(Article originally published in The Cambridge Wagner Encyclopedia, ed. Nicholas Vazsonyi (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013))
Pfordten, Ludwig Karl Heinrich, Freiherr von der
(b. Ried im Innkreis, 11 Sep. 1811; d. Munich, 18 Aug. 1880), politician and
jurist. Held professorships in Würzburg
and Leipzig. Appointed Minister of
Education by Frederick Augustus II of Saxony in 1848. Wagner failed to interest
him in his “Plan for the Organization of a German National Theatre for the
Kingdom of Saxony.” Bavarian Minister-President and Foreign Minister from
1849-59 and 1864-6. During the 1850s, Pfordten failed to unite the smaller
German kingdoms under Bavarian leadership against Prussia and Austria. He advised
Maximilian II against a Munich
staging of Tannhäuser, a slight Ludwig
II held against him. Suspicious of Wagner’s influence upon the King, and
horrified at his plans for a music school and festival
theater, Pfordten and colleagues manufactured a public scandal in 1865,
compelling Ludwig to choose, in Pfordten’s terms, between the love and respect
of his faithful subjects and the friendship of Richard Wagner. Pfordten’s
second ministry proved disastrous, Bavaria emerging on the losing side in the
Austro-Prussian War (1866).
