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 Walküre (1854-56), Siegfried (1856-71) and Götterdämmerung (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 hallmarks 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 19th 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.
© Rovi Staff /TiVo
-
The Masters of Classical Music - Wagner
Clásica - Editado por Cobra Entertainment LLC. el 07-07-2009
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Movies Classical Music
Clásica - Editado por Syrinx el 19-11-2017
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Travel Classical Music
Clásica - Editado por Armasi el 15-06-2018
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Richard Wagner: The Ring (Part 2)
Orchestra Sinfonica e Coro della Radio Italiana, Wilhelm Furtwängler
Ópera - Editado por Big Eye el 01-01-2008
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
-
Ride of the Valkyries (Studio Recording)
Ópera - Editado por Artemisia el 27-03-2023
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Wagner (The classical collection)
Clásica - Editado por Armasi el 12-07-2019
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Tristan und Isolde - Oper erzählt als Hörspiel mit Musik
Varios - Editado por Amor Verlag GmbH el 07-01-2014
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Wagner: Siegfried
Royal Swedish Opera Orchestra, Sixten Ehrling
Ópera - Editado por Sterling el 04-03-2022
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Wagner - Overtures & Preludes
Clásica - Editado por Piros - Dienc el 01-06-2015
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Pure Classical
Gustav Holst, Richard Wagner, Robert Schumann
Clásica - Editado por UME - Global Clearing House el 11-03-2024
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Hans Hotter Sings Wagner and Verdi
Ópera - Editado por Regis Records el 27-01-2014
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Richard Wagner: Inspiring Classics
Clásica - Editado por UME - Global Clearing House el 18-10-2022
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
GRANDI VOCI – MARIO DEL MONACO CANZONI, RARITA' E CURIOSITA' Una collana con registrazioni originali Decca e Deutsche Grammophon rimasterizzate con le tecniche più moderne che ne garantiscono eccellenza tecnica e artistica
Mario del Monaco, Richard Wagner, Georges Bizet
Clásica - Editado por UME - Global Clearing House el 12-03-2021
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
This is Wagner
Clásica - Editado por Classic Records el 09-05-2017
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Wagner: Parsifal - Good Friday Spell & Symphonic Synthesis Act 3
Clásica - Editado por Everest Records el 01-08-1959
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
The Art of Nikolai Golovanov: Wagner - Overtures and Selections from Operas
Clásica - Editado por Music Online el 07-12-2007
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Gut Schlafen mit Klassik
Clásica - Editado por Syrinx el 21-01-2018
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Wagner: Das Liebesmahl Der Apostel (The Love-Meal of the Apostles), WWV 69: Overture [Digitally Remastered]
Leningrad Philharmonic Orchestra, Estonian State Choir, Gennady Rozhdestvensky
Ópera - Editado por EMG Classical el 16-10-2015
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Entry Of The Gods Into Valhalla (From The Opera Das Rheingold) Arr. For Piano By Louis Brassin
Richard Wagner, Elise Williams
Clásica - Editado por Pastel Records Canada el 15-06-2023
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Masters Of Classical Music
Sofia Philharmonic Orchestra, Budapest Symphony Orchestra, Vassil Kazandjiev & Gyorgy Lehel
Clásica - Editado por Cobra Entertainment LLC. el 01-12-2009
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo