In 1853, at the age of twenty-two, I heard the "Tannhäuser Overture" for the first time under Liszt's direction in Karlsruhe. I was extremely outraged by this "terrible" music, which vehemently contradicted everything I had previously found "beautiful." I expressed my displeasure just as freely as my companion H.M. Schletterer – the well-known later opponent of Wagner – expressed his exuberant enthusiasm. This work depicts the origin story of the Bayreuth Festival. It illustrates the relationship between the music publisher Emil Heckel and the magnificent composer Richard Wagner. This book is an unchanged reprint of the original edition from 1912.