Richard wagner biography deutsche

According to Wagner, Jews such as Meyerbeer commercialised music catered to the masses in order to achieve fame and financial success, rather than creating genuine works of art. In " Opera and Drama " , Wagner described the aesthetics of music drama that he was using to create the Ring cycle. Before leaving Dresden, Wagner had drafted a scenario that eventually became Der Ring des Nibelungen.

He initially wrote the libretto for a single opera, Siegfrieds Tod [ fr ] Siegfried's Death , in Partly in an attempt to explain his change of views, Wagner published in the autobiographical " A Communication to My Friends ". I shall never write an Opera more. As I have no wish to invent an arbitrary title for my works, I will call them Dramas I propose to produce my myth in three complete dramas, preceded by a lengthy Prelude Vorspiel At a specially-appointed Festival, I propose, some future time, to produce those three Dramas with their Prelude, in the course of three days and a fore-evening [emphasis in original].

He decided to put the work aside to concentrate on a new idea: Tristan und Isolde , [ 64 ] based on the Arthurian love story Tristan and Iseult. One source of inspiration for Tristan und Isolde was the philosophy of Arthur Schopenhauer , notably his The World as Will and Representation , to which Wagner had been introduced in by his poet friend Georg Herwegh.

Wagner later called this the most important event of his life. He remained an adherent of Schopenhauer for the rest of his life. One of Schopenhauer's doctrines was that music held a supreme role in the arts as a direct expression of the world's essence, namely, blind, impulsive will. Wagner scholars have argued that Schopenhauer's influence caused Wagner to assign a more commanding role to music in his later operas, including the latter half of the Ring cycle, which he had yet to compose.

A second source of inspiration was Wagner's infatuation with the poet-writer Mathilde Wesendonck , the wife of the silk merchant Otto Wesendonck [ de ]. During this period, Wagner's growing passion for his patron's wife inspired him to put aside work on the Ring cycle which was not resumed for the next twelve years and begin work on Tristan. Two of these settings are explicitly subtitled by Wagner as "studies for Tristan und Isolde ".

Among the conducting engagements that Wagner undertook for revenue during this period, he gave several concerts in with the Philharmonic Society of London , including one before Queen Victoria. Wagner's uneasy affair with Mathilde collapsed in , when Minna intercepted a letter to Mathilde from him. In an letter to Mathilde, Wagner wrote, half-satirically, of Tristan : "Child!

This Tristan is turning into something terrible. This final act!!! Perfectly good ones will be bound to drive people mad. This was partly a consequence of the conservative tastes of the Jockey Club , which organised demonstrations in the theatre to protest at the presentation of the ballet feature in Act 1 instead of its traditional location in the second act ; but the opportunity was also exploited by those who wanted to use the occasion as a veiled political protest against the pro-Austrian policies of Napoleon III.

The political ban that had been placed on Wagner in the North German Confederation after he had fled Dresden was fully lifted in The composer settled in Biebrich , on the Rhine near Wiesbaden in Hesse. Wagner wrote a first draft of the libretto in , [ 89 ] and he had resolved to develop it during a visit he had made to Venice with the Wesendoncks in , where he was inspired by Titian 's painting The Assumption of the Virgin.

Wagner's fortunes took a dramatic upturn in , when King Ludwig II succeeded to the throne of Bavaria at the age of The young king, an ardent admirer of Wagner's operas, had the composer brought to Munich. After grave difficulties in rehearsal, Tristan und Isolde premiered at the National Theatre Munich on 10 June , the first Wagner opera premiere in almost 15 years.

The premiere had been scheduled for 15 May, but was delayed by bailiffs acting for Wagner's creditors, [ ] and also because the Isolde, Malvina Schnorr von Carolsfeld , was hoarse and needed time to recover. Cosima was 24 years younger than Wagner and was herself illegitimate, the daughter of the Countess Marie d'Agoult , who had left her husband for Franz Liszt.

Minna died of a heart attack on 25 January in Dresden. Wagner did not attend the funeral. He consented only after she had two more children with Wagner: another daughter, named Eva , after the heroine of Meistersinger , and a son Siegfried , named after the hero of the Ring. The divorce was finally sanctioned, after delays in the legal process, by a Berlin court on 18 July Wagner, settled into his new-found domesticity, turned his energies towards completing the Ring cycle.

He had not abandoned polemics: he republished his pamphlet "Judaism in Music", originally issued under a pseudonym, under his own name in , extending the introduction and adding a lengthy final section. The publication led to several public protests at early performances of Die Meistersinger in Vienna and Mannheim. In , Wagner decided to move to Bayreuth , which was to be the location of his new opera house.

The Wagners moved to the town the following year, and the foundation stone for the Bayreuth Festspielhaus "Festival Theatre" was laid. Wagner initially announced the first Bayreuth Festival, at which for the first time the Ring cycle was presented complete, for , [ ] but since Ludwig had declined to finance the project, the start of building was delayed and the proposed date for the festival was deferred.

To raise funds for the construction, " Wagner societies " were formed in several cities, [ ] and Wagner began touring Germany conducting concerts. Commenting on the struggle to finish the building, Wagner remarked to Cosima: "Each stone is red with my blood and yours. For the design of the Festspielhaus, Wagner appropriated some of the ideas of his former colleague, Gottfried Semper, which he had previously solicited for a proposed new opera house in Munich.

The Festspielhaus finally opened on 13 August with Das Rheingold , at last taking its place as the first evening of the complete Ring cycle; the Bayreuth Festival therefore saw the premiere of the complete cycle, performed as a sequence as the composer had intended. Wagner was far from satisfied with the Festival; Cosima recorded that months later his attitude towards the productions was "Never again, never again!

Following the first Bayreuth Festival, Wagner began work on Parsifal , his final opera. The composition took four years, much of which Wagner spent in Italy for health reasons.

Richard wagner biography deutsche

He was once again assisted by the liberality of King Ludwig, but was still forced by his personal financial situation in to sell the rights of several of his unpublished works including the Siegfried Idyll to the publisher Schott. Wagner wrote several articles in his later years, often on political topics, and often reactionary in tone, repudiating some of his earlier, more liberal, views.

Wagner completed Parsifal in January , and a second Bayreuth Festival was held for the new opera, which premiered on 26 May. After the festival, the Wagner family journeyed to Venice for the winter. Wagner died of a heart attack at the age of 69 on 13 February at Ca' Vendramin Calergi , a 16th-century palazzo on the Grand Canal. Wagner's musical output is listed by the Wagner-Werk-Verzeichnis WWV as comprising works, including fragments and projects.

It will consist of 21 volumes 57 books of music and 10 volumes 13 books of relevant documents and texts. As at October , three volumes remain to be published. The publisher is Schott Music. Wagner's operatic works are his primary artistic legacy. Unlike most opera composers, who generally left the task of writing the libretto the text and lyrics to others, Wagner wrote his own libretti, which he referred to as "poems".

From onwards, he urged a new concept of opera often referred to as "music drama" although he later rejected this term , [ ] [ n 16 ] in which all musical, poetic and dramatic elements were to be fused together—the Gesamtkunstwerk. Wagner developed a compositional style in which the importance of the orchestra is equal to that of the singers.

The orchestra's dramatic role in the later operas includes the use of leitmotifs , musical phrases that can be interpreted as announcing specific characters, locales, and plot elements; their complex interweaving and evolution illuminate the progression of the drama. Wagner's earliest attempts at opera were often uncompleted. Die Feen The Fairies , was not performed in the composer's lifetime, [ 26 ] and Das Liebesverbot The Ban on Love , was withdrawn after its first performance.

Later in life, Wagner said that he did not consider these works to be part of his oeuvre , [ ] and they have been performed only rarely in the last hundred years, although the overture to Rienzi is an occasional concert-hall piece. Die Feen , Das Liebesverbot , and Rienzi were performed at both Leipzig and Bayreuth in to mark the composer's bicentenary.

These three operas are sometimes referred to as Wagner's "romantic operas". Wagner's late dramas are considered his masterpieces. Der Ring des Nibelungen , commonly referred to as the Ring or " Ring cycle", is a set of four operas based loosely on figures and elements of Germanic mythology —particularly from the later Norse mythology —notably the Old Norse Poetic Edda and Volsunga Saga , and the Middle High German Nibelungenlied.

In Das Rheingold , with its "relentlessly talky 'realism' [and] the absence of lyrical ' numbers ' ", [ ] Wagner came very close to the musical ideals of his — essays. A thoroughgoing synthesis of poetry and music is achieved without any notable sacrifice in musical expression. Tristan is often granted a special place in musical history; many see it as the beginning of the move away from conventional harmony and tonality and consider that it lays the groundwork for the direction of classical music in the 20th century.

The Ring takes about 15 hours to perform [ ] and is the only undertaking of such size to be regularly presented on the world's stages. It also carries elements of Buddhist renunciation suggested by Wagner's readings of Schopenhauer. Apart from his operas, Wagner composed relatively few pieces of music. These include his Symphony in C major written at the age of 19 , the Faust Overture the only completed part of an intended symphony on the subject , some concert overtures , and choral and piano pieces.

After completing Parsifal , Wagner expressed his intention to turn to the writing of symphonies, [ ] and several sketches dating from the late s and early s have been identified as work towards this end. For most of these, Wagner wrote or rewrote short passages to ensure musical coherence. The " Bridal Chorus " from Lohengrin is frequently played as the bride's processional wedding march in English-speaking countries.

Wagner was an extremely prolific writer, authoring many books, poems, and articles, as well as voluminous correspondence. His writings covered a wide range of topics, including autobiography, politics, philosophy, and detailed analyses of his own operas. Wagner planned for a collected edition of his publications as early as ; [ ] he believed that such an edition would help the world understand his intellectual development and artistic aims.

The first public edition with many passages suppressed by Cosima appeared in ; the first attempt at a full edition in German appeared in There have been modern complete or partial editions of Wagner's writings, [ ] including a centennial edition in German edited by Dieter Borchmeyer which, however, omitted the essay " Das Judenthum in der Musik " and Mein Leben.

It was originally anticipated that the project will be completed by As of January , 25 volumes have appeared, covering the period to Wagner's later musical style introduced new ideas in harmony, melodic process leitmotif and operatic structure. Notably from Tristan und Isolde onwards, he explored the limits of the traditional tonal system, which gave keys and chords their identity, pointing the way to atonality in the 20th century.

Some music historians date the beginning of modern classical music to the first notes of Tristan , which include the so-called Tristan chord. Wagner inspired great devotion. For a long period, many composers were inclined to align themselves with or against Wagner's music. Wagner made a major contribution to the principles and practice of conducting.

His essay "About Conducting" [ ] advanced Hector Berlioz 's technique of conducting and claimed that conducting was a means by which a musical work could be re-interpreted, rather than simply a mechanism for achieving orchestral unison. He exemplified this approach in his own conducting, which was significantly more flexible than the disciplined approach of Felix Mendelssohn ; in his view, this also justified practices that were later frowned upon, such as the rewriting of scores.

Among those from the late 20th century and beyond claiming inspiration from Wagner's music are the German band Rammstein ; [ ] Jim Steinman , who wrote songs for Meat Loaf , Bonnie Tyler , Air Supply , Celine Dion and others; [ ] and the electronic composer Klaus Schulze , whose album Timewind consists of two minute tracks, "Bayreuth Return" and "Wahnfried ".

Joey DeMaio of the band Manowar has described Wagner as "the father of heavy metal ". Friedrich Nietzsche was a member of Wagner's inner circle during the early s. Nietzche's first published work, The Birth of Tragedy , proposed Wagner's music as the Dionysian "rebirth" of European culture in opposition to Apollonian rationalist "decadence". Nietzsche broke with Wagner following the first Bayreuth Festival in , believing that Wagner's final phase represented a pandering to Christian pieties and a surrender to the new German Reich.

In the 20th century, W. Auden once called Wagner "perhaps the greatest genius that ever lived", [ ] while Thomas Mann [ ] and Marcel Proust [ ] were heavily influenced by him and discussed Wagner in their novels. He is also discussed in some of the works of James Joyce , [ ] as well as W. Many of Wagner's concepts, including his speculation about dreams, predated their investigation by Sigmund Freud.

Wagner's concept of the use of leitmotifs and the integrated musical expression which they can enable has influenced many 20th and 21st century film scores. The critic Theodor Adorno has noted that the Wagnerian leitmotif "leads directly to cinema music where the sole function of the leitmotif is to announce heroes or situations so as to allow the audience to orient itself more easily".

David Cronenberg and Melancholia dir. Lars von Trier. Not all reaction to Wagner was positive. For a time, German musical life divided into two factions, supporters of Wagner and supporters of Johannes Brahms ; the latter, with the support of the powerful critic Eduard Hanslick of whom Beckmesser in Meistersinger is in part a caricature , championed traditional forms and led the conservative front against Wagnerian innovations.

I do not like all the music of Berlioz while appreciating his marvellous understanding of certain instrumental effects Wagner is not a musician, he is a disease. Even those who, like Debussy, opposed Wagner "this old poisoner" [ ] could not deny his influence. Indeed, Debussy was one of many composers, including Tchaikovsky, who felt the need to break with Wagner precisely because his influence was so unmistakable and overwhelming.

Wagner's followers known as Wagnerians or Wagnerites [ ] have formed many societies dedicated to Wagner's life and work. Wagner has been the subject of many biographical films. The earliest was a silent film made by Carl Froelich in and featured in the title role the composer Giuseppe Becce , who also wrote the score for the film as Wagner's music, still in copyright, was not available.

Jonathan Harvey 's opera Wagner Dream intertwines the events surrounding Wagner's death with the story of Wagner's uncompleted opera outline Die Sieger The Victors. Since Wagner's death, the Bayreuth Festival, which has become an annual event, has been successively directed by his widow, his son Siegfried, the latter's widow Winifred Wagner , their two sons Wieland and Wolfgang Wagner , and, presently, two of the composer's great-granddaughters, Eva Wagner-Pasquier and Katharina Wagner.

Wagner's operas, writings, politics, beliefs and unorthodox lifestyle made him a controversial figure during his lifetime. Wagner himself was a lively child with boundless enthusiasm for the music of Beethoven. He gained experience as a conductor in provincial theatres, and married an actress. The plan failed and he was soon living in poverty, making ends meet by writing arrangements and music journalism.

His lifelong antipathy to France and all things Gallic stemmed from this experience. He returned to Germany in , producing two operas at Dresden within a few months of each other. The first was Rienzi, a grand opera in the French tradition. Wagner was soon appointed to the position of Kapellmeister at Dresden. In revolutionary fervour swept across Saxony.

Wagner took an active part in the uprising, manning the barricades in Dresden. Zsolnay Verlag, Wien , Kindle-Version. In: Die Welt nach Wagner. Rowohlt, Hamburg , S. In: Richard Wagner: Ahasvers Wandlungen. Insel Verlag, Frankfurt am Main , S. Bronnenmeyer: Richard Wagner. Ellwanger, Bayreuth , S. Heft 2, In: Wolfgang Ruf Hrsg. Musiklexikon, Band 1.

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Die entbehrungsreichen Jahre bis brachten nicht den erhofften Durchbruch, doch erkundete W. Petersburg, Moskau, Budapest u. Hier unterbrach W. Wiesbaden, Wien , das ihn unaufhaltsam in den finanziellen Ruin trieb. Trotz aller Unruhe arbeitete W. Einer drohenden Schuldhaft in Wien entging W. Die nun wie im Rausch erlebte Zeit in der Residenzstadt, in der sich W.

Von bis vollendete W. Im Aug. Wenige Monate vor seinem Das historische Widerlager seiner die ganze europ. Die Stoffe des Dramas fand W. Epos Ausnahmen u. Das grundlegende Motiv in W. Ihre Mitte finden sie in der langen Tradition sommerlicher Festspiele in Bayreuth. Neben dieser kulturgeschichtlichen Dimension ist im besonderen auch die fatale politische Rezeption W.

Dessen Hegemonialanspruch in Theater und Musik korrelierte mit demjenigen des jungen Dt. Maximiliansorden f. Kunst Werk- Verz. Werke R. Deathridge, M. Geck u. Werke, hg. A Noten , 21 Bde. B Dokumente , 10 Bde. Dichtungen, 6. Jacobs, 12 Bde. Briefe, hg. Breig, M. Mielke, Chronol. Briefe v. Gregor-Dellin, , Neuausg. ADB 40; C. Glasenapp, Das Leben R.

Chamberlain, R. Bekker, W. Newmann, The Life of R. Mayer, R. Bilddokumenten, P ; R.