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Daughter of the poet Théophile Gautier, Judith Gautier (1845–1917) grew up among Europe's literary avant-garde, quickly establishing her own career as a writer. An unapologetic admirer of Richard Wagner from an early age, she described her moment of revelation on playing through the overture to The Flying Dutchman as 'vertigo of the spirit'. Her enthusiasm led to several works on the composer, including a translation of his poem for Parsifal, during the composition of which an intense intimacy developed between them (gently, but firmly, defused by Cosima). Reissued here is the 1910 English translation by Effie Dunreith Massie of Gautier's highly charged account of her first two visits to Wagner and Cosima in Switzerland in 1869 and 1870. Gautier describes the idyllic atmosphere and offers the reader an effusive pen-portrait of Wagner's complex personality. The work also features facsimile pages of Wagner's letters to Gautier, showing part of the score for Parsifal.
A great admirer of Richard Wagner, the music publisher Emil Heckel (1831–1908) founded the first Wagner Society in Mannheim in 1871. His purpose was to inspire others to help raise the necessary funds for the inaugural Bayreuth Festival. William Ashton Ellis (1852–1919) abandoned his medical career in order to devote himself to his Wagner studies. Best known for his translations of Wagner's prose works, he published in 1899 this English translation of Heckel's memoirs (originally edited by his son Karl), interwoven with letters from Wagner to Heckel, who is described by the composer as his 'energetic friend'. Notwithstanding the stylistic idiosyncrasies of the translation, the work provides a valuable first-hand account of the progress made towards establishing what would become one of the world's most prestigious music festivals. The letters span the years 1871 to 1883.
The German poet Mathilde Wesendonck (1828–1902), author of the texts of the Wesendonck Lieder, was the wife of Wagner's patron, the wealthy silk merchant Otto Wesendonck. From 1852 until 1858, the Wagners lived next to the Wesendoncks in Zurich and an intense relationship developed between Wagner and Mathilde, subsequently reflected in the impossible love at the heart of his opera Tristan und Isolde. Prepared by the American musicologist Gustav Kobbé (1857‒1918), who provides a helpful connecting narrative, this 1905 translation of a selection of 'the most intimate and striking' of Wagner's impassioned letters to Mathilde charts the course of the opera's creation. Written between 1853 and 1863, the letters show Wagner thinking aloud not only about Tristan but also the planning of Parsifal. As Mathilde's letters to Wagner were destroyed, the exact nature of their relationship and of her inspiration musically will never be fully established.