Wagner's Letters

Correspondence by, to, and around Richard Wagner

Wagner’s letters run from a seventeen-year-old offering a publisher his piano arrangement of Beethoven’s Ninth to a note from Venice a month before his death. Written to patrons, friends, lovers, singers and creditors, they are less guarded than anything he published. They follow his hopes for art from the revolutionary years in Dresden and Zurich, through Schopenhauer and his love for Mathilde Wesendonck, to King Ludwig, Bayreuth and Parsifal.

The letters are arranged by date and can be browsed by correspondent, so that Wagner’s side may be read alongside the replies of Liszt, Nietzsche, Minna Wagner and others. These letters have been compiled from available English-language collections; some letters may be repeated in translations by different translators.

In the letters the thought of the prose is lived: plans conceived, defended, abandoned and reborn amid poverty, exile and scandal. One conviction holds throughout, that art is a matter of life and death and not a trade. What changes is what he hoped art would accomplish. In Dresden and Zurich it is the festival of a free humanity, upheld by a Feuerbachian faith in love. From 1854 Schopenhauer turns it toward renunciation and compassion, a turn the letters to Mathilde Wesendonck give an almost devotional intensity. With King Ludwig it becomes a mission he believed he had been sent to fulfil, and at Bayreuth a sacred stage, ending with Parsifal, which he called his farewell to the world.

The apprentice years. The earliest letters, from Leipzig, Würzburg, Magdeburg and Riga, are those of an ambitious young theatre musician in the spirit of Young Germany, an “epicure” in art who wanted “nothing for posterity, everything for contemporaries.” They chart his courtship of the actress Minna Planer, debts, flights from creditors, and a hunger for Paris and Italy. Paris from 1839 brought hunger of a more literal kind: pawned rings, begging letters, fawning appeals to Meyerbeer, and a hatred of money as “the curse that destroys whatever is noble.” Out of that misery came the first statement of a lifelong faith. Writing to Kietz in 1842, he asked what would have become of him had he not thrown himself “with ever growing faith into the arms of Art,” and added, “I know now who I am.”

Dresden and revolution. The triumph of Rienzi in 1842 made him Kapellmeister at the Saxon court, and the letters of the next years show him striking out “a way markedly different” with The Flying Dutchman, Tannhäuser and Lohengrin. He described the last as the contact between “a metaphysical phenomenon and human nature, and the impossibility that such contact will last.” Self-publishing his scores ruined him, quarrels with the court theatre multiplied, and contempt for the modern stage hardened into politics: “the means we must use is Revolution!” he wrote in 1847. During the May uprising of 1849 he told Minna that he and his comrades were revolutionaries “only in order to construct something on fresh ground.” A warrant followed, and with it exile.

Zurich and the artwork of the future. The Zurich letters, above all to Liszt, Theodor Uhlig and August Röckel, are the workshop of the theoretical writings and the Ring. Their faith is humanist and Feuerbachian. “My God is my art and the principle of beauty, nobility, and truth,” he told Ferdinand Heine in 1849, and against Liszt’s plea that he find salvation in Christ he answered in 1853, “I believe in mankind, and require nothing further.” He imagined the Ring performed in a temporary theatre on the Rhine after the revolution, before a public admitted free, to make clear “the meaning of that Revolution, in its noblest sense.” Yet beside the hope runs a darker refrain: art, he wrote, “begins at precisely the point where life breaks off,” a substitute for the love life denied him. The great letter to Röckel of January 1854 reads the Ring as a drama of love against power, in which Wotan rises “to the tragic heights of willing his own destruction” and the lesson is “We must learn to die.”

Schopenhauer, Wesendonck and Tristan. In December 1854 he told Liszt that Schopenhauer had come “like a gift from heaven,” and that his “final negation of the desire of life” showed “the only salvation possible.” In the same letter he conceived Tristan und Isolde as a monument to a love he had never known. Later letters to Röckel reread his own operas through the new philosophy, finding in them since the Dutchman “the sublime tragedy of renunciation.” His love for Mathilde Wesendonck, his neighbour at the Asyl from 1857, became the living form of this thought. When the household broke apart in 1858 he wrote to her of the only salvation left: “Rest from longing! The stilling of every desire!” In Venice he finished the second act of Tristan, confessing to Bülow that “were I not an artist, I could become a saint.”

The wandering years. From 1859 to 1864 the letters follow him from Lucerne, where Tristan was completed, to Paris and the fiasco of Tannhäuser at the Opéra in 1861, then to Biebrich, where Die Meistersinger began as a kind of rescue, and to Vienna, where Tristan was abandoned after more than seventy rehearsals. His final renunciation of Mathilde, his separation from Minna, mounting debts and a flight from Vienna to escape his creditors brought him by the spring of 1864 close to despair.

Ludwig, Munich and Tribschen. In May 1864 the eighteen-year-old King Ludwig II of Bavaria summoned him to Munich and paid his debts. The letters between them are among the strangest in the collection, ecstatic on both sides; Wagner wrote that the King had been sent to him “by God in order that my belief shall become a religion.” Tristan was performed in 1865, but the death of its Tristan, Ludwig Schnorr, the scandal of his affair with Cosima von Bülow and court hostility forced him out of Munich that December. At Tribschen near Lucerne, where he lived with Cosima from 1866, he finished Die Meistersinger, performed in Munich in 1868, returned to the Ring, married Cosima in 1870, and found in the young Friedrich Nietzsche a disciple who saw him as the renewer of Greek tragedy.

Bayreuth. The festival he had imagined in Zurich took shape in the small Franconian town he chose in 1871 as a neutral place, “a kind of Washington of art.” The letters of the next five years are largely business: fundraising, patrons’ certificates, singers asked to serve “simply and solely” an artistic ideal for expenses only, a near collapse rescued by a royal loan in 1874. The first Ring of 1876 left a large deficit and deep disillusion. His enterprise, he told Heckel, had been a question put to the German public, “Will you?”, and he now assumed that they would not. Nietzsche, who in 1876 still celebrated each May as the anniversary of his “spiritual rebirth,” broke with him in 1878, and Wagner’s letters thereafter speak of him with pained bewilderment. Retreating into Parsifal, which he finished in 1882 and reserved for Bayreuth alone, Wagner spoke of himself as a man looking down on the world “as though from a cloud.” His last letter to Ludwig, from Venice in January 1883, calls the work “my farewell to life.”

Spirituality. The letters show that Wagner’s religious thought was not a late conversion but a lifelong search, and that it was always bound up with art. In Paris and Dresden art itself was his faith. In Zurich that faith took a communal and this-worldly form: love was the only redeemer, and the festival he dreamed of was a religious gathering without a church, answering a need that, as he put it in 1852, “can no longer be ecclesiastically religious.”

Schopenhauer gave this search a metaphysics, and with it an Eastern vocabulary. To Röckel in 1855 he described compassion with all that lives as “the root of all virtue” and “the true secret of redemption,” and wrote that the Buddha “spoke the language which most nearly gives expression to that lofty enlightenment.” “If you wish to find out my religion,” he told Mathilde Wesendonck, “read Usinar,” a legend from the Indian epics. He planned a Buddhist drama, Die Sieger, and in his Venice diary for her wrote that he had “involuntarily become a Buddhist.” Seeing an animal tormented, he told Jakob Sulzer, lifted “the veil of Maya” and gave him an insight into “the essence of life itself.” His love for Mathilde he described in the same terms: love was “the well-spring of my redemption,” and “only inside, within us, only deep down does salvation dwell.”

From the 1860s Christ moves to the centre without the Eastern strand disappearing. Writing to Ludwig on Good Friday 1865, he contrasted the God of power with the God who suffers and dwells in the heart, and in 1873 he said Parzival was meant “to preserve the world’s profoundest secret, the truest Christian faith, nay, to awaken that faith anew.” His Christianity remained heterodox. In 1879 he wrote to Constantin Frantz that the way from man to God “is compassion, and its everlasting name is Jesus,” and in 1880 he told Hans von Wolzogen that they must be “merciless in abandoning the Church and the priesthood” for the sake of a purified Christ. The Brahmin teaching stayed with him: joining an animal-protection society in 1879, he urged that people be reminded of “the Brahman’s great saying, ‘Tat twam asi’ (‘That art thou’),” as a way of ennobling Christianity. Die Sieger was set aside only because, as he wrote in 1882, Parsifal had absorbed it.

The response he wanted from his audience followed from this. From the start he insisted that drama speak to feeling rather than reflection, and in 1853 he wrote, “I do not proffer easy entertainment, I deal in terror and pity.” In 1875 he told his performers that the Greeks could celebrate art in the name of Apollo, but “we no longer had any gods.” By 1880 he called Parsifal “the most sacred of my works,” a drama in which “the most sublime mysteries of the Christian faith are openly presented,” and resolved that it should never be offered “as an amusement.” Bayreuth was to be a consecrated stage, and the experience he hoped for was less conversion than an awakening of compassion. In his last years, having lost hope in Germany and the age, he described his inner life as “a world not of hope but of trust.”

Antisemitism. Hostility to Jews runs through the letters from the 1830s to the end, often joined to his resentment of money, the press and rivals. It sharpened around Judaism in Music (1850), when he told Liszt that his hatred of Jewry was “as necessary to my nature as gall is to the blood,” and he defended the pamphlet’s reissue in 1869. In the Schopenhauer letters he identified Judaism with the worldly optimism he rejected and claimed it had distorted Christianity, and in later letters he blamed Jews, often alongside Jesuits, for the degeneration of German culture. Late letters adopt racial language influenced by Gobineau, and in 1881 he told Ludwig that he considered the Jewish race “the born enemy of pure humanity and all that is noble in man.” At the same time he worked closely with Jewish musicians and impresarios, among them Carl Tausig, Joseph Rubinstein, Angelo Neumann and Hermann Levi, who conducted the first Parsifal, and in 1881 he disclaimed any connection with the organized antisemitic movement then active in Berlin.

Because the collection contains thousands of letters, the table below is intended as a finding aid rather than a replacement for the individual letter pages. Use the filters to narrow the archive by year, month, correspondent, or direction, then open a letter to read the full text.

Note: An asterisk (*) next to the date indicates an exact date for the letter was unavailable and a date has been interpolated from context and ordering.

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Showing all years in February (208 total)

Date	From	To	Place	Words	Subject
February 17, 1859	Franz Liszt	Richard Wagner	Weimar	340	Liszt reports that his proposal for a pension has been declined in the proper quarter, though a small sum might later be sent, and suggests that if Germany stays closed Wagner might settle in Paris, where Liszt could visit often. He hopes for a Tristan premiere in September and praises the song Wagner sent.
February 21, 1859	Richard Wagner	Eliza Wille	Venice	1,175	Wagner tells Eliza Wille of his hermit's life in Venice and his intense work on Tristan, which 'will be beautiful' but is eating into him. He has refused to stand trial in Dresden, closing Germany to himself, worries about Minna, calls Mathilde Wesendonck his sole solace, and plans to leave for Switzerland, perhaps Lucerne, after evading Saxon attempts to have him expelled.
February 22, 1859	Richard Wagner	Franz Liszt	Venice	179	Thanking Liszt for a letter that has dispelled his convulsive excitement, Wagner begs him not to send money now but rather his Ideals and Dante scores, and promises to confess his sins at length tomorrow.
February 22, 1859	Richard Wagner	Mathilde Wesendonck	Venice	736	Invoking the Buddhist practices of public confession and the mendicant's grace in accepting alms, Wagner tells Mathilde he means to face his fate without illusion, restraining "the noblest need" of his life and wishing only for others. He renounces Germany with a placid heart, resolves to complete Tristan, plans to orchestrate Act III at Lucerne, confesses his weakness for silk, velvet and fine rooms, and urges her to hear the much-praised Vienna Lohengrin.
February 22, 1859	Richard Wagner	Mathilde Wesendonck	Venice	109	Wagner tells Mathilde Wesendonck he relinquishes Germany calmly, that Archduke Max has suspended his expulsion, and that he will sketch the third act of Tristan in Venice and orchestrate it in Switzerland, perhaps at Lucerne.
February 23, 1859	Richard Wagner	Franz Liszt	Venice	2,375	Wagner admits that Liszt's stern New Year rebuke showed him his own ugliness and longs for inner calm. He explains that he will never submit to a Saxon trial, has asked the King for an exceptional amnesty on health grounds, and may seek a privilege of residence from several German princes; the Grand Duke of Baden plans to invite him secretly to the Carlsruhe Tristan. Härtel's terms for the Ring are unacceptable, and if Germany stays closed he will settle in Paris, provided Liszt visits often.
February 23, 1859	Richard Wagner	Franz Liszt	Venice	1,256	Wagner explains to Liszt his plan to petition the King of Saxony, and failing that a group of German princes, on grounds of health, describes the Grand Duke of Baden's offer to bring him secretly to Karlsruhe for Tristan, and proposes that the Grand Duke of Weimar buy the Nibelungs scores.
February 27, 1859	Richard Wagner	Minna Wagner	Venice	1,486	Swamped by correspondence, Wagner explains why he concealed his threatened expulsion from Venice, describes his health-based appeal to the Archduke and to the Saxon Minister of Justice for amnesty, and laughs at Lüttichau's snub. He now leans toward settling in Paris, considers spending the spring at the Willes' to finish Tristan's third act, and plays a New York offer of 30,000 francs against the Paris director to secure Tannhäuser or Rienzi; he also asks Papa Fischer to advertise for lost Tannhäuser scores.
February 12, 1860*	Pauline Viardot-Garcia	Richard Wagner	Paris	54	Pauline Viardot regrets that no rehearsal is possible that day, since she sings Orphée in the evening, and arranges a meeting at her house next day with Saint-Saëns and Reichardt.
February 12, 1860	Richard Wagner	Otto Wesendonck	Paris	1,257	After his three ruinous Paris concerts, Wagner reports a great Tannhäuser success in prospect while every door to Tristan stays barred, muses on free will and the God who wills through the individual, describes refusing a Russian offer of 50,000 francs for a Petersburg winter, prepares to give up his Rue Newton house, and greets the Raphael engravings the Wesendoncks sent from Rome.
February 12, 1860	Richard Wagner	Otto Wesendonck	Paris	207	Wagner tells Otto Wesendonck that his Paris concerts failed to win a guarantor for his German opera season, which he must cancel, and that he is now trying to have Tannhäuser accepted by the Grand Opera through the Emperor himself.
February 8, 1861	Richard Wagner	Otto Wesendonck	Paris	318	Wagner announces that the first Paris Tannhäuser is fixed for 22 February, assures Wesendonck there will be performances enough in spring if he would rather avoid a winter journey, gratefully defers his generous offer of help, and says a night's unbroken sleep has become an ideal happiness.
February 12, 1861*	Richard Wagner	Mathilde Wesendonck	Paris	1,521	On Shrove Tuesday, in the thick of the Tannhäuser rehearsals, Wagner contrasts Mathilde's calm enjoyment of art with his own toil, professing a deep resignation and indifference in all his relations. He sketches his Paris acquaintances, among them Blandine Ollivier, Malwida von Meysenbug and Countess Kalergis, with whom he sang Act II of Tristan alongside Pauline Viardot, and wives of the Prussian and Saxon ambassadors. He accepts her decision not to attend the première, yet confesses he would count an hour's sight of her thrice-blest, and praises Niemann as "right-down sublime."
February 12, 1861*	Richard Wagner	Mathilde Wesendonck	Paris	2,115	On Shrove Tuesday, Wagner describes his deep resignation and indifference amid the Tannhäuser rehearsals, then sketches the Paris women of his acquaintance: Blandine Ollivier, Malwida von Meysenbug, Countess Kalergis, Princess Metternich, Mme de Pourtalès and Frau von Seebach. He is pained that Mathilde will not attend the premiere, though longing to see her, and praises Niemann as sublime.
February 12, 1861	Richard Wagner	Mathilde Wesendonck	Paris	521	Wagner describes to Mathilde Wesendonck the women he has met in Paris—Madame Ollivier, Malwida von Meysenbug, the Countess Kalergis, Frau von Pourtalès and Frau von Seebach—and reports that the Tannhäuser rehearsals are remarkable and Niemann sublime.
February 20, 1861	Albert Niemann	Richard Wagner	Paris	180	Smarting from embarrassment at the first full rehearsal, the tenor Niemann demands that Wagner cut the taxing phrase "venant en aide au misérable" in Act II of Tannhäuser, or else find another Tannhäuser.
February 20, 1861	Richard Wagner	Albert Niemann	Paris	268	From Wagner's long letter of guidance to Niemann after the first full rehearsal, urging a ghostlike, toneless delivery in the third act of Tannhäuser, and the postscript he added on receiving Niemann's ultimatum, in which he sadly agrees to cut the disputed passage.
February 21, 1861	Richard Wagner	Albert Niemann	Paris	3,092	On the eve of the Paris Tannhäuser, Wagner reproaches Niemann for his distrust and for planning to abandon the role, and urges him to sing the restored adagio in the Act II finale with full force, since the drama's crisis lies there rather than in Act III, which he finds too vigorously sung. A postscript, written after an offended letter from Niemann, agrees to cut the passage.
February 21, 1861	Richard Wagner	Albert Niemann	Paris	1,468	On the eve of the Paris Tannhäuser, Wagner reproaches Albert Niemann for his distrust and discouragement, urges him to throw everything into the second-act finale and to sing Act III with ghostly restraint, and finally, after receiving his angry letter, agrees to cut the disputed passage.
February 25, 1861	Director of the Théâtre Impérial de l'Opéra	Richard Wagner	Paris	50	The Opéra management regrets that no box seats are left, sends Wagner an orchestra seat, and assures him that the director's box is always open to him.
February 25, 1861	Richard Wagner	Alphonse Royer	Paris	406	Unwilling to abandon months of work to the incompetent conductor Dietsch, Wagner demands of the director of the Opéra that he himself be allowed to conduct the final rehearsal and the first three performances of Tannhäuser, warning that otherwise the performance cannot go ahead.
February 1, 1862	Richard Wagner	Minna Wagner	Paris	167	Learning from Cecilie that Minna has declined to stay with the Avenariuses, Wagner decides not to go to Berlin for now, since he would not care to be under a different roof from her and wants to avoid every seed of discord. He is packing for departure and will write more soon.
February 3, 1862*	Richard Wagner	Mathilde Wesendonck	Karlsruhe	292	Quoting Pogner and Eva to tease Mathilde's silence, Wagner explains that he has renounced his wish to read the finished Meistersinger poem to the Wesendoncks at Basle and is sending them the much-corrected manuscript instead. He commends Beckmesser and David to her notice, notes that only Sachs's salutation by the people is taken from the real Sachs, and announces his departure for Mainz in search of a nest to hatch the music.
February 6, 1862	Richard Wagner	Minna Wagner	Mainz	203	A hasty note sent by hand with Peter Cornelius, who answered Wagner's summons from Vienna through floods to hear the first reading of Die Meistersinger at Schott's in Mainz and is breaking his return journey at Dresden to greet Minna. Wagner calls him a perfect angel and promises a fuller answer about her Reichenhall cure shortly.
February 9, 1862	Richard Wagner	Minna Wagner	Biebrich	2,108	Back in a hotel, Wagner praises Cornelius as the one true genius of the younger generation and sets out the advantages of settling at Biebrich, within easy reach of the Rhine theatres, asking anxiously whether Minna could like it. He recounts his talk with the Grand Duke of Baden, who promises to head a princely pension of 1500 to 2000 gulden and invites him to conduct Lohengrin, explains why he rejects Karlsruhe because of Devrient, drops the Berlin visit, and confesses to weeping over his trunk.
February 9, 1862	Richard Wagner	Minna Wagner	Biebrich	2,462	Wagner describes Biebrich's central position among the Rhine theatres and its charm as a place to settle and work, praises Peter Cornelius as a true genius, and recounts an hour with the Grand Duke of Baden, who promised to organize a princely pension for him. He asks whether Minna would wish to live there and reports he has abandoned a planned visit to Berlin.
February 9, 1862	Richard Wagner	Minna Wagner	Biebrich	456	Wagner praises Peter Cornelius to Minna, explains the advantages of settling at Biebrich, and describes a cordial hour with the Grand Duke of Baden, though he has given up Karlsruhe on account of Devrient.
February 13, 1862	Richard Wagner	Mathilde Wesendonck	Biebrich	127	Anxious at Mathilde's silence about Die Meistersinger, Wagner tells her he has taken a year's lease of two rooms at Biebrich on the Rhine, beside the Duke of Nassau's palace, where he means to stay until the composition is finished.
February 14, 1862	Richard Wagner	Minna Wagner	Biebrich	986	The letter Minna did not wait to answer before appearing at Biebrich: settling in to compose Die Meistersinger, Wagner sets out his longing only for peace and work and leaves it to her to decide whether she can devote herself wholly to that purpose, or whether they had better live apart.
February 16, 1862	Richard Wagner	Mathilde Wesendonck	Biebrich	172	On learning of the death of Mathilde's mother, Wagner offers his condolence, welcoming her into the "solemn realm" of grief from which alone he now looks upon the world, and tells her the Meistersinger manuscript is hers to keep.
February 16, 1862	Richard Wagner	Hans von Bülow	Biebrich	89	Wagner tells Bülow that everywhere open hands were stretched out to him only to wave him politely away, and that the next thing he will do is marry his wife again.
February 19, 1862*	Mathilde Wesendonck	Richard Wagner	Zurich	168	Responding to the finished Meistersinger poem, Mathilde rejoices that "the winged lion on your desk has woken up," finds his poetic fountain gushing as never before, and welcomes his giving his deep humour its due for once, likening the work to the Hymn of all Creation seen in an evening glow.
February 7, 1863	Richard Wagner	Minna Wagner	Prague	31	On the eve of his Prague concert, Wagner tells Minna he would have telegraphed her to come had he been in better health.
February 12, 1863	Richard Wagner	Minna Wagner	Vienna	82	Wagner corrects Minna's misreading of his note from Prague, explaining that he was too worn out to see anyone, and that he must keep his solitude even in Russia.
February 16, 1863	Richard Wagner	Hans von Bülow	Biebrich	325	Wagner tells Bülow of his travel plans for Berlin and St. Petersburg, his search for a house at Biebrich, his quarrel with Herr von Guaita over the Lohengrin fee, and the sad case of Friederike Meyer.
February 15, 1864	Richard Wagner	Minna Wagner	Penzing	545	Learning of the death of Minna's sister Charlotte, Wagner writes tenderly of the tears he sheds for her, explains why he cannot yet decide on living together again, describes his struggle to finish Die Meistersinger, and promises money for her summer cure.
February 16, 1864	Richard Wagner	Heinrich Wolfram	Penzing	313	Wagner tells Heinrich Wolfram how deeply grieved he is by news of Minna's condition, insists he has let her want for nothing, and explains that finishing The Mastersingers undisturbed is now a life-and-death question.
February 11, 1865	Richard Wagner	Franz Schott	Munich	156	Wagner sends Franz Schott his March of Homage to the young King of Bavaria in military-band score, with Bülow's piano arrangements, predicting it will rival the Tannhäuser March in popularity.
February 15, 1865	Richard Wagner	Minna Wagner	Munich	73	Wagner assures Minna by telegram that reports of his fall from King Ludwig's favour are slanderous falsehoods.
February 26, 1865	Richard Wagner	Eliza Wille	Munich	389	Amid public attacks on him in Munich, Wagner confesses to Eliza Wille that his published retort understated his bond with Ludwig II. Though longing for peace, he cannot shirk the duties imposed by the King's profound affection, and dreads having to wrest the young monarch from his scheming entourage.
February 26, 1865	Richard Wagner	Eliza Wille	Munich	322	Amid the press campaign against him, Wagner tells Eliza Wille that he cannot in conscience withdraw from his duties to the King, who has no one about him he needs, and longs for the last repose.
February 6, 1866	Richard Wagner	Anton Pusinelli	Geneva	629	Thanking Pusinelli for his calm, detailed account of Minna's last hours and burial and for representing him so devotedly, Wagner asks him to thank Luise and all who honoured "my poor blessed wife." He renounces any claim on her property, will pay for the burial, gravestone, and memorial tablet, offers help to Natalie, and lives in complete retirement in Geneva.
February 9, 1866	Richard Wagner	Anton Pusinelli	Geneva	432	Repaying Pusinelli for Minna's burial, Wagner asks that the 15 thalers left over go to Natalie as the first half of a quarterly allowance of 30 thalers. Wounded and ill, taking baths and Vichy water, he confides his dilemma over King Ludwig, who wants him back in Munich, and is touched that Pusinelli has taken Minna's parrot Papo.
February 15, 1866	Luise Brockhaus	Anton Pusinelli	Dresden	234	Returning Wagner's letters of 6 and 9 February, Luise Brockhaus thanks Pusinelli for showing her that the core of her brother's heart is tender and good, rages at the Munich Volksbote's slanders about Minna's support, and offers to publish a rebuttal in the family's Deutsche Allgemeine Zeitung.
February 16, 1866	Anton Pusinelli	The Newspapers	Dresden	690	In an open letter refuting the Munich Volksbote's allegation that Minna Wagner lived in want and that her public defence of her husband was extorted, Pusinelli, her physician and friend, testifies that she wrote it herself, never sought public relief, lived comfortably on Wagner's allowance with a companion and servant, took cures at his orders, and was buried at Wagner's expense.
February 20, 1866	Richard Wagner	Hans von Bülow	Geneva	223	Wagner tells Bülow that he now looks to Protestant Nuremberg as the true German art centre for a future academy and school, and would like a lodge at the castle of Bayreuth for his retreat, but asks him to keep it secret.
February 1, 1867	Richard Wagner	Bertha Goldwag	Lucerne	514	Wagner asks Bertha Goldwag for an estimate for a pink quilted satin house-coat, lined with white satin and lavishly trimmed with puffed ruches and bows, describing it in minute detail alongside a sketch, and orders twelve yards of blue satin and narrow blonde lace.
February 20, 1867	Richard Wagner	Oskar Schanzenbach	Lucerne	1,094	Insisting that he seeks nothing for himself but peace to work at Tribschen, Wagner urges Schanzenbach to persuade Prince Hohenlohe to speak openly to Ludwig II about Wagner, since go-betweens in the King's entourage are fomenting mistrust between monarch and minister. He asks why Schanzenbach's letters and the King's arrive in the same hand.
February 20, 1867	Richard Wagner	Oskar Schanzenbach	Lucerne	505	Wagner thanks Dr. Schanzenbach for his visit, insists he seeks nothing personal from the King or the Bavarian State but only peace to work, and urges that Prince Hohenlohe speak reassuringly to the King about him.
February 5, 1868	Richard Wagner	Lorenz von Düfflipp	Munich	729	Returning to Tribschen during the preliminary Mastersingers rehearsals, Wagner asks the court secretary Düfflipp to convey his gratitude to the King, suggests that a rebuilt Munich stage could accommodate the Ring operas one by one, recommends the tenor Bachmann, and requests the loan of the Valkyrie score for copying and the return of the last sheet of his autobiography.
No letters found.

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