bavarikon4UDescription
In 1892 Richard Wagner’s only son, Siegfried (1869-1930), undertook a journey to the Far East. He accompanied Clement Harris (1871-1897), the son of an English shipowner, whom he met in Frankfurt in 1889. During their six-month journey, which takes them from Europe to Egypt to Singapore, China and the Philippines, the two develop a close and intimate relationship. In 1897, at the age of only 25, Harris was killed in the Greek-Turkish War. A photograph of his friend stands on Siegfried Wagner’s desk his whole life.
The diary is never published. After Siegfried Wagner’s death, his widow Winifred had private prints of the text made, which she gave to deserving friends in 1935. In a preface, Winifred already points out her late husband’s "idiosyncratic writing." The themes are particularly idiosyncratic, for example when Siegfried discusses the detours of his digestion in great detail. Less amusing, however, is the dandyish snobbery that pervades the notes, especially his pronounced anti-Semitism.
The trip to East Asia represents a turning point in Siegfried Wagner’s life. During the course of this he finally decides to become a musician and give up the architecture studies he had already begun. He made his conducting début at the Bayreuth Festival in 1896. He directed the festival from 1908 until his death in 1930, modernising it technically and very carefully in terms of staging.