ner's great works. More beautiful
music for the theatre had been written, but never had such energy been
put into it as we find in the Dutchman's damnation theme or the tumult
of the bitter, angry sea. Any lazy man can, in time, fill up a score
with sufficient notes for the trumpets, trombones and drums to produce a
deafening uproar, but it took all the native force of a Wagner to fill,
to inform, the thought itself with such energy that, looking at the
score, the passages seem almost to leap out from the page, and, played
on even a small piano, their effect is still overwhelming. When the
opera was produced the effect on the audience was certainly
overwhelming, almost stupefying. The _Dutchman_ had been accepted at
Berlin on Meyerbeer's recommendation, but that recommendation Wagner
probably thought of no great value, and after the success of _Rienzi_ he
determined to have it also played at Dresden, and the first performance
took place at the beginning of 1843. The noise of the storm rolled far
outside the theatre, and from that time forward Wagner and his music
were subjects of discussion throughout Europe. His originality was not
doubted; the din of his orchestra was no louder than that of Spontini's
or Marschner's, but the harmony seemed bold to those who had never known
Bach and had already forgotten Beethoven, and people were puzzled by the
lack of full-stops at the end of each number. Things that seem
old-fashioned to us now were then new, while Wagner's own genuine
inventions could at first hardly be grasped. However, Wagner had no
reason to be dissatisfied. He had already his admirers, he was secure in
an important post, and he could cheerfully set forth in search of fresh
woods and pastures new, or, to use a more appropriate figure, fresh seas
to cross in search of new continents.

DRESDEN, 1842-1849.

He was now thirty, and although he had written two long works, one of
them a great one, they constituted the merest prelude to the gigantic
achievements of the next forty years. He was busily engaged at the
opera, but set to work at once on an endless number and variety of
projects. _Tannhaeuser_ was finished by 1845, _Lohengrin_ by 1847, and
his brain was occupied with _The Mastersingers of Nuremberg (Die
Meistersinger)_ and _The Nibelung's Ring_, both to be completed long
afterwards. During this period he also composed the _Love-feast of the
Apostles_, and did a bit of mending to Gluck's _Iphigenia in