Home > Baker's Student Encyclopedia of Music > Wagner, Siegfried

(Helferich Richard), German conductor and composer, son of (Wilhelm) RICHARD and COSIMA WAGNER; b. Triebschen, June 6, 1869; d. Bayreuth, Aug. 4, 1930. His parents were married in 1870, and Siegfried was thus legitimated.

Siegfried studied with ENGELBERT HUMPERDINCK in Frankfurt am Main, then pursued training as an architect in Berlin and Karlsruhe. During his tenure as an assistant in Bayreuth from 1892 to 1896, he studied with his mother, Hans Richter, and Julius Kniese. From 1896 he was a regular conductor in Bayreuth, where he was general director of the festival productions from 1906.

In 1915 Siegfried married Winifred Williams, an adopted daughter of Karl Klindworth. In 1923-24 he visited the U.S. in order to raise funds for the reopening of the Bayreuth Festspielhaus, which had been closed during World War I. He conducted from memory and left-handed.

In his career as a composer, Siegfried was greatly handicapped by inevitable comparisons with his father. He wrote 12 operas, orchestral works, vocal pieces, and chamber music.