Wagner, Siegfried (Helferich Richard)
Wagner, Siegfried (Helferich Richard)
Wagner, Siegfried (Helferich Richard), German conductor and composer, son of (Wilhelm) Richard Wagner and Cosima Wagner and father of (Adolf) Wieland (Gottfried) Wagner; b. Triebschen, June 6,1869; d. Bayreuth, Aug. 4,1930. His parents were married on Aug. 25, 1870, and thus Siegfried was legitimated. Richard Wagner named the Siegfried Idyllfor him, and it was performed in Wagner’s house in Triebschen on Christmas Day, 1870. He studied with Humperdinck in Frankfurt am Main and then pursued training as an architect in Berlin and Karlsruhe; during his tenure as an assistant in Bayreuth (1892-96), he studied with his mother, Hans Richter, and Julius Kniese. From 1896 he was a regular conductor in Bayreuth, where he was general director of the Festival productions from 1906. On Sept. 21, 1915, he married Winifred Williams, an adopted daughter of Karl Klind-worth. In 1923-24 he visited the U.S. in order to raise funds for the reopening of the Bayreuth Festspielhaus, which had been closed during the course of World War I. He conducted from memory, and left-handed. In his career as a composer, he was greatly handicapped by inevitable comparisons with his father. His memoirs were publ. in Stuttgart in 1923.
Works
dramatic: Opera: Der Bärenhäuter (1898; Munich, Jan. 22, 1899); Herzog Wildfang (Munich, March 14, 1901); Der Kobold (1903; Hamburg, Jan. 29, 1904); Bruder Lustig (Hamburg, Oct. 13, 1905); Sternengebot (1907; Hamburg, Jan. 21, 1908); Banadietrich (1909; Karlsruhe, Jan. 23, 1910); Schwarzschwanenreich (1911; Karlsruhe, Dec. 6, 1917); Sonnenflammen (1914; Darmstadt, Oct. 30,1918); Der Heidenkönig (1914; Cologne, Dec. 16, 1933); Der Friedensengel (1915; Karlsruhe, March 4,1926); An allem ist Hütchen Schuld (1916; Stuttgart, Dec. 6, 1917); Der Schmied von Marienburg (1920; Rostock, Dec. 16, 1923); Wahnopfer (1928; unfinished). ORCH.: Sehnsucht,symphonic poem (1895); Konzertstückfor Flute and Orch. (1914); Violin Concerto (1915); Und wenn die Welt voll Teufel war!,scherzo (1923); Glück,symphonic poem (1924); Sym. in C major (1925). VOCAL: Das Märchen von dicken fetten Pfannkuckenfor Baritone and Orch. (1913); Der Fahnenschwurfor Men’s Chorus, Orch., and Organ (1915); Wer liebt unsfor Men’s Chorus and Woodwinds (1924). OTHER: Chamber music.
Bibliography
L. Karpeth, S. W. als Mensch und Künstler (Leipzig, 1902); C. Glasenapp, S. W.(Berlin, 1906); idem, S. W. und seine Kunst (Leipzig, 1911; essays on the operas; new series, 1913, as Schwarzschwanenreich;2ndnew series, ed. by P. Pretzsch, 1919, as Sonnenflammen);P. Pretzsch, Die Kunst S. W.s (Leipzig, 1919); O. Daube, S. W. und sein Werk (Bayreuth, 1925); Festschrift zu S. W.s 60. Geburtstag (Bayreuth, 1929); H. Rebois, Lettres de S. W.(Paris, 1933); O. Daube, S. W. und die Märchenoper (Leipzig, 1936); F. Starsen, Erinnerungen an S. W.(Detmold, 1942); Z. von Kraft, Der Sohn: S. W.s Leben und Umwelt (Graz, 1963); P. Pachi, S. W.s musikdramatisches Schaffen (Tutzing, 1979); idem, Weltbild in S. W.s Opern (Karlsruhe, 1998).
—Nicolas Slonimsky/Laura Kuhn/Dennis McIntire