Richard Wagner

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Wilhelm Richard Wagner
Wilhelm Richard Wagner

Wilhelm Richard Wagner (May 22, 1813 - February 13, 1883) was born in Leipzig, and it is thought that his real father was not the man who gave him his surname (Karl Friedrich Wagner who died when Richard was 6 months old) but the actor Ludwig Geyer who was then to become Wagner's stepfather and influence his early development. Geyer knew the composer Weber, but it was his literary interest that drew Wagner initially towards Classical and Shakespearean drama. The young Richard was called Richard Geyer, but reverted to Richard Wagner a few years after the death of his stepfather, by which time he had discovered the world of music and Beethoven in particular. Wagner received very little formal musical education, yet with complete self-absorption threw himself into a musical career which involved conducting posts in opera houses while composing operas with his own libretti, frequently based on stories from German mythology. He was later to form a friendship with Nietzsche, with whom he shared certain ideas (some misguided certainly) including a desire to base writings on timeless allegorical myths.

While Wagner was to pursue that latter occupation of writing Opera with single-minded determination, his personal life took him in several directions. He fled Germany in exile for a while after he had vociferously supported political revolution there. He was frequently in debt, in part because of failed attempts to have his early operas performed, but also due to his excessive gambling habit. He also progressed through no less than three wives, the last relationship proving to be the most stable. This was to Cosima (daughter of Franz Liszt) who was at the time of their meeting already married to the respected conductor and student of Liszt, von Bulow.

Wagner was also married at the time, but several years later the couple were able to marry, and Cosima devoted her life to supporting and promoting Wagner's work and survived him by many years until her death in 1930. This shows true devotion, given Wagner's temperament. Marriage did not stop him from having affairs and he could become totally absorbed, obsessed even, in his musical projects to the extent that it deeply affected his own life and relationships.


Contents

[edit] Wagner's Music

As a young man Wagner composed some concert overtures and a symphony before turning his attention to opera. He was occasionally to create other concert works, but it was with his operas that he was to build his reputation. Although his early works in this field were not successful, and resulted in debts, it wasn't long before the sought-after success arrived with "Rienzi". This opera was influenced by Meyerbeer who was one of the leading opera composers of the day, and gave Wagner much support. The work's success helped to secure for its composer a more prestigious conducting post at the Dresden Opera, sending Wagner's career on an upward spiral of success and ambition.

However his period of exile in Zurich intervened, and so it was that while unwelcome in his native Germany, he nevertheless composed operas to be performed there to great acclaim (often conducted by Franz Liszt) building his fame on "Lohengrin", "Tristan and Isolde" and "Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg" while all the time working on his magnum opus, the Ring Cycle. He moved to Paris where his relationship with Cosima von Bulow (nee Liszt) blossomed, and once the domestic situation had eased, he returned to Munich in his native land. There the young King Ludwig II of Bavaria was an influencial patron providing further impetus to the composer's career. Afterwards Wagner was to set up home at Villa Wahnfried near Lake Lucerne. While staying there he took upon himself a massive four-year project to build a specially designed theatre in Bayreuth, where he gave the first complete performance of the four operas of the Ring Cycle. He died aged 70 in Venice where he was staying to seek some rest.


[edit] Major Works

Concert or Chamber Works:

  • Concert overtures
  • A Symphony
  • Wesendonk Songs - named after a supporter whose wife Wagner had an affair with
  • Many Preludes and other extracts taken from his operas are played in concert
  • Siegfried Idyll

[edit] Operas

  • Rienzi
  • Der Fliegende Hollander (The Flying Dutchman) - with some truly atmospheric storm music
  • Tannhauser - including the "Pilgrim's Chorus"
  • Lohengrin - from which the famous Bridal Chorus comes
  • Tristan and Isolde - this has Celtic resonances, set in Ireland, Cornwall and Brittany, and is musically powerful with its closing Liebestod (love-death) music of Act III Scene III.
  • Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg (The Mastersingers of Nurnberg) - tuneful and somewhat lighter in tone.
  • Parsifal - a semi-religious work

[edit] Der Ring des Nibelungen

  • Das Rheingold
  • Die Walkure - with its "Ride of the Valkyries"
  • Siegfried - which was to give rise to the "Siegfried Idyll"
  • Gotterdammerung (The Twilight of the Gods)


[edit] External links


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