d us some years ago, was a flabby
_Sieglinde_. The _Siegmund_, Herr Burgstalles, a lanky, awkward young
fellow from over the hills somewhere. He was sad. Ernst Kraus, an old
acquaintance, was a familiar _Siegfried_. Demeter Popovici you remember
with Damrosch, also Hans Greuer. Van Rooy's _Wotan_ was supreme. It was
the one pleasant memory of Bayreuth, that and the moon. Gadski was not
an ideal _Eva_ in _Meistersinger_, while Demuth was an excellent _Hans
Sachs_. The _Bruennhilde_ was Ellen Gulbranson, a Scandinavian. She was
an heroic icicle that Wagner himself could not melt. Schumann-Heink, as
_Magdalene_ in _Meistersinger_, was simply grotesque. Van Rooy's
_Walther_ I missed. Hans Richter conducted my favorite of the Wagner
music dramas, the touching and pathetic Nuremberg romance, and, to my
surprise, went to sleep over the _tempi_. He has the technique of the
conductor, but the elbow-grease was missing. He too is old, but better
one aged Richter than a caveful of spry Siegfried Wagners!

I shan't bother you any more as to details. Bayreuth is full of
ghosts--the very trees on the terrace whisper the names of Liszt and
Wagner--but Madame Cosima is running the establishment for all there is
in it financially--excuse my slang--and so Bayreuth is deteriorating. I
saw her, Liszt's daughter, von Buelow, and Wagner's wife--or rather
widow--and her gaunt frame, strong if angular features, gave me the
sight of another ghost from the past. Ghosts, ghosts, the world is
getting old and weary, and astride of it just now is the pessimist
Nietzsche, who, disguised as a herculean boy, is deceiving his
worshippers with the belief that he is young and a preacher of the
joyful doctrines of youth. Be not deceived, he is but another veiled
prophet. His mask is that of a grinning skeleton, his words are bitter
with death and deceit.

I stopped over at Nuremberg and at a chamber concert heard Schubert's
quintet for piano and strings, _Die Forelle_--and although I am no trout
fisher, the sweet, boyish loquacity, the pure music made my heart glad
and I wept.

III

THE WAGNER CRAZE

The new century is at hand--I am not one of those chronologically stupid
persons who believes that we are now in it--and tottering as I am on its
brink, the brink of my grave, and of all born during 1900, it might
prove interesting as well as profitable for me to review my musical
past. I hear the young folks cry aloud: "Here comes that garrulous