Wagner's object in coming here was to try and get his Nibelungen opera performed. It is an opera which requires four evenings to get through with. Did you ever hear of such a thing?...He gave a grand concert in the opera house here, which he directed himself. It was entirely his own compositions, with the exception of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony, which he declared nobody understood but himself. That rather took down Berlin, but all had to acknowledge after the concert that they had never heard it so magnificently played. He has his own peculiar conception of it. There was a great crowd, and every seat had been taken long before. All the artists were present except Kullak, who was ill. I saw Tausig sitting in the front rank with the Baroness von S. There must have been two hundred players in the orchestra, and they acquitted themselves splendidly. The applause grew more and more enthusiastic, until it finally found vent in a shower of wreaths and bouquets. Wagner bowed and bowed, and it seemed as if the people would never settle down again. At the end of the concert followed another shower of flowers, and his Kaiser March was encored. Such an effect! After the tempest of sound of the introduction the drums came in with a sharp tat-tat-tat-tat-tat! Then the brass began with the air and came to a crescendo, at last blaring out in such a way as shivered you to the very marrow of your bones. It was like an earthquake yawning before you. The noise was so tremendous that it was like the roaring of the surf. I never conceived of anything in music to approach it, and Wagner made me think of a giant Triton disporting himself amid the billows and tossing these great waves of sound from one hand to the other. You don't see his face, of course—nothing but his back, and yet you know every one of his emotions. Every sinew in his body speaks. He makes the instruments prolong the tones as no one else does, and the effect is indescribably beautiful, yet he complains that he never can get an orchestra to hold the tone as they ought. His whole appearance is of arrogance and despotism personified. << less