner as scarcely a next-best. The
days of oratorio had by no means finished yet; oratorio was the thing;
an instrumental concert was very well for a change once in a while,
provided there were plenty of Italian opera airs to sugar the nasty
pill; Haydn was the last word in symphony, the homage paid to
Beethoven being the merest lip-worship. The Philharmonic was certainly
no place for Wagner; yet, it must be insisted, there was no real
reason for grumbling on either side. Wagner got his money; the society
had one of the best seasons on its record.

It is a pity that he who might have been the most valuable witness in
the matter should prove at every point to be the least trustworthy.
Ferdinand Praeger had known Wagner in his university days. They seem
to have been barely acquainted; but the moment Praeger found Wagner
was coming he scented advertisement for himself, as is usual with his
kind--the kind being the foreign professor settled in London. He will
have it that he arranged the whole business; but the terrible truth is
that he seems to have done no more than make his compatriot
comfortable in our dreary city. Certainly he did that, and Wagner
repaid it by inviting him to stay in Zurich, and the visit came off
duly. Sainton, who was by way of being a noted violinist, was head and
front of the offending from the directors' point of view--perhaps in
Wagner's view likewise. The directors were, to speak as the vulgar, in
a mortal stew. There was a small audience for orchestral functions in
those days, and Dr. Wylde, a worthy academic gentleman of no musical
distinction whatever, had started a rival series of concerts, and had
in this year, 1855, engaged no less a personage than Berlioz to
conduct. A rival was looked for; and since the directors knew little
or nothing of continental doings, as soon as Sainton told them one
Richard Wagner was their man, they agreed that negotiations should be
opened. Wagner came; and the visit ought to be interesting to English
musicians, for at Portland Terrace he scored part of the _Valkyrie_.
Moreover, he met Berlioz at dinner; but never those twain could meet
in other than