Richard Wagner's Life and Works

German Composer, Critic, Teacher, 19th-century Orchestra Master

Oct 15, 2007 Tel Asiado

Brief biography of Richard Wagner, inlcuding his vices, leitmotif and operas. Famous for Der Ring des Nibelungen and Die Valkürie.

Richard Wagner (1813-1883), was an influential German composer, famous for Lohengrin, The Ring of the Nibelungs, The Twilight of the Gods, The Flying Dutchman, and The Valkyrie. He revolutionized 19th-century opera concept as a new art form in which musical, poetic, and scenic elements were unified through a theme known as 'leitmotif' (leading motive.)

Wagner's Early Years

Wagner was born on May 22, 1813 in Leipzig, a son of a police officer. At age 13, he wrote poems, and at 14, tried to imitate the works of Beethoven but in his own compositions.

He worked as a theatre conductor before going to Paris in 1939 where he managed to complete his first opera Rienzi and Der fliegende Hollander (The Flying Dutchman), the latter revealing his own voice as a composer.

Major Works

Wagner's most popular operas include Tannhauser, Lohengrin (with the famous 'Wedding March', popularly known as “Here Comes the Bride”), and Die Valkure (The Valkyrie), used in the film “Apocalypse Now”. He also composed the music drama Tristan und Isolde.

He did not hear the 1850 premiere of Lohengrin until nine years later as he was forced into exile for his anti-government activities. He managed to fled the country by way of Paris and lived in Switzerland until 1861.

In 1872, he founded the Festival Theatre in Bayreuth and his epic masterpiece Der Ring des Nibelungen (The Ring of the Nibelung), a sequence of four operas (he actually preferred the term “music dramas” to “operas”) founded on German mythology.

Parsifal, Wagner's last work was produced in 1882, a creative testament in which his concept of 'complete art work' was further refined to attest his belief in a synthesis of all the arts, representing the culmination of the Romantic philosophy. He died in Venice on February 13, 1883 and buried in Bayreuth, Bavaria.

Wagner's Operas

• Das Liebesverbot (The Ban on Love) 1836
• Rienzi 1842
• Der fliegende Hollánder (The Flying Dutchman) 1843
• Tannhäuser 1845
• Lohengrin 1848
• Das Rheinhold 1854
• Die Walküre (The Valkyrie) 1856
• Tristan und Isolde (Tristan and Isolde), music drama 1859
• Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg (The Mastersingers of Nuremberg) 1867
• Siegfried 1871
• Götterdämmerung (The Twilight of the Gods), completes the operatic cycle der ring des Nibelungen (The Ring of the Nibelungs) 1874
• Parsifal, music drama 1882

Wagner had no offspring from his first wife, the actress Minna Planer, but had three with Cosima von Bulow, Franz Liszt’s daughter, whom he married by whom he already had three children, after his first wife died. Wagner had three vices - living extravagantly beyond his means, tremendous ego he was much criticised for, and philandering.

Wagner's primary source of inspiration was myths and legends which he turned into powerful music, still influential to this day.

Sources:

A-Z of Music by Intl Masters Publishers, editor unspecified (1996)

The Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 2nd Edition, edited by Stanley Sadie (2000)

The Real Wagner by Rudolph Sabor, Forward by Wolgfang Wagner, Andre Deutsch (1987)

Twilight of the Wagners by Gottfried Wagner, English Translation by Della Couling, Picador (1997)

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Richard Wagner