Die Violinistin und Bloggerin Emily E. Hogstad geht bei Interlude in einem kurzen Artikel über Siegfried Wagner: The Tragic Fate of Richard Wagner’s Composer Son den Fragen nach:
- How does it affect an artist’s life to come from a family of creative royalty?
- What role do romantic relationships play in an artist’s creative expression?
- Can classical music really be used after a composer’s death to support the moral bankruptcy of authoritarian regimes?
und kommt zu dem Schluss: »The story of Siegfried Wagner provides some food for thought on all of these questions.«
Sie berichtet, dass Siegfried Wagner als Kind von seiner Mutter misshandelt wurde (»We know that Siegfried was physically abused by Cosima.«), schildert seine Beziehung zu Clement Harris (»[…] he met an intriguing English pianist and composer named Clement Harris who changed the course of his life.«) und erwähnt, wie er zur Eheschließung gedrängt wurde (»Needless to say, Siegfried and Winifred did not have a fulfilling marriage […]«) und sich dennoch weiterhin mit Männern traf:
In fact, he used Bayreuth as a hub to meet men, and often granted them positions at the festival as employees or performers.
Ohne die eingangs definierten Fragen wirklich zu beantworten, endet die Autorin mit dem Resümee:
Today, Siegfried Wagner is more famous for his ancestry and his children than for his music. It is tempting to imagine how his life would have been different if he had been allowed to be himself or been able to escape the pressures of belonging to such a famous musical family.