Ferdinand Praeger

From 1842 onwards he was the British correspondent of the Leipzig Neue Zeitschrift für Musik, the journal founded by Robert Schumann.

[4] He wrote a number of pieces to celebrate Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee (1887), and was still composing shortly before his death in 1891.

[5] He was active in British musical social life and worked with many musicians visiting Britain, including Antonín Dvořák.

[6] But despite lobbying William George Cusins (the Master of the Queen's Musick) to conduct his other orchestral works, he was unable ever to get these performed.

Praeger later accompanied him on visits to various musical notables, including the conductor Sir Michael Costa and the violinist Prosper Sainton (who was in fact the prime mover of Wagner's appointment in London).

Wagner describes Praeger patronisingly as "an unusually good-natured fellow, though of an excitability insufficiently balanced by his standard of culture".

Not least, the author claimed, in his introductory dedication to the Earl of Dysart, "an uninterrupted friendship of close upon half a century" – whereas the period of their intimacy can be set at the most from 1855 until 1871.

In particular they objected to Praeger's detailed account of Wagner's involvement in the 1849 May Uprising in Dresden, which to Chamberlain's far-right-wing political opinions was deeply embarrassing.

Ellis wrote a pamphlet (1849: A Refutation) denouncing the book, and Chamberlain was successful in suppressing its German publication.

[24] Throughout the book, Praeger in fact supports and justifies Wagner's anti-Jewish prejudices, including a defence of his anti-Semitic essay Das Judenthum in der Musik,[25] and gives the excuse that "Towards Jews and Judaism [Wagner] had a most pronounced antipathy, and yet this did not prevent him from numbering many Hebrews amongst his most devoted friends.