Wilhelm Richard Wagner is a German drama composer and theorist, theater director, conductor, polemicist who became famous thanks to his operas, which had a revolutionary influence on Western music. Among his main works are Flying Dutchman (1843), TannhĂ€user (1845), Lohengrin (1850), Tristan and Isolda (1865), Parsifal (1882) .) and tetralogy "The Ring of the Nibelungs" (1869â1876).
Richard Wagner: a brief biography and creativity
Wagner was born on May 22, 1813 in Leipzig, in a modest family. His father died shortly after the birth of his son, and within a year his mother married Ludwig Geyer. It is not known whether the last, wandering actor was the actual father of the boy. Wagner's musical education was accidental until he turned 18, when he studied for a year with Theodor Weinlig in Leipzig. He began his career in 1833 as a choral conductor in WĂŒrzburg and wrote his early works, made in imitation of German romantic compositions. At this time, his main idol was Beethoven.
Wagner wrote his first opera The Fairies in 1833, but it was staged only after the death of the composer. He was the musical director of the theater in Magdeburg from 1834 to 1836, where his next work, Forbidden Love based on Shakespeareâs Measure for Measure, was staged in 1836. The opera failed completely and made the theater bankrupt. However, the composer's financial problems are full of his biography. Richard Wagner in the same year in Koenigsberg married Minna Planner, a singer and actress who took an active part in provincial theater life. A few months later he assumed the post of musical director of the city theater, which, however, soon also went bankrupt.
Failure in France and Return to Germany
In 1837, Wagner became the first musical director of the theater in Riga. Two years later, learning that his contract would not be renewed, hiding from creditors and collectors under cover of night, the couple went to Paris, hoping to make a fortune there. Richard Wagner, whose biography and work in France did not work out exactly as he planned, during his stay there developed a strong hatred of the French musical culture, which he preserved until the end of his life. It was at this time that Wagner, experiencing financial difficulties, sold the Flying Dutchman script to the Paris Opera for use by another composer. He later wrote another version of this tale. Rejected by Parisian music circles, Wagner continued the struggle for recognition: he composed music on French texts, wrote the aria for Bellini's opera Norma. But attempts to stage his works remained in vain. In the end, the king of Saxony allowed Wagner to work in the Dresden court theater, which ended his Parisian biography.
Richard Wagner, disappointed with the setbacks, returned to Germany in 1842 and settled in Dresden, where he was responsible for the music for the court chapel. Rienzi, a large tragic opera in the French style, enjoyed modest success. Overture from it is still popular. In 1845, the premiere of "TannhÀuser" took place in Dresden. It was the first undoubted success in Wagner's career. In November of that year, he completed the writing of the libretto for the opera Lohengrin, and at the beginning of 1846 began to write music for her. At the same time, captivated by the Scandinavian sagas, he made plans for his tetralogy The Ring of the Nibelungs. In 1845, he prepared the script for the first drama of the tetralogy Death of Siegfried, which was later renamed Twilight of the Gods.
Richard Wagner: A Brief Biography. Years of exile
The revolution of 1848 broke out in many cities in Germany. Among them was Dresden, an active participant in the revolutionary movement in which Richard Wagner became. The biography and work of the composer are largely due to this period of his life. He printed incendiary tirades in a republican magazine, personally distributed manifestos among Saxon troops, and even survived the fire in the tower with which he monitored the movements of the military. On May 16, 1849, an arrest warrant was issued. With the money of friends and the future father-in-law of Franz Liszt, he fled from Dresden and went to Switzerland through Paris. There, first in Zurich, and then near Lucerne over the next 15 years, his biography developed. Richard Wagner lived without a permanent job, expelled from Germany with a ban on participating in German theater life. All this time he worked on the âRing of the Nibelungsâ, which dominated his creative life for the next two decades.
The first production of Richard Wagner's âLohengrinâ opera took place in Weimar under the direction of Franz Liszt in 1850 (the author did not see his work until 1861). By this time, the German composer had also gained fame as a polemicist, and his fundamental theoretical work, Opera and Drama, was released in 1850-1851. It discussed the significance of the legend for the theater and how to write a libretto, and presented his thoughts on the realization of a âtotal work of artâ that changed the theatrical life of Germany, if not the whole world.
In 1850, Wagner's essay, Judaism in Music, was published, in which he questioned the very possibility of a Jewish composer and musician, especially in German society. Anti-Semitism remained the hallmark of his philosophy until the end of his life.
In 1933, in the Soviet Union, in the series âThe Life of Wonderful Peopleâ, a book by A. A. Sidorov âRichard Wagnerâ was published. A brief biography of the German composer was preceded by the words of Lunacharsky that one should not impoverish the world, crossing out his work, but promised "woe to the one who will let this wizard into our camp."
Productive work
Richard Wagner wrote the most famous works between 1850 and 1865 - he owes him his reputation today. The composer deliberately avoided the current work in order to create an epic cycle of such a scale that no one had encroached on before. In 1851, Wagner wrote the libretto for Young Siegfried, later called Siegfried, to set the stage for Twilight of the Gods. He realized that in order to justify his other work, in addition to this, he would need to write two more dramas, and by the end of 1851 Wagner had drafted the remaining text for The Ring. He graduated from The Rhine Gold in 1852 after revising the libretto for the Valkyrie.
In 1853, the composer officially began composing the Rhine Gold. The orchestra was completed in 1854. The next work, seriously undertaken by Richard Wagner, Valkyrie, was completed in 1856. At this time, he began to think about writing "Tristan and Isolde." In 1857, the second act of Siegfried was completed and the composer completely immersed in the composition of Tristan. This work was completed in 1859, but its premiere took place only in 1865 in Munich.
Last years
In 1860, William Richard Wagner received permission to return to Germany, excluding Saxony. A complete amnesty awaited him in two years. In the same year, he began composing music for the opera Nuremberg Mastersingers, which was conceived in 1845. Wagner resumed work on Siegfried in 1865 and began to outline the future Parsifal, which he had been hoping for since the mid-1840s. The composer began the opera at the insistence of his patron Bavarian monarch Ludwig II. The Meistersinger were completed in 1867. The premiere took place in Munich the following year. Only after that he was able to resume work on the third act of Siegfried, which was completed in September 1869. In the same month, the opera âRhine Goldâ was performed for the first time. The composer wrote the music for Twilight of the Gods from 1869 to 1874.
For the first time, the full cycle The Ring of the Nibelungs (The Rhine Gold, Valkyrie, Siegfried, and Twilight of the Gods) was performed at Festspielhaus, the festival theater that Wagner built for himself in Bayreuth in 1876, 30 years later after the thought of it first visited him. He completed work on Parsifal, his last drama, in 1882. February 13, 1883 in Venice, Richard Wagner died and was buried in Bayreuth.
The philosophy of tetralogy
The Nibelungen Ring is central to Wagner's work. Here he wanted to introduce new ideas of morality and human activity that would completely change the course of history. He represented the world free from worship of supernatural slavery, which he believed had a negative impact on Western civilization from ancient Greece to the present day. Wagner also considered fear to be the source of all human activity, so that a person could heal a perfect life. In The Ring of the Nibelungs, he tried to set forth the rules for higher people, creatures that would dominate those who were less fortunate. In turn, in his opinion, mere mortals should recognize their own low status and yield to the splendor of the ideal hero. The complications associated with the search for moral and racial purity are an integral part of the plan that Richard Wagner hatched.
The composer's works are filled with the belief that only full immersion in sensory experience can free a person from the limitations imposed by rationality. No matter how valuable the intellect, intelligent life is seen by Wagner as an obstacle to the achievement of the most complete awareness. Only when the ideal man and ideal woman come together can a transcendental heroic image be created. Siegfried and BrĂŒnnhilde became invincible after they obeyed each other; apart they cease to be perfect.
In the mythical world of Wagner, there is no place for mercy and idealism. Perfect only rejoice in each other. All people must acknowledge the superiority of certain creatures, and then bow to their will. A man can seek his fate, but he must submit to the will of the higher, if their paths intersect. In The Ring of the Nibelungs, Wagner wanted to turn his back on a civilization inherited from the Hellenic-Jewish-Christian world. He would like to see a world dominated by strength and savagery, sung in the Scandinavian sagas. The consequences of such a philosophy for the future of Germany became catastrophic.
Philosophy of other operas
In Tristan, Wagner completely changed his approach, which he developed in The Ring of the Nibelungs. Instead, he explored the dark side of love to plunge into the depths of a negative experience. Tristan and Isolde, liberated, and not doomed by the love potion that they drank, willingly destroy the kingdom in order to love and live; the sensual power of love is seen as destructive here, and the style of musical chromaticity and the overwhelming orchestral throb are ideal for delivering the message of the drama.
Wagner's narcissism, which was not tolerant of everyone except the blind for his shortcomings, came to the fore at Meistersinger. The story of a young singer-hero who conquers the old order and brings a new, more exciting style to the Nuremberg society connected with traditions is a fairy tale about the Ring in a slightly different look. Wagner openly talked about the fact that "Tristan" is a "Ring" in miniature. Obviously, in the Meistersinger, the composer identifies himself with the messianic figure of a young German poet and singer, who won the prize and, finally, accepted by the leader of the new society - the authorâs fiction and his biography are closely intertwined here. Richard Wagner at Parsifal identifies himself even more intensely with the hero-savior, the redeemer of the world. The sacraments chanted in the opera are destined for the glory of the author himself, and not for any god.
Musical language
The magnitude of Wagner's vision is as exciting as his thoughts and metaphysics repel. Without the music, his drama would still remain milestones in the history of Western thought. Richard Wagner, whose music multiplies the value of his work many times over, spawned a language that best represented his philosophy. He intended to drown out the resistance of the forces of the mind by musical means. Ideally, the melody should last forever, and the voice and text are part of a fabric intertwined with a magnificent web of orchestration. Verbal language, often very obscure and syntactically painful, is only accepted through music.
For Wagner, music was by no means a complement woven into the drama after its completion, and was more than an exercise in formal rhetoric, "art for art's sake." She linked life, art, reality and illusion into a single symbiotic union, which has its own magical effect on the audience. Wagner's musical language is designed to debunk the rational and cause an unquestioning acceptance of the composer's beliefs. In Wagner's reading of Schopenhauer, the musical ideal in dramas is not a reflection of the world, but the world itself.
Personal qualities
This result of Wagnerâs creative life says nothing about the unusual difficulties in his personal life, which, in turn, influenced his operas. He was a truly charismatic figure, overcoming all adversities. In Switzerland, the composer lived on donations, which he received with the help of amazing insidiousness and the ability to manipulate people. In particular, the Wesendon family contributed to his well-being, and Matilda Wesendonk, one of Wagnerâs many lovers, inspired him to write âTristanâ.
The life of the composer after leaving Saxony was a constant series of intrigues, polemics, attempts to overcome the indifference of the world, the search for the ideal woman worthy of his love, and the ideal patron, a worthy recipient of whose funds he could become. Cosima von BĂŒlow Liszt was the answer to his search for the perfect woman, obedient and fanatically devoted to his well-being. Although Wagner and Minna lived separately for some time, he did not marry Cosima until 1870, almost ten years after the death of his first wife. 30 years younger than her husband, Cosima devoted herself to the Wagner Theater in Bayreuth until the end of her life. Died in 1930
The ideal patron was Ludwig II, who literally saved Wagner from a debt prison and moved the composer to Munich with almost a carte blanche for life and work. Crown Prince Ludwig of Bavaria attended the premiere of Lohengrin at the age of fifteen. He really liked Richard Wagner - a tear of delight more than once came to the eyes of a high-ranking admirer of the composer's talent during the performance. The opera became the basis of the fantasy world of the King of Bavaria, to which he often fled in his adult life. His obsession with Wagner operas led to the construction of various fabulous castles. Neuschwanstein is probably the most famous building inspired by the works of the German composer.
After his salvation, however, Wagner behaved so insultingly blindly adoring him to a young monarch that after 2 years he was forced to flee. Ludwig, despite his disappointment, remained a loyal supporter of the composer. Thanks to his generosity, in 1876 the first Nibelungen ring festival in Bayreuth became possible.
The intractable Wagner was convinced of his superiority, and with age this became his manic idea. He was intolerant of any doubt, any refusal to accept him and his creations. Everything in his house revolved only around him, and his demands on wives, lovers, friends, musicians and benefactors were exorbitant. For example, Hanslik, an outstanding Viennese music critic, became the prototype of Beckmesser in The Meistersinger.
When the young philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche first met Wagner, he thought that he had found his way to God, he seemed so radiant and powerful. Nietzsche later realized that the composer was much less than the perfect incarnation of the superman, as he seemed to him, and turned away in disgust. Wagner never forgave Nietzsche for his flight.
Place in history
In retrospect, Wagner's achievements outweigh both his behavior and his legacy. He managed to survive the predictable rejection of subsequent generations of composers. Wagner created such an effective, unique musical language, especially in Tristan and Parsifal, that the beginning of modern music is often dated by the time these operas appeared.
Richard Wagner, whose famous works are not limited to pure formalism and abstract theoretical development, showed that music is a living force that can change people's lives. In addition, he proved that the drama theater is a forum of ideas, and not an arena of escape from reality and entertainment. And he showed that the composer can rightfully take his place among the great revolutionary thinkers of Western civilization, casting doubt and attacking what seemed unacceptable in the traditional manner of behavior, experience, training and art. Together with Karl Marx and Charles Darwin Richard Wagner, biography, creativity in the music of the composer deserve to take their rightful place in the history of culture of the XIX century.