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French composer, regarded today as the leading French musician of
his era. The misunderstanding and neglect Berlioz endured, not
least in his dealings with the Paris Opéra, helped him and Wagner
to identify with each other as fellow- sufferers, although they
failed to sustain a close friendship. Berlioz' music contains a
number of interesting pre-echoes of Wagner. It is known that Wagner
studied Berlioz' treatise on orchestration, during the 1840s.
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Left: Paul von Joukowsky, Hermann Levi and Fritz Brandt
Fritz Brandt had worked closely with his father Karl on the technical aspects of the first Ring
and was invited to assume overall responsibility for the technical
arrangements for the 1882 Parsifal following his father's
sudden death in 1881; he returned to the Bayreuth festival in 1883
and 1884.
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As technical director of the theatre in Darmstadt, Brandt had a
high reputation for his abilities, which Wagner drew on in the
construction of the machinery for the Ring and of the
Festspielhaus itself. Although he was often difficult to work with,
Wagner and his production team recognised Brandt's exceptional
talents and he was invited back to Bayreuth to prepare for the
first production of Parsifal.
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The Brückner brothers were employed by the Coburg Court Theatre
when Wagner commissioned them to execute the sets for the first
Bayreuth Ring from the designs of Joseph Hoffmann. They
similarly prepared the sets for the first Parsifal from
those of Joukowsky.
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Burnouf is regarded as the most competent and influential of the
19th century western scholars of the Sanskrit and Pali literature
of Buddhist India. When manuscripts were sent from Nepal to Europe
in 1837, Burnouf was the scholar best equipped to translate and
interpret them. Before publishing any of these translations,
however, Burnouf realised that they would mean little to a European
readership without a general introduction to Indian Buddhism. Therefore he wrote his Introduction, the first book to describe,
with some degree of accuracy and insight, the ideas of Indian
Buddhism for a western readership. The book was read by -- and
subsequently recommended as an introduction to the religions of
India by -- Arthur Schopenhauer. On his
recommendation, Wagner obtained and read a copy in 1855. On his
return to Burnouf's book in the spring of the following year,
Wagner was inspired both to sketch a Buddhist drama (Die Sieger) and to draft a Buddhistic ending to
his existing poem for Götterdämmerung.
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English pianist of German origin. In 1872 Dannreuther founded the
Wagner Society in London. He helped Wagner to obtain the dragon and
other stage properties for the 1876 Ring. When Wagner
visited England on a conducting tour in 1877, Dannreuther fixed the
orchestra and conducted some of the preliminary rehearsals; the
Wagners stayed with Dannreuther at 12 Orme Square in Bayswater,
conveniently across the Park from the Royal Albert Hall where
Richard Wagner was to conduct.
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 French
author and writer on music, daughter of the writer Théophile
Gautier. Judith was an enthusiast for Wagner's work from an early
age. She met the equally devoted Catulle Mendès in the early 1860s
and they were married in 1866. Together with the poet Villiers de
l'Isle Adam they visited Wagner at Tribschen in 1869 and again the
following year. In 1874 the Mendès couple decided to separate and
by the time of the first Bayreuth festival, Judith had embarked on
an affair with an amateur composer called Louis Benedictus. This
did not discourage Wagner from pursuing her. Their relationship may
or may not have been consummated; what is certain is that they
continued to conduct a clandestine and intimate correspondence
until 1878, when Cosima discovered some of the
letters and put the affair to an end. Wagner claimed that he needed
the intoxication of at least her spiritual presence, as well as the
silks, satins and exotic perfumes she obtained for him in Paris, in
order to compose Parsifal. Her intellectual contribution
to Wagner's work consisted of a translation of Parsifal
into French, various writings on Wagnerian topics, and a
three-volume memoir of the composer.
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The writer, diplomat, historian and racial theorist, Count
Gobineau, first met Wagner at Rome in 1876. He stayed with the
Wagners in Bayreuth in May-June 1881 and in May-June 1882. Wagner,
who was in later life surrounded mainly by much younger men,
thought that he had found in Gobineau someone of his own age and a
similar outlook. He was interested in Gobineau's theories about
miscegenation as expounded in his Essai sur l'inegalité des
races humaines (1853-5), although in profound disagreement
that this was the cause of the supposed degeneration of the human
species. Where Gobineau held that this had come about through
interbreeding, Wagner held the view that it was primarily due to
meat- eating and that redemption was to
be found in the unity of mankind through the pure blood of Christ.
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 Humperdinck
(right) began his musical studies at the Cologne Conservatory under
Hiller, a one-time friend of Wagner who had drifted into the
anti-Wagner camp. Humperdinck had cast off the yoke of Hiller's
Schumannesque style when he moved to Munich in 1877 and enrolled in
the Königliches Musikschule. He heard the Ring in 1878 and
soon afterwards joined a band of local Wagnerians calling
themselves the Order of the Grail. He won the Mendelssohn
prize in 1879, which funded a scholarship tour of Italy and, to
Wagner's amusement, the Meyerbeer prize in 1881. Humperdinck worked
as a repetiteur at every subsequent Bayreuth festival until
1894.
 Prelude to
Parsifal arranged for piano duet by Engelbert
Humperdinck - played by Yaara Tal and Andreas Groethuysen (ogg
format, stereo, duration 11.5 minutes)
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Paul Joukowsky was the son of the Russian poet Vasily Andreyevich
Zhukovsky. He was introduced to the Wagners at the Villa d'Angri on
18 January 1880 and, after accompanying them on their visits to
Rufello and Siena, designed the costumes and four of the five sets
for Parsifal.
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Hermann Levi held appointments in Saarbrücken, Mannheim, Rotterdam
and Karlsruhe before becoming court conductor in Munich in 1872, a
post he retained until 1896. At the insistence of King Ludwig, Levi was the conductor at the first
performances of Parsifal. Richard and Cosima were sufficiently impressed by Levi that he was
invited back to conduct at every festival, except that of 1888,
until 1894.
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 Hungarian composer and
virtuoso pianist. He first met Wagner in Paris in March 1841, when
Liszt was already at the height of his fame. But it was not until
Liszt had retired from the concert platform that their friendship
blossomed. It was to survive several periods of coolness, the most
serious estrangement being the result of Wagner's involvement with
Liszt's daughter, Cosima. The two composers were
seen as the leaders of the New German School. They were each
fascinated by the progressive musical ideas and innovations of the
other: the influence of Liszt on Wagner can be seen most strongly
in Tristan but it is also present in
Parsifal.
Feierlicher
Marsch zum heiligen Gral aus Parsifal, piano
transcription by Franz Liszt, 1882, R.283, S.450. Played by Endre
Hegedüs (ogg format, stereo, duration 9 minutes)
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The son of Maximilian II, Ludwig ascended the throne of Bavaria in
1864 at the age of 18. His passion for Wagner's music resulted in
generous subsidies that transformed the composer's fortunes
overnight. Free to realise his romantic dreams, the young king
immediately summoned to Munich his idol, the composer Richard
Wagner. Without Ludwig's patronage, Wagner might never have been
able to produce Tristan und Isolde, complete Der Ring
des Nibelungen or compose Parsifal. He would
certainly not have been able to embark upon the Bayreuth project.
The extent to which Ludwig supported Wagner, however, is often
overestimated. The total amount received by the composer over the
last 19 years of Wagner's life, including all presents, was 562,914
marks. This should be compared with, for example, the 1.7 million
marks spent on a carriage for the royal wedding that never took
place.
Right: Ludwig II in General's uniform, by F. Piloty. © W.
Neumeister.
Public opinion in Munich was scandalised by revelations about the
composer's relationship with Cosima, at that
time still married to the conductor Hans von Bülow, and by Wagner's
supposed exploitation of the King's munificence; as a result of
which, in December 1865, the King was forced to ask the composer to
leave Munich. His support continued, however, and even though the
relationship became strained, Ludwig made a timely contribution to
the Bayreuth enterprise and remained fanatically devoted to
Wagner's art. Ludwig withdrew progressively into his fantasy world
of midnight sleigh rides, fantastic castles and Wagnerian
extravagances such as his hunting lodge, based upon Hunding's hut.
According to the Empress Elizabeth of Austria, he was just an
eccentric living in a world of dreams.
His penchant for building fantastic castles of monumental
extravagance, combined with his erratic behaviour and progressive
lack of interest in affairs of state, eventually led to a
declaration of insanity and to Ludwig's deposition on 10 June 1886.
The King and his attendant psychiatrist were found drowned in Lake
Starnberg three days later. Ludwig identified intensely with
several of Wagner's heros, not least Parsifal. He would sometimes sign his
letters to Wagner with Parsifal. Ludwig provided much of
the financing for the first performances of Parsifal,
allowing Wagner the use of the Munich orchestra and chorus but
insisting that the orchestra's conductor, Hermann
Levi, should conduct the performances.
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German composer, who dominated French opera for many years. His
works are irrevocably associated with triumphal processions and
Grand Guignol, aspects which made them hugely successful
in the Paris of his day, but which appeal less to modern audiences.
Hence his works are little performed today. Wagner's hostility
towards Meyerbeer, who seems to have behaved irreproachably towards
the younger composer, has been related to his anti-Semitism,
although biographers disagree on what is cause and what is
effect.
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German writer and political activist; a prominent democrat and
campaigner for womens' rights. Following the 1848/9 uprisings, she
was banned from Berlin on account of her connections with
revolutionaries. As a result she moved first to London, where she
became a governess and a newspaper correspondent, and in 1862 to
Italy. She was an admirer and friend of Wagner, as well as of
Nietzsche and Liszt.
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 German
philosopher, who at the unprecedented age of 24 was appointed
Professor of Classical Philology at Basle University. From the time
of his visit to Tribschen the following year, he was a frequent and
welcome guest at Wagner's house. His literary works were greatly
admired by Wagner and Cosima, especially The
Birth of Tragedy, which placed Wagner's art at the centre of
Western culture. Nietzsche was fascinated and overwhelmed by the
power of Wagner's music. The ambivalence of his attitude to Wagner
began to appear in his essay, Richard Wagner in Bayreuth
(1875-6). In subsequent years, he move into the anti-Wagner camp,
and as his mental and physical health deteriorated (something which
Wagner supposedly attributed to self- abuse), Nietzsche took up a
bitterly hostile stance towards Wagner's decadent
art.
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 German
philosopher, the author of The World as Will and
Representation, one of the great philosophical texts of the
nineteenth century. Although he had no genuine successors and
founded no school, his influence was very widespread from about the
middle of the century onwards, his most famous disciple being
Richard Wagner, who believed that Schopenhauer had revealed to him
the meaning of his own works and who then consciously pursued a
Schopenhauerean line. In the present century, Schopenhauer's
philosophy of will has been one of the influences behind the
development of existentialism and Freudian psychology.
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French poet, initially of the Parnassian school.
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Left: A portrait of Cosima Wagner, about 1879.
Daughter of Franz Liszt and the Countess
d'Agoult, mistress and later the second wife of Richard Wagner.
Cosima supported Wagner both emotionally and practically in the
Bayreuth enterprise; on his death, she took immediate and effective
control of the festival.
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Right: A memorial bust of Richard Wagner, in Venice.
German composer and writer on an enormous range of subjects, with
an opinion about everything. Wagner revolutionised the art of
theatre and made a significant and lasting impression on orchestral
music. In 1876 he inaugurated the Bayreuth Festival, which has now
become an annual celebration of Wagner's art.
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Right: Mathilde Wesendonck.
German poet and writer. The friendship of Wagner and Mathilde
Wesendonck that began in 1852 developed subsequently into an
intense relationship that may or may not have been consummated. The
impossible passion of Tristan and Isolde was mirrored in the
relationship between the composer and Mathilde, eventually
resulting in a marital crisis in August 1858. Five of her poems
were set by Wagner and are usually known as the Wesendonck
Lieder. Wagner confided in her by letter his thoughts about
his planned work, Parsifal, and eventually shared in her
concern for antivivisection, as
reflected in his treatment of the incident of the swan in the first
act of the work.
Otto and Mathilde used the spelling 'Wesendonck'. Their son called
himself Franz von Wesendonk. The spellings 'Wesendonck' and
'Wesendonk' are found in roughly equal proportion in Wagner
literature.
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German writer on music and literature. In 1877 he was invited to
Bayreuth by Richard Wagner to edit the Bayreuther Blätter.
Wolzogen remained editor of the journal until his death sixty years
later. Under his editorship the Blätter became a
reactionary and extremely nationalistic publication, reflecting the
views of Chamberlain and the Bayreuth Circle. Wolzogen produced a
series of thematic guides to Wagner's later works, which identified
many leading motives and gave them names that are still in
use today, and he edited three volumes of Wagner's
letters.
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