Photo: M. Ernst
The music world is celebrating Anton Bruckner’s 200th birthday. The whole music world. So also the Richard Wagner sites in Graupa.
In Graupa everything revolves around Richard Wagner. After all, the poet-composer worked on his “Lohengrin” here in 1846. Reason enough to convert his former residence, a former farmhouse, into the world’s first museum for the famous guest. Since 1907, the Lohengrin House has welcomed Wagnerians from near and far; In 2013, to mark the 200th birthday of the former Dresden court conductor, the Richard Wagner sites in Graupa were set up in a nearby, almost forgotten hunting lodge. A modern museum for the Wagner community from all over the world.
The musical sounds of Wagner welcome guests as soon as they enter Wagner sites welcome. Colorful plastic Wagner statues join this greeting. It’s daring wherever you look or listen. But now unfamiliar sounds mix into the museum visit, sounds from Anton Bruckner. Like that?
The reason for this is explained by Tom Adler, who has been running the house for over a year and is now also the curator of a special exhibition entitled “Blessing and Curse of a Dedication. Anton Bruckner and Richard Wagner” is: “Because there was a very special relationship between these two composers. In principle, Bruckner was Wagner’s fan bay, but he was always pushed into a corner at the time.”
Seeing Bruckner as a fan boy of Wagner would certainly have made both grandmasters smile at the time. Maybe they wouldn’t have understood the term at all. But times are changing, and in light of this, Tom Adler has taken Bruckner’s 200th birthday as an opportunity to deconstruct this tension a little. “We wanted to look behind this traditional image and get to the bottom of the actual relationship,” explains the museum director.
As is well known, Richard Wagner was considered a boundless egomaniac even during his lifetime and hardly allowed any other musician to be considered next to him. According to Cosima’s diaries, he is said to have called Anton Bruckner “the poor organist from Vienna” and even appeared in a dream – as the Pope with a bottle of cognac in his hand.
And this despite the fact that Bruckner was said to have been considered reserved and even abstinent when it came to alcohol. In silhouettes, as can now be seen in the Graupaer special exhibition, Bruckner is always portrayed as the smaller one next to Wagner, even though in reality he was significantly taller. And it wasn’t just in his dreams that the grand master of musical theater was condescending towards the symphonic composer. Tom Adler refers to a written statement by Wagner to the ushers at the first Bayreuth Festival: “Bruckner comes to the gallery, I protect him there, he deserves it – Wagner’s highest praise for Bruckner.”
At the center of the exhibition is the score of the 3rd Symphony in D minor by Anton Bruckner: “Sr Hochwohlborne Herr Herrn [sic!] Richard Wagner, the unattainable, world-famous and sublime master of poetry and music, dedicated with deepest reverence,” on loan from Bayreuth. The masterpiece is framed by two bronze busts of the Maestri, which of course do not look each other in the eye. Which raises the question of whether Wagner would tolerate Bruckner’s music being played in “his” house today?
Of course, a listening station conveys the 3rd Symphony and also points out (supposed) Wagner quotations in Bruckner’s work. One of the original Wagner tubas of that time, which is still preserved today and is regularly used by the Dresden Festival Orchestra when another part of the “Ring of the Nibelung” is being developed in the much-noticed original sound project, has a forgiving effect in a display case. At this place at the latest, the two very different composers of the 19th century were supposed to reconcile, especially since the first version of Bruckner’s Third was premiered in December 1946 (!) in the not so far away Kulturhaus Bühlau by the Dresden Staatskapelle under Joseph Keilberth.
»Blessing and curse of a dedication. Anton Bruckner and Richard Wagner” contains, in addition to paper cutouts and handwritten letters as well as a birthday telegram from Bruckner to Wagner, great intellectual treasures, so it is worth seeing and hearing and can be visited during the opening times of the Richard Wagner sites in Graupa until Easter 2025. Weekends 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday to Friday 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., closed on Tuesdays.
Michael Ernst / About the author
Michael Ernst devotes himself privately, on the radio and in print media to literature, music and theater. He has worked at opera houses and music festivals as well as as a freelance author and has been writing for “Music in Dresden” since 2009.
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