Siegfried Wagner

Siegfried Wagner had the best musical pedigree that a composer could conceivably have: the son of Richard Wagner and the grandson of Franz Liszt (through Liszt's daughter Cosima). His ancestry proved to be a decidedly mixed blessing, however, as the younger Wagner -- despite working in a different musical era -- was never fully able to step outside of the long shadow cast by his father, even as he engendered the jealousy of musical rivals. The younger Wagner, in celebration of whom the "Siegfried Idyll" was written, was privately educated for the first 14 years of his life;...