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Richard Wagner

Richard Wagner was one of the most revolutionary figures in the history of music, a composer who made pivotal contributions to the development of harmony and musical drama that reverberate even today. Indeed, though Wagner occasionally produced successful music written on a relatively modest scale, opera -- the bigger, the better -- was clearly his milieu, and his aesthetic is perhaps the most grandiose that Western music has ever known. Early in his career, Wagner learned both the elements and the practical, political realities of his craft by writing a handful of operas which were unenthusiastically, even angrily, received. Beginning with Rienzi (1838-40) and The Flying Dutchman (1841), however, he enjoyed a string of successes that propelled him to immortality and changed the face of music. His monumental Ring cycle of four operas -- Das Rheingold (1853-54), Die WalkÃ¼re (1854-56), Siegfried (1856-71) and GÃ¶tterdÃ¤mmerung (1869-74) -- remains the most ambitious and influential contribution by any composer to the opera literature. Tristan and Isolde (1857-59) is perhaps the most representative example of Wagner's musical style, which is characterized by a high degree of chromaticism, a restless, searching tonal instability, lush harmonies, and the association of specific musical elements (known as leitmotifs, the flexible manipulation of which is one of the glories of Wagner's music) with certain characters and plot points. Wagner wrote text as well as music for all his operas, which he preferred to call "music dramas."

Wagner's life matched his music for sheer drama. Born in Leipzig on May 22, 1813, he began in the early 1830s to write prolifically on music and the arts in general; over his whole career, his music would to some degree serve to demonstrate his aesthetic theories. He often worked as a conductor in his early years; a conducting engagement took him to Riga, Latvia, in 1837, but he fled the country in the middle of the night two years later to elude creditors. Wagner as a young man had some sympathy with the revolutionary movements of the middle nineteenth century (and even the Ring cycle contains a distinct anti-materialist and vaguely socialist drift); in the Dresden uprisings of 1849 he apparently took up arms, and he had to leave Germany when the police restored order. Settling in Zurich, Switzerland, he wrote little for some years but evolved the intellectual framework for his towering mature masterpieces. Wagner returned to Germany in 1864 under the protection and patronage of King Ludwig II of Bavaria; it was in Bayreuth, near Munich, that he undertook the construction of an opera house (completed in 1876) built to his personal specifications and suited to the massive fusion of music, staging, text, and scene design that his later operas entailed. Bayreuth became something of a shrine for the fanatical Wagnerites who carried the torch after his death; it remains the goal of many a pilgrimage today. His attitude toward Jews was deeply ambivalent (he believed, mistakenly, that his stepfather was Jewish), but some of his writings contain anti-Semitic elements that have aroused considerable controversy among opera lovers, especially in view of Adolf Hitler's apparent predilection for the composer's music. ~ AMG, All Music Guide

Nationality: Germany

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	Bach, Tchaikovsky, Wagner and others Wildner, Bramall, Warchal, Leaper, Rahbari, German Wind Soloists, Spectre de la Rose, Slo... NAXOS full info
	Mozart, Puccini, Wagner and others Wildner, Mund, Dohnanyi, Lenard, Halasz, Humburg, Rahbari, Wordsworth, Chorus, Borowska, ... NAXOS full info
	Nick Kimberley: Discover Opera Craft, Eotvos, Queler, Medlam, Simon, Fredman, Zedda, Vartolo, Ostman, Halasz, Casadesus,... NAXOS full info
	Wagner: Parsifal WWV111 Wagner, Muck, Hertz, Chorus, Bayreuth Festival Orchestra, Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra -... NAXOS full info
	Wagner: Siegfried Idyll in E WWV103; Tristan und Isolde WWV90 Wildner, Polish National Radio Symphony Orchestra NAXOS full info
	Wagner: TannhÃ¤user WWV70; Lohengrin WWV75 Halasz, Slovak Philharmonic Orchestra NAXOS full info
	Wagner: Tristan und Isolde WWV90 Reiner, Royal Opera House Chorus, Flagstad, London Philharmonic Orchestra NAXOS full info
	Wagner: WalkÃ¼re WWV86b; GÃ¶tterdÃ¤mmerung WWV86d Mund, Slovak Radio Symphony Orchestra NAXOS full info
	Beethoven: Symphony No. 5; Wagner: Parsifal Prelude; Good Friday Spell; Furtwängler: Adagio solemne Furtwangler, Fischer, Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra - members NAXOS full info
	Tchaikovsky: Symphony No6, Op74; Wagner: Tristan und Isolde WWV90 Furtwangler, Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra - members NAXOS full info
	Brahms: Violin Concerto; Hungarian Dances; Wagner: Siegfried Idyll; Mendelssohn: The Hebrides Overture Furtwangler, Menuhin, Lucerne Festival Orchestra NAXOS full info
	Experiments on a March Rundell, Royal Northern College of Music Wind Orchestra Chandos full info
	Strauss: Ariadne auf Naxos; Duett-Concertino; Wagner: Siegfried Idyll; Wesendonk Lieder Henze, Nes, Northern Sinfonia Chandos full info
	Wagner, Brahms, Mendelssohn and others Gunzenhauser, Walter, Morandi, Dohnanyi, Halasz, Rahbari, Wordsworth, Zagreb Festival Orc... NAXOS full info
	Wagner, Strauss, Humperdinck and others Mengelberg, New York Philharmonic Symphony Orchestra, Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra NAXOS full info
	Wagner: Excerpts From Die WalkÃ¼re, GÃ¶tterdÃ¤mmerung Furtwangler, Flagstad, New Philharmonia Orchestra NAXOS full info
	Wagner: Kaisermarsch WWV104; Rule Britannia in D WWV42 Kojian, Hong Kong Philharmonic Orchestra NAXOS full info
	Wagner: Siegfried Idyll in E WWV103; TannhÃ¤user WWV70 Muck, Berlin State Opera Orchestra NAXOS full info
	Wagner: The Ring - An Orchestral Adventure [Hybrid SACD] Jarvi, Royal Scottish National Orchestra Chandos full info
	Encores and Transcriptions, Vol. 4 Studio ensemble, Studio Orchestra NAXOS full info
	Wagner, Chopin, Bach and others Edouard Gendron, Nicolai Mednikoff, Pablo Casals, Irene Becker, David Popper, Max Bruch, ... NAXOS full info
	Kirsten Flagstad Sings Grieg, Wagner, Beethoven McArthur, Ormandy, Flagstad, Philadelphia Orchestra NAXOS full info
	Wagner, Puccini, Massenet and others Wagner, Berger, Svanholm, Flagstad, Stefano, Tebaldi, Ferrier, Orchestra Sinfonica di Mil... NAXOS full info
	Wagner, Verdi, Beethoven and others Barbirolli, Blech, Coates, Berlin State Opera Orchestra, Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano Gi... NAXOS full info
	Christine Brewer: Great Operatic Arias Parry, Choir, Banks, Watson, New Philharmonia Orchestra Chandos full info
	Dame Gwyneth Jones sings Wagner Paternostro, Jones, Cologne WDR Symphony Orchestra Chandos full info
	Great Operatic Arias Parry, Choir, Allen, Watson, Sherratt, Britten, Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano Giuseppe Ve... Chandos full info
	Jennifer Larmore Sings Great Operatic Arias Parry, Larmore, Orchestra Sinfonica di Milano Giuseppe Verdi, New Philharmonia Orchestra Chandos full info
	Kirsten Flagstad and Lauritz Melchior Sing Great Wagner Duets McArthur, Flagstad, San Francisco Opera Orchestra, Victor Symphony Orchestra NAXOS full info
	Kirsten Flagstad and Set Svanholm Sing Wagner Merola, Chorus, Svanholm, Flagstad, San Francisco Opera Orchestra NAXOS full info

Richard Wagner

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