top of page
Wagner. Ride the storm

Sezione 1
Sezione 2
The King of the Ring
MUNICH, Cuvilliés Theatre. 1864
PLAY ME
I was exhausted, parched by the

truncated sections of the Tetralogy and The Master Singers,
which I had not resumed composing. I remained alone before the flight of my friends, like a magician who had lost his powers. At fifty, I was tired of living. One little push and it would all be over!...All that remained was to flee to Switzerland to avoid arrest for indebtedness. In order to calm the creditors, Liszt's uncle,


a well-known lawyer, sold the furniture of my house in Vienna without my knowledge. Thus, I suddenly found myself without accommodation. I wrote to Wesendonck, hoping that he would take me back to Zurich,but he refused me. In despair, I went to the house of another friend of mine, without being waited for, but shortly afterwards he
was invited to leave.On my way to Munich, I stopped in Stuttgart to persuade conductor Eckert to perform Tristan for me, which had become a masterpiece that had been gathering dust in the drawer for five years... We were in the process of deciding the matter when, one evening, the King of Bavaria's secretary appeared and

asked to speak to me; believing that I was wanted by the police, I replied that I was not at home. The next morning, this mysterious person joined me at the hotel, giving me a ring and a photo of the young King Ludwig, who was madly in love and called me to Munich. And so it was that the première of Huldigungsmarsch took place at the Cuvilliés Theatre in the German city.

Sezione 3



bottom of page