Compiled and written by Anthony Wilkinson
"I thank you with all my soul and to an eternity for causing me to write Tristan" - Richard Wagner to Mathilde Wesendonk.
Perhaps in no artist, certainly in no composer, can there have been so intimate a connection between his work and his love affairs as there was in Wagner. Mathilde Wesendonk, of all the many muses in his life, inspired him above all others. Years later he wrote: "She is and remains my only love... it was the sonnet of my life". Narrated by Richard Bebb

(Next week: "The Orange Sunrise", Wagner's love affair with Cosima von Bulow)