Richard Wagner's Prose Works, Volume 1: The Art-Work of the Future

“AUTOBIOGRAPHISCHE SKIZZE “ (Bis 1842).

‘It^TONi^Jl’ name is Wilhelm Richard Wagner, and I was born at Leipzig on May the 22nd, 1813. My father was a police-actuary, and died six months after I was born. My step-father, Ludwig Geyer, was a comedian and painter; he was also the author of a few stage plays, of which one, “Der Bethlehemitische Kindermord” (The Slaughter of the Innocents), had a certain success. My whole family migrated with him to Dresden. He wished me to become a painter, but I showed a very poor talent for drawing.

My step-father also died ere long, — I was only seven years old. Shortly before his death I had learnt to play “UU immer Treu und Redlichkeit” and the then newly published “Jungfernkranz “ upon the pianoforte; the day before his death, I was bid to play him both these pieces in the adjoining room; I heard him then, with feeble voice, say to mjt mother: “Has he perchance a talent for music _?”,_jQn the early morrow, as he lay dead, my mother came into the children’s sleeping-room, and said to each of us some loving word. To me she said: “He hoped to make something of thee.” I remember, too, that for a long time I imagined that something indeed would come of me.