Sunday, July 25, 2010

Richard Wagner Museum Luzern

One of the reasons we visited Luzern was the Wagner museum, in Tribschen, on the lake, now a city park area. Wagner spent most of his many years in exile from Germany in Switzerland, and 1866-72 in Tribschen. The house he lived in is now the museum, and it has many important artifacts.
Wagner museum, Tribschen; on the steps
the Siegfried Idyll was first performed












Luzern had a copy of the face death-mask; but the real
right-hand cast










Nietzche's death mask; he visited Wagner
some 23 times in Tribschen; then went on
to other things; should they ever make a
movie of Nietzsche's life, I nominate Sam
Elliot to play the role of The Philosopher















Wagner's Erard piano; if you have seen the epic movie
Wagner (Richard Burton's last film), you will appreciate
that this is the piano depicted in many scenes, as the
composer moves from country to country in his exile years












Renoir's charcoal study for his several
Wagner portraits (the Tribschen museum
also has the very famous Beckmann
painting of Wagner, Cosima, Liszt, et al.,
but the lighting had too much glare)














One of the earliest pix of The Master, in all
his megalomaniacal finery, seated in












This, his easy chair; somehow I can't imagine
the man long in an easy chair...












The second floor of the museum used to be the standard
collection of 19th century musical instruments; but now
it is temporary Wagner exhibits, this one, really
interesting for me, based on a recent book by two Swiss
music historians about Wagner's various walks and
scrambles amongst the Swiss Alps (I wonder if he
ever ran into Whymper) and how they bear on his
work, especially the Ring cycle; the large 1850s wall
map depicts his various hikes...







The Master's walking hat (alas, not a Tilley)








View of the house from lakeside

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