Richard Wagner
(Romantic Era-German)
Born:
May 22, 1813, Leipzig, Germany
Died: February 13, 1884, Venice, Italy
In his
own words . . .
"True
drama can be conceived only as resulting from the collective impulse of all the
arts to communicate in the most immediate way with a collective public. . . .Thus especially the art of tone, developed with
such singular diversity in instrumental music, will realize in the collective
artwork its richest potential—will indeed incite the pantomimic art of
dancing in turn to wholly new discoveries and inspire the breath of poetry no
less to an undreamed-of fullness. For in its isolation music has formed itself
an organ capable of the most immeasurable expression—the orchestra."
German opera composer, conductor, and musical writer. Wagner changed the concept of opera by viewing it as a
"total art work" ( Gesamptkunstwerk
).
It is
telling that Richard Wagner's artistic beginnings lie in both music and drama.
At the age of fifteen, he wrote his first play and a year later his first
musical composition. He was largely self-taught in music, although he did study
privately when he was a university student in Leipzig. His career centered
almost exclusively on the theater, and he wrote his first opera at the age of
twenty, while serving as chorus master at the opera theater in Wurzburg. His
first great success came with Rienzi in 1842, followed soon after by Der
fliegender HollŠnder (The
Flying Dutchman, 1843), Tannhauser
(1845), and Lohengrin (1850).
Wagner
fled Germany after the political upheavals of 1848, spending the bulk of his
time in Zurich writing the text for his Ring cycle, as well as a number
of books on music. The most famous is the two-volume Opera and Drama, in
which he set out his new ideas on reforming opera. The most infamous is his Jewishness
in Music ,
a virulent antisemitic diatribe. In 1862, he returned
to Germany, settling in Bavaria under the patronage of young Ludwig II. Here
Wagner completed Tristan und Isolde, a tale of
forbidden love made all the more fitting by the fact that he was at that time
having an affair with Cosima von Bulow, daughter of
Franz Liszt and the wife of Tristan's conductor, Hans von Bulow. In
1866, Wagner returned to Switzerland and continued work on the Ring,
stopping to compose a completely different type of work, the comedic Die
Meistersinger von NŸrnberg .
As each
part of the Ring cycle was finished and performed, Wagner became more
and more determined to create a theater capable of realizing the complicated
lighting and staging he envisioned. Once again, Ludwig stepped in. In 1874, he
committed to building just such a theater in Bayreuth. Two years later,
Wagner's complete cycle of four music dramas was presented there. While an
artistic success, it was a financial disaster, and Wagner had to turn his
efforts to recouping his losses. Out of this effort grew his final music drama,
Parsifal--a tale of love and redemption. It premiered in 1882; Wagner
died that winter while on a trip to Venice.
It is no
overstatement to say that Wagner changed the face of opera. From his earliest
works, he began to break away from the structure of separate numbers to one of
continuous drama (he ultimately called his works music dramas rather than
operas). Other composers were heading in this direction, but none so
relentlessly as Wagner. Perhaps more important was his concept of the
"total art work," in which the composer controlled all the elements
of the dramatic production and put them to work in projecting the drama.
Musically, this was reflected in the idea of the Leitmotiv, a musical
theme that stands for a person, thing, or idea. Wagner's music dramas are
seamless webs of these musical ideas, with the music itself telling as much of
the story as the action on the stage.
Perhaps
due to the uncompromising nature of Wagner's musical ideals, or perhaps due to
the difficulty of his politics and personality, he served (and still serves) as
a polarizing figure in music. His admirers (often devotees) carried his legacy
into the twentieth century, while his detractors either went in opposite
directions or made use of some of his ideas while distancing themselves
from him as much as possible. Although Wagner's place in history is
established, the judgment of that position will be a source of controversy far
into the future.
Works Summary
13
Musikdramas (operas)
Orchestral
music, including Sigfried Idyll (1870)
Piano
music, vocal music, and choral music