My Life — Volume 1
By Wagner, Richard
Classic work by Wagner, Richard.
Table of Contents
PREFACE The contents of these volumes have been written down directly from my dictation, over a period of several years, by my friend and wife, who wished me to tell her the story...
‘Rienzi’ ‘The Flying Dutchman’ Liszt, Spontini, Marschner, etc. ‘Tannhäuser’ Franck, Schumann, Semper, Gutzkow, Auerbach ‘Lohengrin’ (Libretto) Ninth Symphony Spohr, Gluck, Hille...
1813-1842 I was born at Leipzig on the 22nd of May 1813, in a room on the second floor of the ‘Red and White Lion,’ and two days later was baptized at St. Thomas’s Church, and chr...
gone mad, and Friedrich in particular reproves her incomprehensible folly with passionate severity. But a few words on her part suffice to transport the Regent himself with ecstasy...
1842-1850 The journey from Paris to Dresden at that time took five days and nights. On the German frontier, near Forbach, we met with stormy weather and snow, a greeting which see...
of wine and a piece of bread. I was sorry that I was obliged to deprive him of even his small part in the course of the year, for its loss provoked such ill-treatment from his wife...
wonderfully bright and sunshiny, after the gloomy weather we had just been having. Without a word this curious creature saluted me and then remained standing, as though bewitched. ...
on the piano. ‘That’s Liszt himself,’ she cried. Liszt then entered the room to fetch her for the rehearsal. To my great embarrassment she introduced me to him with malicious delig...
And, indeed, there was a finale in which my ‘German master’ had actually tried to steal a march on Donizetti. The Princess had been poisoned by a golden rose, a present from the wi...
with the Berlin production of the same piece, that had been utterly condemned by him. He was for a long time the only man with whom I could discuss, seriously and in detail, the re...
was dictated by artistic motives. As far as I can remember, the details of this plan, which at last became a nuisance, afforded very sound foundation for a genuine arming of the pe...