Cosima Wagner and Richard Strauss | Three autograph letters, 1876-1912

Cosima Wagner and Richard Strauss

Three autograph letters

1) COSIMA WAGNER. Autograph letter signed ("C. Wagner"), in French, to an unnamed correspondent

thanking him on behalf of Wagner for his letter and the volume he has sent him, informing him that it is not up to her husband to allocate tickets for performances [for the first Bayreuth Festival], but noting that he might be able to obtain one from Madame Lucca, in which case Wagner would be greatly pleased and charmed to make his acquaintance ("...Pour ce qui est de l'entrée aux representations du mois d'Août il ne dépend pas de lui de vous l'accorder..."), 4 pages, 8vo (20.3 x 12.5cm), black borders, vertical and horizontal fold, Bayreuth, 29 March 1876

2) COSIMA WAGNER. Autograph letter signed ("C. Wagner"), in French, to an unnamed correspondent, ABOUT WAGNER

thanking him for the articles he has lent her, including those on Rienzi, and for supporting her recommendation of Sgambati, answering his comments about The Ring by assuring him that he will find listening to all four works less fatiguing once he hears them under better conditions, discussing the faults of the press, and making a point of requesting that he never accept on hearsay the utterances and opinions of her husband ("...Il est une chose seulement que je voudrais vous prier de ne jamais accepter sur ouï-dire, ce sont les paroles et les jugements de mon mari..."), 4 pages, oblong 8vo (11.2 x 18cm), central vertical fold, Bayreuth, 4 January 1877

3) RICHARD STRAUSS. Autograph letter signed ("DrRichardStrauss"), to Richard Specht

about the writer and critic Hermann Bahr's views on Wagner, noting that, since acquiring a singer as a wife, he has been interested in opera and especially in Wagner, reporting that he has now discovered the fashion for anti-Wagnerism, as if such young, wretched Wagner rebels had never existed, stating that it is now perhaps time to rap him over the knuckles, also referring to Humperdinck, d'Albert, Meyerbeer and Lortzing, Pfitzner and Siegfried Wagner, and asking him to regard these views as confidential, adding that they can discuss them further in Vienna ("...Es wäre nun doch an der Zeit, dem guten Bahr ein bisschen auf die Finger zu klopfen..."), 2 pages, 8vo (18 x 11.5cm), on Strauss's printed stationery, Garmisch, 17 March 1912, in two separate halves, two small tears, one with paper loss; together with the torn front part of an envelope addressed by Strauss to Robert Lienau

The first performances of the complete Ring were given at the first Bayreuth festival (13-17 August 1876). Giovannina Lucca had secured the rights to publish Wagner's operas in Italy and it is likely that the correspondent requesting tickets was Italian. The Wagners subsequently visited Italy during the months September to December, attending a production of Rienzi in Bologna on 5 December 1876 ("much better than in Vienna"). They had met Giovanni Sgambati, a former pupil of Liszt, in Rome only a few days previously. Wagner had recommended his works to his publisher Schott in Mainz.

The letter by Strauss to the dramatist Richard Specht (1870-1932) concerns the views of his fellow Austrian, the writer and critic Hermann Bahr (1863-1934). Bayreuth and Wagner's Theatre, a joint publication by Bahr and his wife, appeared in the same year as Strauss's letter.