SubmittedFriday, 03 May 2019
He worked furiously
He worked furiously, «like a steam-engine,» as he said, and was so absorbed in the composition of Manuel Venegas (September, 1897) that he went without rest, and had hardly time to take necessary food. In a fortnight he had written fifty pages of the pianoforte score, as well as the motifs for the whole work, and the music of half the first act.
Then madness came. On 20 September he was seized while he was working at the great recitative of Manuel Venegas in the first act.
He was taken to Dr. Svetlin’s private hospital in Vienna, and remained there until January, 1898. Happily he had devoted friends who took care of him and made up for the indifference of the public; for what he had earned himself would not have enabled him even to die in peace. When Schott, the publisher, sent him in October, 1895, his royalties for the editions of his Lieder of Mörike, Goethe, Eichendorff, Keller, Spanish poetry, and the first volume of Italian poetry, their total for five years came to eighty-six marks and thirty-five pfennigs! And Schott calmly added that he had not expected so good a result. So it was Wolf’s friends, and especially Hugo Faisst, who not only saved him from misery by their unobtrusive and often secret generosity, but spared him the horror of destitution in his last misfortunes.
He recovered his reason, and was sent in February, 1898, for a voyage to Trieste and Venetia to complete his cure and prevent him from thinking of work. The precaution was unnecessary; for he says in a letter to Hugo Faisst, written in the same month:
«There is no need for you to trouble yourself or fear that I shall overdo things. A real distaste for work has taken possession of me, and I believe I shall never write another note. My unfinished opera has no more interest for me, and music altogether is hateful. You see what my kind friends have done for me! I cannot think how I shall be able to exist in this state…. Ah, happy Swabians! one may well envy you. Greet your beautiful country for me, and be warmly greeted yourself by your unhappy and worn-out friend, Hugo Wolf.»
When he returned to Vienna, however, he seemed to be a little better, and had apparently regained his health and cheerfulness. But to his own astonishment he had become, as he says in a letter to Faisst, a quiet, sedate, and silent man, who wished more and more to be alone. He did not compose anything fresh, but revised his Michelangelo Lieder, and had them published. He made plans for the winter, and rejoiced in the thought of passing it in the country near Gmunden, «in perfect quiet, undisturbed, and living only for art.» In his last letter to Faisst, 17 September, 1898, he says:
«I am quite well again now, and have no more need of any cures. You would need them more than I.»
Then came a fresh seizure of madness, and this time all was finished.
this was: He Worked Furiously
go to next chapter: Wolf was taken to an asylum at Vienna
