[00:00.00]The Monster——Richard Wagner

[00:08.62]He was an undersized little man,

[00:11.49]with a head too big for his body —

[00:14.03]a sickly little man.

[00:15.69]His nerves were bad.

[00:17.72]And he had delusions of grandeur.

[00:20.85]He believed himself to be one of the greatest dramatists in the world,

[00:25.68]one of the greatest thinkers,

[00:27.57]and one of the greatest composers.

[00:29.90]He wrote operas,

[00:31.80]and no sooner did he have the synopsis of a story,

[00:35.36]but he would invite—or rather summon —

[00:38.27]a crowd of his friends to his house and read it aloud to them.

[00:43.11]Not for criticism, but for applause.

[00:45.66]When the complete poem was written,

[00:48.38]the friends had to come again,

[00:49.93]and hear that read aloud.

[00:51.94]He played the piano by the hour like a composer,

[00:56.19]in the worst sense of what that implies,

[00:59.29]before parties including some of the finest pianist of his times.

[01:04.30]He was almost innocent of any sense of responsibility.

[01:08.65]Not only did he seem incapable of supporting himself,

[01:12.86]but it never occurred to him that he was under any obligation to do so.

[01:17.57]He was convinced that the world owed him a living.

[01:22.11]In support of this belief,

[01:24.78]he borrowed money from everybody who was good for a loan —

[01:28.10]men, women, friends, or strangers.

[01:31.99]I have found no record of his ever paying or repaying money to anyone

[01:37.74]who did not have a legal claim upon it.

[01:40.65]The name of this monster was Richard Wagner.

[01:44.79]He was one of the most stupendous musical geniuses that,

[01:48.91]up to now,

[01:49.92]the world has ever seen.

[01:51.86]When you consider what he wrote-

[01:54.30]thirteen operas and music dramas,

[01:56.99]eleven of them still holding the stage,

[01:59.67]eight of them unquestionably worth ranking

[02:02.91]among the world’s great music- dramatic masterpiece.

[02:06.56]When you listen to what he wrote,

[02:09.14]you will agree that a few thousand dollars’

[02:11.89]worth of debts were not too heavy a price to pay for the Ring trilogy.

[02:17.13]Listening to his music, one does not forgive him for what he may or may not have been.

[02:23.45]It is not a matter of forgiveness.

[02:26.04]It is a matter of being dumb with wonder that his poor brain and body didn't burst

[02:32.42]under the torment of the demon of creative energy that lived inside him,

[02:37.31]struggling, clawing,

[02:39.75]scratching to be released;

[02:41.60]tearing, shrieking at him to write the music that was in him.

[02:46.06]The miracle is that what he did in the little space of seventy years could have been done at all,

[02:52.62]even by a great genius.

[02:54.94]Is it any wonder that he had no time to be a man?