Here at once began one of those squalid intrigues which drive serious opera-composers crazy.  Several of Richard’s pieces had been played; he had occupied one responsible position and been asked to take another; he had the finished score of his opera; and he was young and by nature sanguine to the verge of lunacy.  He thought he had only to call on the Intendant of the opera with his masterpiece and its production would be assured.  He did call, and soon he received a promise that his work would be done.  But Leipzig was now Mendelssohn’s stronghold and no rival could be tolerated.  One of the great man’s friends and admirers, Hauser, determined that the work should not be done.  He opined that Wagner did not know how to compose nor how to orchestrate; he found the music lacking in warmth.  This from a worshipper of Mendelssohn seems a little amusing to-day; but it had a result bad for Wagner in 1834.  Underground work went on; and while Wagner waited with what patience he could muster—­and I expect that was not much—­hoping every day to hear that rehearsals had commenced, his score was quietly put on the shelf.  This experience falls to the lot of every writer of operas and is so commonplace an incident that I should do no more than barely mention it did not many followers of Wagner see in it the beginning of that “persecution by the Jews” of which we heard so much a few years ago.  It appears to me nothing of the kind.  The Jews did not at that date particularly single out Wagner for attack:  merely they defended their vested interests exactly as the musical profession in England defended and still defends its vested interests.  It should be remembered that he had quite as many friends as enemies amongst the Hebrews; and I never could understand how, to mention only two, two great conductors and intimates of Wagner, Mottl and Levi, could tolerate all the nonsense talked on the subject at Bayreuth.  When Brendel published the notorious Judaism in Music it is true many Jewish journalists began to libel Wagner:  it is true also that some Jewish professors in the Leipzig conservatoire petitioned that Brendel should be dismissed; but these were the shabby acts of individuals, and far too many shabby acts were perpetrated by Richard’s partisans for it to be desirable for them to raise the cry of persecution.  Perforce I must say a few words more on this disagreeable topic when I come to deal with the Meyerbeer-Rienzi episode; but I promise the reader to cut it as short as may be.  Once for all, despite all protestations, despite Wagner’s honest belief to the contrary, I dismiss the Jewish conspiracy theory as rubbish.