|
| Category: |  
Romantic Music
Romantic Literature |
| Name: |   Richard Wagner - World Philosophy Series |
| Birth Year: | 1813 |
| Death Year: | 1883
|
| Representative Image: |  |
| Biography, Lectures, and Research Links: |
Malaspina Great Books -
Richard Wagner (1813-1883)
Biography - World Philosophy Series
Blog Richard Wagner
Richard Wagner was a German essayist and perhaps the most influential composer of the 19th century. His works and opinions have generated a great deal of controversy, and a brief summary of his life and place in history is practically impossible. It has been said that more has been written about Wagner than perhaps any other historical figure with the exception of Christ and Muhammad the Prophet. Richard Wagner was born in Leipzig on May 22, 1813 and died in Venice on February 13, 1883. His father was a minor city official and died when Richard was 6 months old. In August 1814 his mother married the actor Ludwig Geyer (who may actually have been the boy's father). Early-on Wagner thought he would be a playwright, and turned to music originally to enhance the dramas he wanted to write and stage. But it was his operas to his own libretti, styled by him as "music dramas", that came to change radically the concept of stage music and, to some extent, music itself. Early musical influences were performances of Carl Marie von Weber's Der Freischuetz and Beethoven's Fidelio. Among other strong acknowledged influences was the philosopher Schopenhauer. Harking back to Greek ideals as he saw them, Wagner intended to create a new kind of stage work, one dubbed "Gesamtkunstwerk" (or Total Art Work), combining all aspects of artistic creation including music, drama, poetry, painting, and the like. He devised his own plots, often derived from legend and German myth and folklore, with the idea that this would awaken a resonance in his audience. For some, his revolutionized opera were nothing more than morality plays, where love and materialism were incompatible and the gaining of all power had as a price of the loss of love. For some, his music carried the opera and dominated everything. His huge orchestras created a river of sound that overwhelmed the audience. His of the "leitmotiv" - musical themes which stand for characters and events - would be present throughout a work, reappearing interwoven with other melodies whenever the story makes reference to them. In his stage works, the themes of love, death, and the attaining of power predominate. As for many figures of the Romantic Era, for Wagner losing one's self in the grand passion of love was a redemptive force over the corruption of the world. These themes came to dominate his life as well.
Wagner's Operas- Die Feen
- Das Liebesverbot
- Rienzi - Rienzi, der letzte der Tribunen
- The Flying Dutchman - Der fliegende Hollander
- Tannhauser - Tannhauser und der Sangerkrieg auf Wartburg
- Lohengrin
- Tristan and Isolde - Tristan und Isolde
- The Mastersingers of Nuremberg - Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg
- The Ring of the Nibelung - Der Ring des Nibelungen
- The Rhinegold - Das Rheingold
- The Valkyrie - Die Walkure
- Siegfried - Siegfried
- Gotterdammerung - Gotterdammerung
- Parsifal
[This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License and uses material adapted in whole or in part from the Wikipedia article on Richard Wagner .]
The Great Books: Richard Wagner
Please browse our Amazon list of titles about Richard Wagner. For rare and hard to find works we recommend our Alibris list of titles about Richard Wagner. Post Comments, Questions or Suggestions! This database is maintained by Malaspina Great Books.
|
|  Great Books Online: Amazon Search
|
| Biographical & Documentary Video Research
|
| Buy new, used, and hard-to-find books at Alibris!
|
Best Choice
Books, Music, Art: | Book: Ring of the Nibelung
CD: Twilight of the Gods: The Essential Wagner Collection
|
| Sheet music: Richard Wagner
|
| Browse Books, Music, Art & Book Reviews: | Books from Alibris: Richard Wagner
Books from Amazon: Richard Wagner
|
| Recordings from Amazon: Richard Wagner
|
| Audiobooks at iTunes: Thousands of Classics |
| Library Catalogs: | COPAC UK: Richard Wagner
Library of Canada: Richard Wagner
Library of Congress: Richard Wagner
Other Library Catalogs: Richard Wagner
|
| External Links: | Representative Image
Research Links: Richard Wagner
Malaspina Canada Links: Richard Wagner
|
| Online Research: |
|
| Records from Related Period and Category: | Romantic Literature
Romantic Music
|
 About
this Database:
|
This web page is part of a biographical database on Great Ideas. These are living ideas that have shaped, defined and directed world culture for over 2,500 years. By definition the Great Ideas are radical. As such they are sometimes misread, or distorted by popular simplifications. Understanding a Great Idea demands personal engagement. Our selection of Great Ideas is drawn from literature and philosophy, science, art, music, theatre, and cinema. We also include biographies of pivotal historical and religious figures, as well as contributions from women and other historically under-represented minorities. The result is an integrated multi-cultural and multi-disciplinary database built upon the framework of the always controversial Great Books Core List published in 1940 by the late Great Books Pioneer Mortimer Adler (1902-2001). Most of the works on that list are available in the 60 volume Great Books of the Western World.
|
