In 1864 Richard Wagner, at the behest of King Ludwig II of Bavaria, took up residence in Munich. From the outset squabbles and intrigues made Wagner's life there bitter. He did not do things by halves, and when he had succeeded in getting the music school of Munich re-organized to suit his wishes, with Bülow as chief director, the local musicians felt they had little cause to love him. Bülow was appointed kapellmeister of the Court Theatre; reforms, peculiarly disagreeable to those reformed, were set on foot; and singers, players, régisseurs, who had anticipated sleeping away their existence in the good old fashion, were violently awakened by this reckless adventurer, charlatan, and what not, who had won the King's ear. The invertebrate flunkeys attached to every Court were jealous of his influence over the King, and did what they could to hinder the execution of his plans. But Wagner was not the man to be hindered, and if these backboneless crawling things made life at Munich so loathsome to him that he sought peace to complete his work at Triebschen, near Lucerne, nevertheless his plans were carried out. Tristan and Isolde was produced in 1865 and The Mastersingers of Nuremberg three years later. If I had space, it would be amusing to quote the contemporary criticisms passed on the first. Tristan was hopelessly misunderstood at the time, and even now it is misunderstood by many professed Wagnerites. It created an uproar in Germany; in England our sires were too busy singing the oratorios of Handel, Haydn and Mendelssohn to pay any attention.