Richard Wagner (1813-1883) - photo 1
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Richard Wagner (1813-1883)

Lot 74
11.12.2024 14:00UTC +00:00
Classic
Sold
£ 2 016
AuctioneerCHRISTIE'S
Event locationUnited Kingdom, London
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ID 1349745
Lot 74 | Richard Wagner (1813-1883)
Estimate value
£ 4 000 – 6 000
Richard Wagner (1813-1883)
Autograph letter signed (‘Richard Wagner’) to [the music critic Franz Brendel in Leipzig], Paris 2 October 1860
In German. Three pages, 205 x 136mm, bifolium, a few later pencil strokes in margins. Provenance: Sotheby’s, 29-30 April 1980, lot 443.

'Any German who wants to get to know my Tannhäuser in full should come to Paris to hear it performed in French'. Wagner complains at the insufficient facilities placed at his disposal in Germany and the inadequacy of German productions of his operas, such that his work is not truly known in Germany: if he is staging Tannhäuser in Paris it is not for financial reasons but because he is given the necessary means to achieve a 'perfect performance'; he adds that he has heard that Queen Victoria has requested a production of Lohengrin in English. The letter opens with a discussion of Wagner's famous 'Open Letter to a French Friend (Frédéric Villot)' [published later in Leipzig under the title 'Zukunftsmusik'], disclosing that he has given the manuscript to J.J. Weber so that parts may be published.

'I still know nothing about my future in Germany. In any case, I will never be able to benefit from exactly what the Emperor has ordered me to benefit from here ... Let me tell you with all certainty that any German who wants to get to know my Tannhäuser in full should come to Paris to hear it performed in French ... I am once again amazed at how incredibly my work is shortened in Germany, even in the so-called best performances, so that I can say that it is actually not known at all in Germany. God save me from the joy of assisting in a German performance of it somewhere! No! Believe me! It is not actually the financial advantage itself that has led me to this Paris performance, but rather it is a matter of the heart, because here, for the first time, everything is at my disposal to bring about a completely perfect performance. / Queen Victoria has requested Lohengrin in English: I know nothing about Tannhäuser'.

Wagner had substantially revised Tannhäuser for its Paris premiere, including the insertion of a ballet in accordance with the traditions of the Paris Opéra, and was closely involved in the lengthy preparations for the performance, including 164 rehearsals. In the event, the premiere was to be a legendary fiasco, with the audience's opposition incited in part by Wagner's positioning of the ballet in act 1 rather than its traditional place in act 2. Franz Brendel (1811-1868) was a music critic and editor of the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik from 1845 to 1868; he is credited with coining the term Neudeutsche Schule (New German School) to describe the progressive German musical movement championed by Liszt and Wagner during the mid-nineteenth century. Sämtliche Briefe, xii (2001) 218 (based on a copy, from whose text the autograph letter diverges).
Address of auction CHRISTIE'S
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United Kingdom
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11.12.2024 – 11.12.2024
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