Hans von Wolzogen

Hans Paul Freiherr von Wolzogen (* November 13, 1848 in Potsdam, † June 2, 1938 in Bayreuth ), was a German writer, editor, publisher and librettist.

Childhood

Hans Paul von Wolzogen was born on 13 November 1848 in Potsdam. His father, Alfred Wolzogen, was court - theater director in Schwerin; his mother was a daughter of the famous architect Karl Friedrich Schinkel. She died when her son was two years old.

Even at school he was particularly interested in poetry, music and the theater. On his honeymoon in 1872 he first came to Bayreuth, where had recently, on May 22, held the foundation stone for the Bayreuth Festspielhaus Richard Wagner.

In Bayreuth

In 1877, he was brought by Richard Wagner in Bayreuth, where he edited the journal Bayreuther Blatter, first from 1878 to 1938 and published. He lived from 1878 in the Schiller street, not far from Wagner's Wahnfried.

Richard Wagner, of which the idea had gone out for the magazine, looked at the Bayreuth leaves a magazine to an understanding of the possibilities of German culture. The Journal corresponded to the art and philosophy of life of Richard Wagner, among others have been here whose last essays first published. Wagner regretted at times, to have claimed Wolzogen to Bayreuth, as he felt compelled to have to deal with him, and to write essays for the magazine. After Wagner's death, Wolzogen became a central figure in the so-called " Wahnfried circle " who tried to charge Wagner's work with pseudo-religious significance.

Wolzogen was head of the General Richard Wagner Association. On December 19, 1928 Wolzogen was one of the signatories of the founding manifesto of the nationalist -minded, anti -Semitic struggle League for German Culture. During the period of National Socialism Wolzogen wrote in March 1936 in the Journal of Music a post in which he celebrated Hitler " as the embodiment of nationalist spirit" and compared it to Richard Wagner.

Literary work

As a writer Wolzogen wrote a biography of Wagner and religious essays. In addition, he published a book that tells of the poet Wilhelm Raabe and the title Raab wisdom bears. He is said to have coined the term " theme" for the description of characterizing sequences of notes in Wagner's works, call the persons or events in memory and symbolize. As a librettist had Wolzogen Hans Sommer ( Saint Foix, UA 1894, the merman, UA 1896, Münchhausen - together with Ferdinand Count Spork and Hans Sommer - published in 1897, and Augustin, published 1899) and Eugen d' Albert ( Flauto solo, UA 1905). In 1900, his transfer of Edda appeared in the Universal-Bibliothek Leipzig Reclam -Verlag. He also wrote the 1891 seal lock of the heart after Gustave Flaubert's 1881 erschienenem Chateau des cours, for which again Hans Sommer composed the incidental music.

In 1912 he published an obituary for the Salonnière Marie Countess Schleinitz, with whom he had shared his passion for Wagner.

His book German Jesus Faith (published by German Christians, Weimar 1938) was set in the Soviet zone of occupation on the list of proscribed literature.

Works

• Beovulf ( Bärwelf ). The oldest German heroic poem. Reclam, Leipzig about 1872 ( digitized )
• Richard Wagner and the wildlife. Also a biography. Publisher of H. Hartung & Son, Leipzig 1890.
• Beowulf - Gudrun. With pen and ink drawings by Franz Stassen. Publishing House for Patriotic History and Art, Berlin, 1920.
• The Edda, Germanic gods and heroes. First volume: legends of the gods. With 48 pen and ink drawings by Franz Stassen. Publishing House for Patriotic History and Art, Berlin, 1919.
• The Edda. Götterlieder and heroic songs. From Old Norse. Philipp Reclam jun., Leipzig ( without specifying the year of publication ).