Wagner & Mathilde
A political exile, Richard Wagner found safety in Zurich, where he also discovered the love and philosophy that inspired his greatest works, as Paul Doolan explains.
Dawn was breaking on the morning of December 23rd, 1857, her 29th birthday, when Mathilde Wesendonck (1828-1902), beautiful wife of the wealthy silk merchant Otto Wesendonck (1815-96), awoke in her bedroom in the mansion they had had built on a green hill overlooking Lake Zurich. The sweet and melancholic sound of a chamber orchestra rose from downstairs. Leaving her bedroom she crossed the gallery, with its collection of Old Masters lining the walls, and descended the marble grand staircase to the vestibule. There, surrounded by marble busts of Socrates, Demosthenes, Sappho and Augustus and a bronze statue of Hermes, a small group of musicians played music composed in her honour for the occasion. Conducting the ensemble was the composer and organiser of the event, Richard Wagner (1813-83).
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