Word: barthou
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Dates: during 1920-1929
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Rupert Brooke, who wrote the above, and Louis Barthou, who has just written a biography,* view the same aspect of Richard Wagner. Both see his crude love-affairs as inherent, important surfaces of his genius rather than detached experiences remote from the mind which was capable of Tristan und Isolde, Der Ring des Nibelungen...
Opening his study with a phrase which the composer put in one of his letters to Elise Wille, "I ... adorer of women," M. Barthou proceeds to detailed accounts of Wagner's amorous adventures. He was the adorer of many women but most notably three: Minna (Wilhelmina Planer), a stupid, clamorous, third-rate actress whom he married; Mathilde (Mme. Weson-donck) who inspired Tristan; and Cosima (Frau von Bülow, natural daughter of Franz Liszt) who provided the stimulus for the Ring series and whom Wagner loved most of all. In his relations with these ladies, Wagner provided the world with...
...fact remains that Wagner's amours have only such significance as they have attained in their mutation into art. Louis Barthou's book competently threads together previously known facts, describes with Gallic wit and speed encounters of that nature which Frenchmen, both in funny papers and reality, enjoy with special gusto. But since it tells little that is new and only brushes over the old, it is to be regarded more as a series of entertaining anecdotes than as a consequential item in the lists of Wagnerian biography...
...Wagner's loves are important because of his music, so, reversely, this sketch is important because of the personal distinction of the writer. Louis Barthou was Premier of France from March to December of 1913, is Minister of Justice in the present Cabinet, is a member of the French Academy. His other books have been numerous. One is a study of Victor Hugo's affairs of the heart, Les D'Amours d'un Poete...
...PRODIGIOUS LOVER ? Louis Barthou (translated by Henry Irving Brock...