Tribschen is best known today as the home of the German composer Richard Wagner from 30 March 1866 to 22 April 1872.

When Wagner was obliged to leave Munich in March 1866, he moved to a spacious villa in Tribschen on a headland projecting into Lake Lucerne.

It was while he was living here that Wagner completed the score of Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, composed his "Emperor March" and the third act of Siegfried, and began Götterdämmerung.

The Siegfried Idyll was performed for the first time on Christmas morning, 25 December 1870, by an ensemble of fifteen players (among them Richter, Ruhoff, Rauchenecker and Kahl) on the stairs of the villa.

One of the guests present at this performance was the newly appointed 24-year-old professor of classical philology at the University of Basel, Friedrich Nietzsche.