Richard Wagner

Wagner's compositions, particularly those of his later period, are notable for their complex textures, rich harmonies and orchestration, and the elaborate use of leitmotifs—musical phrases associated with individual characters, places, ideas, or plot elements.

To properly present his vision of the works, Wagner had his own opera house built to his specifications: the Bayreuth Festspielhaus, which featured many innovative design elements intended to immerse the audience in the drama.

Declared a "genius" by some and a "disease" by others, his music is widely performed, but his views on religion, politics, and social life are debated—most notably on the extent to which his antisemitism finds expression in his stage and prose works.

In Mein Leben Wagner wrote, "When I look back across my entire life I find no event to place beside this in the impression it produced on me," and claimed that the "profoundly human and ecstatic performance of this incomparable artist" kindled in him an "almost demonic fire".

[28][29] Wagner had fallen for one of the leading ladies at Magdeburg, the actress Christine Wilhelmine "Minna" Planer,[30] and after the disaster of Das Liebesverbot he followed her to Königsberg, where she helped him to get an engagement at the theatre.

[37] Initially the pair took a stormy sea passage to London,[38] from which Wagner drew the inspiration for his opera Der fliegende Holländer (The Flying Dutchman), with a plot based on a sketch by Heinrich Heine.

Wagner made a scant living by writing articles and short novelettes such as A pilgrimage to Beethoven, which sketched his growing concept of "music drama", and An end in Paris, where he depicts his own miseries as a German musician in the French metropolis.

His relief at returning to Germany was recorded in his "Autobiographic Sketch" of 1842, where he wrote that, en route from Paris, "For the first time I saw the Rhine—with hot tears in my eyes, I, poor artist, swore eternal fidelity to my German fatherland.

Wagner was active among socialist German nationalists there, regularly receiving such guests as the conductor and radical editor August Röckel and the Russian anarchist Mikhail Bakunin.

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.

[100] Wagner noted that his rescue by Ludwig coincided with news of the death of his earlier mentor (but later supposed enemy) Giacomo Meyerbeer, and regretted that "this operatic master, who had done me so much harm, should not have lived to see this day.

[132] The festival firmly established Wagner as an artist of European, and indeed world, importance: attendees included Kaiser Wilhelm I, the Emperor Pedro II of Brazil, Anton Bruckner, Camille Saint-Saëns and Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky.

He was once again assisted by the liberality of King Ludwig, but was still forced by his personal financial situation in 1877 to sell the rights of several of his unpublished works (including the Siegfried Idyll) to the publisher Schott.

[147] The legend that the attack was prompted by an argument with Cosima over Wagner's supposedly amorous interest in the singer Carrie Pringle, who had been a Flower-maiden in Parsifal at Bayreuth, is without credible evidence.

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.

[158] The compositional style of these early works was conventional—the relatively more sophisticated Rienzi showing the clear influence of Grand Opera à la Spontini and Meyerbeer—and did not exhibit the innovations that would mark Wagner's place in musical history.

[177] Millington describes Meistersinger as "a rich, perceptive music drama widely admired for its warm humanity",[178] but its strong German nationalist overtones have led some to cite it as an example of Wagner's reactionary politics and antisemitism.

[179] When Wagner returned to writing the music for the last act of Siegfried and for Götterdämmerung (Twilight of the Gods) as the final part of the Ring, his style had changed once more to something more recognisable as "operatic" than the aural world of Rheingold and Walküre, though it was still thoroughly stamped with his own originality as a composer and suffused with leitmotifs.

Wagner's final opera, Parsifal (1882), which was his only work written especially for his Bayreuth Festspielhaus and which is described in the score as a "Bühnenweihfestspiel" ("festival play for the consecration of the stage"), has a storyline suggested by elements of the legend of the Holy Grail.

[n 20] More rarely performed are the American Centennial March (1876), and Das Liebesmahl der Apostel (The Love Feast of the Apostles), a piece for male choruses and orchestra composed in 1843 for the city of Dresden.

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.

Anton Bruckner and Hugo Wolf were greatly indebted to him, as were César Franck, Henri Duparc, Ernest Chausson, Jules Massenet, Richard Strauss, Alexander von Zemlinsky, Hans Pfitzner and many others.

[217] Among those from the late 20th century and beyond claiming inspiration from Wagner's music are the German band Rammstein;[218] Jim Steinman, who wrote songs for Meat Loaf, Bonnie Tyler, Air Supply, Celine Dion and others;[219] and the electronic composer Klaus Schulze, whose 1975 album Timewind consists of two 30-minute tracks, "Bayreuth Return" and "Wahnfried 1883".

Millington has commented:[Wagner's] protean abundance meant that he could inspire the use of literary motif in many a novel employing interior monologue; ... the Symbolists saw him as a mystic hierophant; the Decadents found many a frisson in his work.

[226] Édouard Dujardin, whose influential novel Les Lauriers sont coupés is in the form of an interior monologue inspired by Wagnerian music, founded a journal dedicated to Wagner, La Revue wagnérienne, to which J. K. Huysmans and Téodor de Wyzewa contributed.

[227] In a list of major cultural figures influenced by Wagner, Bryan Magee includes D. H. Lawrence, Aubrey Beardsley, Romain Rolland, Gérard de Nerval, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Rainer Maria Rilke and several others.

[234] Wagner had publicly analysed the Oedipus myth before Freud was born in terms of its psychological significance, insisting that incestuous desires are natural and normal, and perceptively exhibiting the relationship between sexuality and anxiety.

[264] Other biographers (such as Lucy Beckett) believe that this is not true, as the original drafts of the story date back to 1857 and Wagner had completed the libretto for Parsifal by 1877,[265] but he displayed no significant public interest in Gobineau until 1880.

Thus, for example, George Bernard Shaw wrote in The Perfect Wagnerite (1883): [Wagner's] picture of Niblunghome[n 24] under the reign of Alberic is a poetic vision of unregulated industrial capitalism as it was made known in Germany in the middle of the 19th century by Engels's book The Condition of the Working Class in England.

"[270] The writer Robert Donington has produced a detailed, if controversial, Jungian interpretation of the Ring cycle, described as "an approach to Wagner by way of his symbols", which, for example, sees the character of the goddess Fricka as part of her husband Wotan's "inner femininity".

A building with four main storeys with an open shop to one side of an arched entrance and garret windows in the roof. A sculpted figure of an animal is above the arch.
Wagner's birthplace, at 3, the Brühl , Leipzig
The head and upper torso of a young white woman with dark hair done in an elaborate style. She wears a small hat, a cloak and dress that expose her shoulders and pearl earrings. On her left hand that holds the edge of the cloak, two rings are visible.
Wilhelmine "Minna" Planer (1835), by Alexander von Otterstedt
The head and upper body of a young white man with dark hair receding where it is parted on the left. Sideburns run the full length of his face. He wears a cravat and his right hand is tucked between the buttons of his coat.
Wagner c. 1840 , by Ernest Benedikt Kietz
A printed notice in German with elaborate Gothic capitals. Wagner is described as 37 to 38 of middle height with brown hair and glasses.
Warrant for the arrest of Richard Wagner, issued on 16 May 1849
A photograph of the upper half of a man of about fifty viewed from his front right. He wears a cravat and frock coat. He has long sideburns and his dark hair is receding at the temples.
Wagner in Paris, 1861
A young man in a dark military jacket, jodhpurs, long boots, and a voluminous ermine robe. He wears a sword at his side, a sash, a chain and a large star. Mainly hidden by his robe is a throne and behind that is a curtain with a crest with Ludwig's name and title in Latin. To one side a cushion holding a crown sits on a table.
Portrait of Ludwig II of Bavaria about the time when he first met Wagner, by Ferdinand von Piloty [ de ] , 1865
A couple is shown: On the left is a tall woman of about 30. She wears a voluminous dress and is sitting sideways in an upright chair, facing and looking up into the eyes of the man who is on the right. He is about 60, quite short, and balding at the temples. He is dressed in a suit with a tailcoat and wears a cravat. He faces and looks down at the woman. His hand rests on the back of the chair.
Richard and Cosima Wagner, photographed in 1872
Several floral tributes are laid on a flat gravestone that is in the middle of a large bed full of low leafy plants. A crazy-paved path passes either side of the bed.
The Wagner grave in the Wahnfried garden; in 1977 Cosima's ashes were placed alongside Wagner's body.
Musical notation showing a theme in F and in 6/8 time on a treble clef.
Leitmotif associated with the horn-call of the hero of Wagner's opera Siegfried
Six bars of music are written across 19 pre-printed staves. The page is headed "Overture". Below the heading to the right is Wagner's name. The tempo indication is allegro con brio. Several lines are written diagonally in lighter handwriting.
Opening of overture to Der fliegende Holländer in Wagner's hand and with his notes to the publisher
A youthful valkyrie, wearing armour, cloak and winged helmet and holding a spear, stands with one foot on a rock and looks intently towards the right foreground. In the background are trees and mountains.
Brünnhilde the Valkyrie , as illustrated by Arthur Rackham (1910)
A photograph of a bearded white man with male-pattern baldness wearing glasses
Franz Betz (by Fritz Luckhardt [ de ] ), who created the role of Hans Sachs in Die Meistersinger , and sang Wotan in the first complete Ring cycle
A cartoon showing a misshapen figure of a man with a tiny body below a head with a prominent nose and chin standing on the lobe of a human ear. The figure is hammering the sharp end of a crochet symbol into the inner part of the ear and blood pours out.
André Gill suggesting that Wagner's music was ear-splitting. Cover of L'Éclipse 18 April 1869.
Middle-aged man, seated, facing towards the left but head turned towards the right. He has a high forehead, rimless glasses and is wearing a dark, crumpled suit
Gustav Mahler in 1907
A moustachioed man in his late thirties looks to the left of the photo. His head rests on his far hand.
Friedrich Nietzsche in 1882
A balding white man aged about 40 with a moustache
Eduard Hanslick
A cartoon figure holding a baton, stands next to a music stand in front of some musicians. The figure has a large nose and a prominent forehead. His sideburns turn into a wispy beard under his chin.
Caricature of Wagner by Karl Clic in the Viennese satirical magazine Humoristische Blätter (1873). The exaggerated features refer to rumours of Wagner's Jewish ancestry.