At last one of Wagner’s dreams was realized and his new gospel of art vindicated.

One music drama remained to be written—­his last.  Failing health prevented the completion of the drama until 1882.  The first performance of this noble work was given on July 26, followed by fifteen other hearings.  After the exertions attending these, Wagner and his wife, their son Siegfried, Liszt and other friends, went to Italy and occupied the Vendramin Palace, on the Grand Canal, Venice.  Here he lived quietly and comfortably, surrounded by those he loved.  His health failed more and more, the end coming February 13, 1883.

Thus passed from sight one of the most astonishing musicians of all time.  He lives in his music more vitally than when his bodily presence was on earth, since the world becomes more familiar with his music as time goes on.  And to know this music is to admire and love it.

XVII

CESAR FRANCK

Whatever we learn of Cesar Franck endears him to all who would know and appreciate the beautiful character which shines through his art.  He was always kind, loving, tender, and these qualities are felt in the music he composed.  Some day we shall know his music better.  It has been said of this unique composer:  “Franck is enamored of gentleness and consolation; his music rolls into the soul in long waves, as on the slack of a moonlit tide.  It is tenderness itself.”

In Liege, Belgium, it was that Cesar Franck was born, December 10, 1822.  Chopin had come a dozen years earlier, so had Schumann, Liszt and other gifted ones; it was a time of musical awakening.

The country about Liege was peculiarly French, not only in outward appearance, but in language and sentiment.  Here were low hills covered with pines and beeches, here charming valleys; there wide plains where the flowering broom flourished in profusion.  It was the Walloon country, and the Francks claimed descent from a family of early Walloon painters of the same name.  The earliest of these painters was Jerome Franck, born away back in 1540.  Thus the name Franck had stood for art ideals during a period of more than two and a half centuries.

When Cesar and his brother were small children, the father, a man of stern and autocratic nature—­a banker, with many friends in the artistic and musical world—­decided to make both his sons professional musicians.

His will had to be obeyed, there was no help for it.  In the case of Cesar, however, a musician was what he most desired to become, so that music study was always a delight.

Before he was quite eleven years old, his father took him on a tour of Belgium.  It looked then as though he had started on a virtuoso career, as the wonder children—­Mozart, Chopin, Thalberg, Liszt and others who had preceded him, had done.  The future proved, however, that Cesar’s life work was to be composing, teaching and organ playing, with a quiet life, even in busy Paris, instead of touring the world to make known his gifts.