« J'avais la chance de pouvoir acquérir le lot entier un jour avant que Bayreuth envoyait une personne de confiance »

Signed autograph letter to Alfred Cortot and his wife about Richard Wagner's manuscript collection: "I was lucky enough to be able to acquire the entire lot one day before Bayreuth sent a trusted buyer".
London 26 December 1937, 17.9x22.9cm, one leaf.

Autograph letter signed by Stefan Zweig to Alfred Cortot, two pages on one sheet written in violet ink.
An outstanding autograph letter in which the avid collector informs his friend Alfred Cortot of his acquisition of unpublished manuscripts of Wagner. Alfred Cortot himself owes his career as a conductor to his early discovery of the German composer. Cortot shared with Zweig his "almost tyrannical bewitchment [suffered] with as much intoxication as fervor" for the composer.

Zweig, who spoke of his collection as "more worthy of surviving me than my own works" (The World of Yesterday: Memories of a European, 1942), recounts for his friend the details of this incredible discovery of hundreds of forgotten leaflets, including Wagner's intimate correspondence, handwritten scores and excerpts from opera librettos, including The Flying Dutchman, The Sublime Fiancée (or Bianca and Giuseppe), Die Feen, Das Liebesverbot (The Ban on Love) and a lost orchestral version of Rule Britannia.

In December 1937, as he fled the Nazi regime and settled in London, Zweig became fascinated by the archives of a time when intellectual Europe was living in perfect syncretism. The writer takes a nostalgic look at the manuscripts of Wagner, who like him spent his youth travelling through the capitals of Europe: "I was extraordinarily fortunate to be able to get my hands on a whole lot of Richard Wagner's musical and literary manuscripts from his early period (Leipzig, Magdeburg, Riga and Paris) during a short stay in Vienna". Among these precious manuscripts is the extremely rare orchestral arrangement of the patriotic song Rule Britannia, which had been missing for more than sixty years.
Sharing his passion for Wagner with his friend, the pianist Cortot, Zweig announced his discovery with the wonder so familiar to collectors when faced with an exceptional find: "[...] the manuscript is the only one of its kind in the world that has been preserved. It contains things that will be of special interest to you, for example the complete translation (60 pages) of the French version (unpublished (I believe) of the text of the "Liebesverbot") entirely in Wagner's hand, as well as the manuscripts of a vaudeville song "Descendons la Courtille" (which he performed in his darkest moments) [...] almost thirty pieces of the highest interest and precisely from the rarest period. All this was hidden for 50 years in a private collection and I was lucky enough to be able to acquire the entire lot one day before Bayreuth sent a buyer".

The letter is a fascinating account of Zweig's parallel life, which had earned him a reputation as an accomplished collector. His collection also inspired one of his most beautiful short stories, The Invisible Collection (die Unsichtbare Sammlung) and a pioneering essay in the Deutscher Bibliophilen Kalender (The Autograph Collection as an Art). His hundreds of historical, musical and literary autographs from the Middle Ages to the 20th century were carefully catalogued and collected in the library-museum of his house in Kapuzinerberg: "In this library, a 'place of worship', he also exercises a real activity as an expert in autographs [...]. ...] The library will attract a number of distinguished scholars, sometimes accompanied by their assistants, who will not hesitate to return to work there quietly for days or even weeks at a time" (Stefan Zweig, le voyageur des mondes, Serge Niemetz).

With this acquisition, Zweig sees the dream of every collector come true. After two years of exile in England, Zweig returned to Vienna in time to purchase these exceptional documents from Bayreuth's emissaries, who had already built up a large collection which is now managed by the museum and the Wagner Foundation. The letter also recognises Zweig's insatiable curiosity as a biographer, constantly searching for new material and primary sources to add to his biographical studies – in the same year he had travelled throughout Europe with his future wife Lotte in search of Magellan-era maps for his biography of the explorer.
In Paris, between two visits to the Bibliothèque natonale, Zweig remained on the lookout for the rarest manuscripts, stopping like Marcel Proust before him at the autograph dealer Charavay. Unfortunately, the writer was unable to enjoy his collection for a very long time. He parted with some of his autographs as he fled Vienna and sold them to the famous merchant Martin Bodmer. The remaining lot was left in London before his departure to Brazil.

Stefan Zweig's collection of musical, historical and literary manuscripts is now shared between the British Library in London, the Bodmer Foundation in Geneva and the National Library of Israel.
An admirable testimony to the writer's largest and most prestigious acquisition. On the eve of World War II, anguished and nostalgic of "yesterday's world", Stefan Zweig found solace in Richard Wagner's papers as the threat of totalitarianism loomed over the European cities of his youth.