Klára Hamburger

Death in Bayreuth

An Unknown Document about the Death of Franz Liszt

In 2004, Mrs István Czétényi, née Márta Maróth, presented the Hungarian Franz Liszt Society with valuable papers. The documents had originally belonged to Jolán Gerster (1889-1957), who had been Mrs. Czétényi's own beloved piano teacher and a cousin of her paternal grandmother. Between 1932 and 1944, Jolán Gerster had served as the secretary of the Liszt Society in its "last but one incarnation".
Jolán Gerster was born in 1889, the daughter of Béla Gerster (1850-1923), who had designed and built the Corinth Canal. From 1907 to 1909, she studied with Bartók at the Budapest Academy of Music, receiving her diploma as a piano teacher in 1911; the document bears Bartók's signature. Between 1910 and 1917, she lived in Berlin, where she taught and trained as a singer in the studio of her aunt, Etelka Gerster (1855-1820), an opera singer who had toured Europe and the United States with great success and had been considered Adelina Patti's rival. Jolán Gerster performed as a singer both in Berlin and in Budapest. After returning home, she was a teacher of voice and piano in private music schools in Budapest. She was one of the founders of the Hungarian Liszt Society and was one of its guiding spirits until the Society ceased to function during the siege of the city in 1944-45. After the war, she lived in straightened circumstances until her death in 1957.
The president of the Hungarian Liszt Society during the Horthy era (until 1943) was Countess Margit Zichy (1874-1963), who had grown up in Liszt's circle: both her father, Count Géza Zichy (1849-1924), the one-armed concert pianist, and her maternal grandfather, Count Guidó Karátsonyi (1817-1885), were intimate friends of Liszt.
I found the report, published below, among Jolán Gerster's documents. It is anonymous, yet the author's identity cannot be in doubt, as the writer must have been both professionally concerned with nursing and a clerk; furthermore, he identifies himself as one of those who had prepared Liszt's death mask. Bernhard Schnappauf (October 5, 1840-March 13, 1904) was a barber- surgeon in Bayreuth. He had served as Richard Wagner's valet since 1872 and accompanied him on his Italian journeys. Since I had been previously unaware of this report and had no knowledge of its contents, I asked Professor Alan Walker, who is the best authority on the Liszt documents. He replied on January 21, 2005:

I did not know that B. Sch. had left some recollections about the death of Liszt, but it does not surprise me. He and Cosima placed Liszt's body into the coffin and wheeled it on a handcart from Frau Fröhlich's house to Wahnfried, so I am sure that Sch. had some vivid memories. 

I also made inquiries at the Richard Wagner Archives in Bayreuth. Frau Kristina Unger was kind enough to inform me that, albeit they have a few documents that originated from Schnappauf, this report is not one of them. I am indebted to Frau Unger for information on Schnappauf. 

The report may have reached Budapest through the intermediary of Countess Zichy, who was in contact with Schnappauf's son, Dr Hans Schnappauf, a physician in Bayreuth. There are many handwritten letters, notes and instructions from Countess Zichy to Jolán Gerster, and from one of these - a letter written at the Countess's Nagyláng estate on August 8 1936 - we learn that Dr Hans Schnappauf was planning to sell the shirt in which Liszt died to the Liszt Society. In another, undated note, the Countess notifies her secretary that Dr Schnappauf was willing to donate the shirt as well as a death mask authenticated by Cosima Wagner. The director of the Society, Gyula Novágh, must act without delay, since the Liszt Museum in Weimar was also interested in these relics. A further typewritten report, sent by Jolán Gerster to the Countess on August 29, 1936, informs her that the Liszt Society wanted the relics.
On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of Liszt's death, the Budapest Opera performed in Bayreuth on October 19 and 20, 1936, a staged version of the Legend of St Elisabeth as well as two ballets to Liszt's music: Hungarian Fantasy and Carnival in Pesth (that is, the Hungarian Rhapsody No.9 in Franz Doppler's orchestration). Countess Zichy travelled on their special train to Bayreuth. There she must have met Dr Hans Schnappauf and received the relics from him and with them the manuscript of the present report. There is a note, half handwritten and half typed, among Jolán Gerster's papers which states: "During the anniversary year of 1936, Dr Schnappauf donated these relics belonging to the estate of his father Bernhard [Schnappauf], Liszt's last attendant, to the Hungarian Liszt Society."
The Richard Wagner Archive in Bayreuth has no knowledge of any Dr Hans Schnappauf papers. However, Mária Eckhardt, the director of the Liszt Ferenc Museum and Research Centre in Budapest, prompted by the present article, made the fortunate discovery of the following items that obviously originate from the Schnappauf estate and which have since then been placed on exhibit:
(1) The shirt Liszt wore last as well as a handkerchief;
(2) A photograph, taken by I. Ganz in 1882, as well as a lock of Liszt's hair.
(3) Franz Liszt's death mask made of alabaster, signed by its makers, Schnappauf and Weißbrod.
However, there is no trace of the original of the present report; it must have been destroyed during the war.3 In the course of the last decade, we have learned a great deal about the elderly Liszt's state of health and sudden death in Bayreuth on July 31, 1886. Our main source is the third volume of Alan Walker's monumental Liszt biography. A more recent publication by Professor Walker gives a detailed account of Liszt's death, based on the recollections of a reliable eyewitness. Walker has much to say on the relationship between Liszt and his daughter Cosima Wagner (1837-1930), as well as on that between Liszt and his grandchildren. The collection of letters from Liszt to Cosima and to his granddaughter Daniela, edited by the present writer, contains some further new facts.

Liszt's illness and death, at the end of July 1886, could not have come at a more inopportune time for his daughter. The Bayreuth Festival, vital for the preservation of Wagner's work, was in full swing, and Cosima herself was making her debut as a director of Tristan und Isolde. Liszt, who was tact personified, especially where his widowed daughter was concerned, was extremely embarrassed to have become ill at this very time and place. His biographer Lina Ramann writes in her memoirs: "The master repeatedly said, 'I wish I had fallen ill somewhere else; to become an invalid here in front of the entire world is really too stup i d .'" At the time, before modern drugs, pneumonia was a serious illnes at any age. A 75-year-old man whose constitution had been weakened by various ailments really had little chance, even with the best care available. What the patient needed to make the suffering of his final days more bearable would have been human warmth and loving nursing around the clock. A kind gesture, a comforting word, someone to wipe his face, to help him sit up or change the cold compress to lower his temperature, someone to offer him food or drink: these were precisely the things that Cosima had neither the time nor the desire to provide. As for her daughters Isolde and Eva, the thought didn't even occur to them. Her two older daughters were not present. Daniela von Bülow was on her honeymoon at the time, and Blandine von Bülow10 was living in Italy with her husband. Liszt's young pupil Lina Schmalhausen (1864-1928), who had looked after him in Rome and Budapest, would have been eager to take over the task of taking care of "the beloved master", but she was hated in Bayreuth, and Cosima forbade her to set foot in Liszt's apartment. There is something else for which Cosima has been rightfully reproached by posterity: she neglected to call a Catholic priest to her father - an abbé - to administer the last rites. (Cosima herself had converted to Protestantism to please Wagner.) The present, hitherto unknown document shows that Cosima entrusted her father to a professional attendant at least for the last days of his life. Schnappauf may not have been able to offer love, but at least he provided the patient with adequate medical care. The report shows that he knew his job and did whatever was necessary and possible. It also relates to us what Lina Schmalhausen couldn't see from her hiding place on the balcony. In particular, what injection Liszt was given.
In my opinion, Schnappauf's report and the invoice attached to it can be accepted as authentic and reliable evidence on Liszt's death and all the technical matters relating to his body. This remains true even though the document is available only in a typewritten copy produced fifty years after the event. Schnappauf knew all the people he hired: the sculptor, the undertaker, various specialists, the employees of the undertakers and the pall-bearers whom he lists by name. The invoice, which of course includes his own fee, shows that he organised and paid for everything. The significance of his report is in no way diminished by his failure to mention a number of people who attended the funeral, such as Daniela von Bülow and many of Liszt's pupils.
The English translation of Bernhard Schnappauf's unsigned report, "B e r i c h t über den letzten Lebenstag, Tod und Beerdigung des Abbé Dr. von Liszt", follows. 

...

Translated by

Klára Hamburger
has published widely on Liszt, including a biography in English
(Corvina Books, 1987).