Wagner and his Hungarian Friends

The main idea of our new exhibition Wagner and his Hungarian Friends is to show the life long friendship between Liszt and Wagner, the positive effect it had on their career, the extraordinary admiration the two geniuses had for each others work and how they benefited from all this as musicians. Their friendship led to many more acquaintances, as it is almost certain that all Hungarian friends and supporters of Wagner were also close friends of Liszt. He either introduced them to Wagner personally or they met through some pupils or friends. Among the most important people were Ede Reményi, Mihály Mosonyi, Kornél Ábrányi Ödön Mihalovich and of course Hans Richter (born in the Hungarian town of Győr) who is the personal connection between Pest and Bayreuth. The exhibition focuses on Wagner’s two visits to Pest, later Budapest, and shows how he was welcomed, what colleagues thought after the premiere of his operas, the aftermath of his concerts - one on his own and another one he performed with Liszt. There is also material showing the activities of Hungarian musicians, admirers and friends in Bayreuth. We start with the relics reflecting the mutual admiration the two Maestros expressed for each other’s works and end by showing their intellectual similarity: they both admired the works of the great predecessor Beethoven and the poet Goethe. Wagner and Liszt both were friends of the contemporary painters Wilhelm von Kaulbach and Franz von Lenbach.