Karl has pleaded my necessity to you and you have helped. Be sure that I know how to value the greatness of the sacrifice which you make for my sake! For the present, there was nothing to be made of the musical conductorship here, and I must explain this to you a little so that you may see that, properly speaking, it was Karl who was to be pitied in the whole affair, since, as he failed of his object, the course of events necessarily discouraged him. The first winter here I never entered the theatre. I only heard about it, listened to the performances of the musical manager outside the theatre, and discovered that he was a horrible bungler. I then thought, "Hallo! That might be an opportunity for Karl."
When last summer I offered the director to stand surety for Karl, interpreting this surety as an obligation on my part to take a hand myself on occasions when I might like to do so, and even, now and then, to conduct a performance personally, the director made a special point of getting good singers, which he succeeded in doing chiefly by somewhat over-emphasising opera, and Karl, whose heart had been remarkably stout until then because he was ignorant of the danger, began to beat rather fast. It was then, too, that I first came to discover that Karl, who is in general uncommunicative, has also left the capacity for artistic communication very much undeveloped. He cannot express himself either through the pianoforte or in speech. He must now be driven to do so, but in the case in point he should have been able to do it already. On the other hand I was surprised at the first rehearsal by the excellence of the singers.
A glance at them, at the director and at Karl, showed me in an instant that the situation was other than I had thought it and that if Karl was to attain his goal it must be achieved gradually and with caution. I felt it my duty to the director, who trusted me implicitly, to have a care for the credit of his personnel, which was costing him far more than formerly. The attitude of the public to the theatre had for some time been unfavourable. A merely verbal or written recommendation from me would have been useless unless I also recommended it by my personal participation in its performances. In addition to this, the assistance of amateurs, the orchestra being horribly weak in strings, was only to be hoped for if I myself were to conduct. I therefore rapidly decided on conducting the first operatic performance myself.
The result was that public interest was directed to the opera, but at the same time my own and Karl's connection with the theatre was entirely changed. Furthermore, there was Bülow's wish for a share in our musical management to be reckoned with. This I approved of, firstly for Bülow's own sake, and secondly because I might assume that he, with his more easily developed capacity for self-communication, particularly through his playing of the pianoforte, would the sooner step into my place and thereby be enabled to smooth the way for Karl. My whole policy was of course directed to diverting from myself the public interest which, unfortunately, had concentrated strongly upon me. I tried to do it by directing public attention with all my power to the singers and their achievements, but it would not do. At the box office the director was asked whether I was to conduct, in which case seats were to be reserved, etc. Wish as I might to withdraw now with all speed, to do so would have been to leave Karl in too vulnerable a position, for he, naturally enough, was now in despairing mood and without confidence in himself to face what lay before him. It was quite otherwise with Bülow. He took hold more rapidly, and my whole object now was to bring on Bülow as soon as possible so that I personally could retire completely from the position of conductor, and that, Bülow once well established, Karl might gradually be brought to the same goal, through helping him and officiating himself.
What with my concern for the director and the position I actually occupied in the public eye, I frequently found myself now in a really comic position, which, I am sorry to say, at length developed into a most vexatious one. We all resigned together and I prevailed on a local choral society conductor to step into our place. Thus the director was covered. A few days after the breach, both aspirants to conductorship got a call to St. Gall. Here, then, was the very thing I sought for them, and the most important part of it is that there they stand surety for themselves. If I am to compare Karl and Bülow, I can express my opinion in few words to this effect: Bülow communicates his thoughts more easily and pleasantly, but Karl has more to communicate than Bülow and that is the reason why he finds it more difficult. Karl's dramatic poem, Dietrich of Berne, has astonished me by the conception and easy handling of the subject. The subject itself, and the exaggerated Germanic jargon in which he makes his characters speak, I was obliged to reject. The giant scheme of this poem leaves no scope for human beings. Karl's imagination has not yet found the vital focus at which it becomes actual beautiful human emotion. I look for Karl to cut a certain knot, and I hope. At present I have frequently to shield him against others. My health is better this winter than formerly.
Richard Wagner
Source: Letters of Richard Wagner, Volume 1, ed. Altmann/Hull (London: Dent, 1927), No. 193