Your most serene Highness,
Most mighty King and Lord,
I have finally come to believe that Your Majesty’s most gracious commission to ensure as exemplary a presentation as possible of my as yet unperformed lyric drama “Tristan and Isolde” may be adequately realized only if I myself assume direction of all the necessary rehearsals. However, experience has shown me that, if I am to superintend not only the purely musical aspect of the rehearsals but also the stage production as well with the necessary degree of circumspection, it is imperative that I should be excused from assuming direct leadership of the orchestra, more especially for the rehearsals, since I know such involvement to be beyond my mental and physical resources. However, I could only contemplate what would be a considerable and highly desirable lightening of my burden of responsibility if I knew that the orchestral direction had been entrusted to a musician who was entirely familiar with the task in hand, right down to its very last details, and who was, moreover, extremely close to me. To expect the highly respected General Music Director F. Lachner to offer me the necessary support would mean placing this eminent maestro in an almost improper position, whereby he would not only be subordinate to me but would have to conform to whatever instructions I might have for him. Since I cannot for a moment suppose that any of the subordinate conductors of the Royal Court Orchestra possess the qualities necessary for my purpose, and more especially a detailed knowledge of my intentions, I find myself in the very situation which Your Majesty foresaw when he most graciously summoned Dr Hans von Bülow here, a man who is particularly close to me, and who is everywhere highly reputed as a consummate musician.
Accordingly I make so bold as to submit this most humble entreaty to Your Majesty, begging that Your Highness might deign to permit and instruct the King’s Own Performer Dr Hans von Bülow to conduct the Royal Court Orchestra at the rehearsals and, if necessary, also at the performances of my work “Tristan and Isolde”. Since custom, moreover, requires that special authority be granted here, an authority granted only to those of Your Majesty’s civil servants appointed to conduct Your Majesty’s orchestra but which, in special cases, may be additionally vested in the composer of the work to be performed, it will be necessary to provide Dr Hans von Bülow with the requisite authority, for which reason I most humbly beseech Your Majesty most graciously to confer upon my friend the title of Extraordinary Royal Kapellmeister whose duty it will be to conduct the Royal Court Orchestra at Your Majesty’s especial command, if and when the occasion arises. -
It gives me great satisfaction to know that, by expressing this wish and submitting my most humble entreaty, I have not only indicated the means whereby the arrangements which my august patron has so generously made in favour of the most perfect possible performance of my work may now be regarded as truly complete, but at the same time to have recommended as our collaborator in this enterprise a man of many parts who is also an artist of such extensive knowledge and especial aptitude for our present requirements that I am now in a position of being able to offer the most complete guarantee for the success of his achievements in every possible respect.
In the expectation of a gracious reply to my most humble entreaty, I remain, in respectful loyalty and devotion,
Your Majesty’s
most obedient subject
Richard Wagner
Source: Selected Letters of Richard Wagner, trans. and ed. Stewart Spencer and Barry Millington (W. W. Norton & Company, 1988), No. 319