As we commemorate the 200th year of his birth and the 150th year of his death this December, probably the only piece of Cornelius’ music we can readily call to mind
is his successful comic opera, The Barber of Baghdad, still much admired in Germany, as are many of his hundreds of songs, most of which are rarely heard.
Peter (not to be confused with his very much more famous uncle, Peter von Cornelius, the painter) was the son of two actors, who trained him to go on the stage; a training that included the study of music. When his father died, young Peter was sent to live with his famous uncle in Berlin and it was there that serious music lessons really began. By the time he was 15, he had obtained a position as a violinist in the local orchestra and had begun to dabble in composition.

At the age of 28, after a not particularly eventful early career, he travelled to Weimar, where he was employed by Franz Liszt. The position afforded him a decent living, but left little time for his own works, though apparently Liszt praised him for the Lieder he’d begun to write, using his own lyrics. Not long after that he was introduced to Wagner and a most peculiar proposition was put to him.

Wagner suggested that they should take up housekeeping together ‘like man and wife’. Though the offer has been verified by historians, no-one has ever quite been able to make head or tail of it. However, there’s no doubt that Peter became the ideal support to both Liszt and Wagner, which, he claimed, completely drained him and stopped him from doing any work of his own.

In 1855, when Peter was 31, he began work on The Barber of Baghdad, which would become his masterpiece. He was excited that Liszt had promised to premiere the work in Weimar, but the whole thing turned into a complete disaster. The opera did indeed premiere – on 15 December 1858 under Liszt’s baton – but it was to become one of the great musical scandals of the 19th century.

All hell broke loose in the theatre as an organised hostile demonstration was staged, aimed primarily at Liszt himself. The exact reasons for the uproar are still not entirely clear, but they had something to do with a group who took every opportunity to rail against what they called the ‘New Germans’ at a time when classical music was beginning to take a more ‘modern’ turn, led by the likes of Wagner. The outcome was that that performance was the only one ever staged in its composer’s lifetime.

Liszt was left badly shaken and had nothing more to do with opera as a result, leaving Weimar not long afterwards and taking Peter with him. In 1859 Peter left Liszt and moved to Vienna, where he started work on another opera, Der Cid, which, by a strange quirk of fate, had its premiere in Weimar some years later.

Composition wasn’t paying the bills, so Peter was quick to take up Wagner’s offer of a job as rehearsal coach in Munich, a job he nearly lost when an angry Wagner sacked him for taking time off to attend the premiere of Der Cid. Wagner, however, relented and Peter stayed on, getting for himself an additional teaching job at the Royal School of Music in Munich.

The premiere of Der Cid was, by all accounts, a success, which spurred Peter on to write what he believed would be his magnum opus, a great mythic opera. Alas, it was not to be. As he had feared when he accepted the job with Wagner, his time was so taken up with planning for the opera Die Meistersingers and for the opera house Wagner was intending to build in Bayreuth that he never had the time to complete it.

He died in 1874 at the age of 50, realising that his worst fears had come true: his reputation as a composer had been completely eclipsed by his connections with two of the greatest composers of his time.

Listen on demand The Barber of Baghdad in the program At The Opera (Wednesday 25th December)

This article was published in the December issue of Fine Music Magazine.