The necessity of charging very high rates ($225 for the four dramas) naturally prevented the audiences from being large, and the result was that Wagner had a deficit of $37,000 on his hands as the reward for his genius and years of business worries.  When, however, his last work, the sublime, semi-religious “Parsifal,” was produced in 1882, there was a balance in his favor.  He was then in his sixty-ninth year, and the exertion of producing this final masterpiece was too great for him.  To recuperate, he went to Venice, where he died on Feb. 13, 1882.  King Ludwig sent a special train to convey his body to Bayreuth, where it was buried in the garden behind his villa Wahnfried.

Since Wagner’s death the Bayreuth festivals have been kept up with ever-increasing success, under the guidance of his widow Cosima, the daughter of Liszt (whom he married in 1870, four years after the death of his first wife), and their son, Siegfried, who has in recent years also won some success as an opera composer.  The performances at Bayreuth are no longer what they were during Wagner’s lifetime,—­models for all the world; but they are still of unique interest.  In truth, headquarters like Bayreuth are no longer needed, for all the German cities now vie with one another in their efforts to interpret the Wagner operas according to the composer’s intentions; and his influence on other musicians, which began with the performance of “Lohengrin” under Liszt, in 1850, is to-day greater than ever,—­more powerful, perhaps, than that ever exerted by any other master.

But while an eminent German critic wrote not long ago that “the music-drama of Wagner constitutes modern opera,” it would be a huge mistake to make Wagnerism synonymous with modern music in general.  Apart from the opera, there are several other very powerful currents, and while most of them can be traced to the first half of the nineteenth century, they are none the less modern.  Their principal sources are Beethoven, Schubert, and Chopin, to whom we must add, in the second half of the century, Liszt.

The symphonies of Haydn and Mozart are like toy-houses compared with the massive architecture of Beethoven’s.  He not only elaborated the forms, but varied the rhythms, broadened the melody, and deepened the expression of orchestral music.  In his works, too, are to be found the germs of romanticism, which others, notably Mendelssohn and Schumann, developed so fascinatingly in their best works.  Most of Mendelssohn’s compositions have had their day; but Schumann is still a force in modern music and will long remain so.