![Pringsheim[1] Pringsheim[1]](http://intermezzo.typepad.com/.a/6a00d834ff890853ef017c3707e38e970b-300wi)
Alfred Pringsheim, mathematician, father-in-law of Thomas Mann, amateur musician and early patron and friend of Richard Wagner, died in 1941 in Zurich at the age of 91. As a Jew, he had been forced to flee his native Germany in 1939, leaving most of his comfortable wealth behind. It has been generally believed that on his death, his widow Hedwig burned all his personal effects, which included letters from Wagner.
Now a previously unknown document has surfaced. It's the transcript of a diary that the young Pringsheim made in the summer of 1876 in Bayreuth, when he saw the dress rehearsals for the first-ever Ring cycle. Richard Wagner's great-granddaughter Dagny Beidler (granddaughter of Isolde von Bülow, who was in turn the eldest daughter of Richard and Cosima Wagner) found it amongst the belongings of her late father, Franz Wilhelm Beidler, a good friend of Pringsheim. She transcribed it with the help of musicologist Eva Rieger.
This full transcript is published in its entirety for the first time in May (Thomas Mann Series, Volume 9, Publisher Königshausen-Neumann).
But first the German newspaper FAZ is publishing a few excerpts. Of course, the dress rehearsal specifics are fascinating, even though many of the goings-on have already been aired in other contemporary reports. "One cannot judge the dragon scene fairly yet" says Pringsheim "as the monster itself hasn't arrived yet from London."
Perhaps more intriguing is the confirmation of how charming Wagner could be with his Jewish admirers when their pockets were as deep as Pringsheim's. "An unsolvable riddle to see this little man with his Saxon Gemüthlichkeit and then think he has created all these great works." A must-read for Wagnerites.
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