WAGNER’S LOVE LETTERS

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 834, 30 November 1929, Page 32

WAGNER’S LOVE LETTERS

COLLECTION DISCOVERED IN LONDON NLW LIGHT ON COMPOSER Having lain untouched in a London safe deposit for a generation, there is now a prospect that the Burrell collection of Wagner documents, -which embraces a large number of sensational Wagner letters, will be published (says the “Daily Chronicle.”) A catalogue of the documents lias just been published privately by the Xonpariel Press, and it is understood that a book to be titled “The Truth About Wagner” will appear later in the year from the pens of two Americans who sought and found the Burrell documents three months ago. An anonymous introduction to the catalogue says that its authors “consider that if all the documents were published in full ... it would constitute an exceptionally accurate and vivid life of Wagner.” They add that, “both the official view' promulgated by his family and the popular view transmitted by tradition are untrue.” The anonymous authors of the introduction assert that what Wagner's biographers politely call the “Beyrouth tradition” had been carefully built up in order that the world should take a view of Wagner’s life wholly favourable to his second wife, formerly Cosima von Bulow, who is living still at Beyrouth. It is then related how Wagner was induced in his lifetime to dictate his autobiography, and hbw he set to work to recover important letters scattered over Germany. The scheme, however, was unconsciously foiled by Natalie, who. when Wagner married Minna (Minna Planer, his first wife), was a little girl of nine, “nominally her sister, really her daughter.” Wagner secured from Natalie, after Minna’s death. 300 of his letters to Minna, but Natalie, to whom all Minna’s papers had been bequeathed, withheld about 100 letters which were the cream of Wagner’s correspondence. These letters now' form part of the ! Burrell collection just published. Mrs. Burrell, the daughter of Sir John Banks. Regius Professor of Medicine at Trinity College, Dublin, was | a great lover of Wagner’s music, and 1 for 15 years collected documents re-1 lating to the composer. When she j died in IS9B her treasures passed into rhe hands of her husband. The collection consists of 400 autographed communications, letters and telegrams, all hitherto unpublished, and about 600 pages of manuscript music. Among the oldest items in the collection are some of Wagner’s early love letters to Minna, in which he implores her to many him. In one j letter he signs himself “Your Bride- j groom.” and one begins “My Sweet j Bride.” She ran away from him, and he wrote another letter swearing to ! take her by force. Letters of the pair’s deep poverty in Paris in IS4O reveal ' that at one j point, they had between them only | three sous. A letter dated 1863 shows tha?

when Wagner and Minna separated lie liad no intention of marrying again. “She will always be my w ife,” He wrote. “I will remain alone, and nobody will take her place. . . . My fate is loneliness and my life is work.” Ari unpublished ietter of 18i>S shows Wagner claiming back in almost threatening language, letters he had

j written to Minna and which she had left to Natalie. Mrs. Burrell met Natalie, then resiI dent, in a sort of women's almshouse. Ibv chance, states the introduction. ! Natalie was at first suspicious, but her suspicions yielded to the sincerity of the other, and gradually all her papers passed into the collection of ‘ Mrs. Burrell.