Wagner, Richard. (1813–1883) [Anton Seidl (1850–1898)]. TRISTAN UND ISOLDE - Inscribed to Anton Seidl and with his Performance Markings Throughout. Leipzig: Breitkopf & Härtel. [1860]. First Edition. Tristan und Isolde. Vollständiger Klavierauszug von Hans von Bülow. 2° (330 x 260 mm). Engraved throughout. [PN] 9942. Without the cast and index leaf after title as in some copies, title repaired and strengthened along margins, some leaves with repairs mostly to corners, occasional some spotting and soiling. Modern half morocco, matching blue marbled paper over boards. Provenance: Anton Seidl (1850-1898), Hungarian conductor, a protégé of Richard Wagner and participant in the first Bayreuth Festival, conductor of the New York Philharmonic (presentation inscription by Wagner, slightly trimmed). A historic example of the score.


FIRST EDITION of the piano vocal score. PRESENTATION COPY, inscribed by Wagner to Anton Seidl: "Herrn Seidl, zu Weihnachten/ 1872/ Richard Wagner". Substantial directorial markings throughout score (on 46 pages), including cuts, phrases and a few alterations, in Seidl's hand. Seidl was summoned by Wagner to Bayreuth in 1872 and worked in close association with Wagner between 1872 and 1876, actually living in Wagner's house during the five years as he assisted the composer in making the first fair copy of Der Ring des Nibelungen. Seidl took part in the first Bayreuth Festival in 1876. He and Wagner remained close associates, with Wagner helping to secure Seidl's appointment to the Leipzig State Theater, where he remained until 1882. "During the last years of his life Wagner entrusted all important matters to Anton Seidl, whenever he was consulted about them, and this enabled the young conductor to fan the flame of enthusiasm for his adored master in various German and foreign cities…. In the following year he was engaged as conductor of the opera at Leipzig, where he astonished the conservative natives by the most stirring interpretations of Wagner's works. It was there that I for the first time had the pleasure of hearing Mr. Seidl conduct, and I now realize better than I did then, that it was his interpretative genius that there made me appreciate the Nibelung dramas, in some respects even more than I had appreciated them at Bayreuth" (Henry T. Finck, Anton Seidl, A Memorial by His Friends. New York: Scribners, 1899, p. 13-14).


Universally acknowledged to be one of the high-points of the operatic repertory, the libretto and music for Tristan were written and composed by Wagner himself. The opera had its Premier in Munich on June 10, 1865 under the baton of Hans von Bülow. WWV 90 XI (p. 439); Klein p. 29; Fuld Collection p. 328; Loewenberg 973; Hirsch II, 958; British Museum, Hirsch Collection p. 423.