Schopenhauer he had made use of in his libretto. Now, it is true
that both Tristan and Isolda indulge at times in something
approximating to the Schopenhauer terminology; but of Schopenhauer's
or any other philosophy I cannot find a trace. For that we must turn
to _Parsifal_. In _Tristan_ there are no "meanings"--none save the
very plain meaning of the drama and the meaning of the music, which is
plainer still.

It seems to me desirable in this way to clear off misunderstandings
and to indicate with precision my point of view. When Wagner wrote
_Tristan_ he wrote a tragic opera of passion and treachery and death,
and only as a tragic opera can I regard it. Every sentence in it is
accounted for by the course the drama takes; no further explanation is
called for; and I shall certainly not waste my readers' time by
picking out a few words here and there and trying to construe them
into a metaphysical exposition: there is quite enough to digest
without that. Even the longing for death which Tristan expresses as
the only cure for the woes of an impossible life arises from the
drama; Tristan no more preaches Schopenhauer than he preaches Buddhism
when he exclaims "Nun banne das Bangen, holder Tod." Wagner chose the
subject of _Tristan_ not to expound anything, but for the prosaic
reason that he wanted to raise money and the subject seemed the most
promising for the purpose. This is put beyond a doubt by a letter to
Liszt dated July 2, 1858. Everything seemed to work against him;
_Rienzi_ proved a failure when it was put on at Weimar, and nothing
could be hoped for in that quarter; the pecuniary situation was
desperate. He had received a commission from the Emperor Pedro I of
Brazil for an opera, and thought _Tristan_ a likely theme. As early as
December of 1854 he had written to Liszt mentioning it as planned in
his head; and in this letter of '58 he says, "... I saw no other way
open to me but to negotiate with Haertel, and I chose for this subject
_Tristan_, then scarcely begun, because I had nothing else. They
offered to pay me half the honorarium (two hundred louis d'or)--that
is, one hundred louis d'or--on receipt of the score of the first act,
and I made all the haste I could to complete it. That is why this poor
work was hurried on in such a business-like manner." It seems rather
comical now that the world's most magnificent, and certainly most
profound, musical tragedy should have been commenced to be sung by an
Ita