What Cosima was to Wagner is best told in Liszt’s words, written to a friend after a visit to Bayreuth, in 1872, when his favorite child had been married to Wagner two years.  “Cosima still is my terrible daughter, as I used to call her,—­an extraordinary woman and of the highest merit, far above vulgar judgment, and worthy of the admiring sentiments which she has inspired in all who have known her.  She is devoted to Wagner with an all-absorbing enthusiasm, like Senta to the Flying Dutchman—­and she will prove his salvation, because he listens to her and follows her with keen perception.”

That Bayreuth with Wagner’s death did not become a mere tradition, that the Wagner performances still continue there, is due to Frau Cosima.  She is Bayreuth.  No woman has made such an impression on the music of her time as she.  Yet she is not a musician!