ousy. Thus, in
1845, Schumann writes to Mendelssohn of "Tannhaeuser:"

"Wagner has just finished a new opera--no doubt a clever fellow, full
of eccentric notions, and bold beyond measure. The aristocracy is
still in raptures over him on account of his 'Rienzi,' but in reality
he cannot conceive or write four consecutive bars of good or even
correct music. What all these composers lack is the art of writing
pure harmonies and four-part choruses. The music is not a straw better
than that of 'Rienzi,' rather weaker, more artificial! But if I should
write this I should be accused of envy, hence I say it only to you, as
I am aware that you have known all this a long time."

But in another letter to Mendelssohn, written three weeks later, he
recants: "I must take back much of what I wrote regarding
'Tannhaeuser,' after reading the score; on the stage the effect is
quite different. I was deeply moved by many parts." And to Heinrich
Dorn he writes, a few weeks after this: "I wish you could see Wagner's
'Tannhaeuser.' It contains profound and original ideas, and is a
hundred times better than his previous operas, though some of the
music is trivial. In a word, he may become of great importance to the
stage, and, so far as I know him, he has the requisite courage. The
technical part, the instrumentation, I find excellent, incomparably
more masterly than formerly."

Nevertheless, seven years later still, he once more returns to the
attack, and declares that Wagner's music, "apart from the performance,
is simply amateurish, void of contents, and disagreeable; and it is a
sad proof of corrupt taste that, in the face of the many dramatic
master-works which Germany has produced, some persons have the
presumption to belittle these in favor of Wagner's. Yet enough of
this. The future will pronounce judgment in this matter, too." Poor
Schumann! His own opera, "Genoveva," was a failure, while "Tannhaeuser"
and "Lohengrin" were everywhere received with enthusiasm. This was a
quarter of a century ago; and the future _has_ judged, "Tannhaeuser"
and "Lohengrin" being now the most popular of all works in the
operatic repertory.

What caused the failure of Schumann's only opera was not a lack of
dramatic genius, but of theatrical instinct. He believed that in
"Genoveva" "every bar is thoroughly dramatic;" and so it is, as might
have been expected of the composer of such an intensely emotional and
passionate song as "Ich grolle nicht" and m