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
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Wagner: Rienzi, Der Letzte Der Tribunen (Rienzi, The Last of the Tribunes), WWV 49: Overture [Digitally Remastered]
Slovak Philharmonic Orchestra, Bystrík Režucha
Oper - Erschienen bei EMG Classical am 23.10.2015
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Der fliegende Hollander (The Flying Dutchman)
Oper - Erschienen bei Opera d'Oro am 14.03.2006
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A Classical Compendium: Wagner
Klassik - Erschienen bei UME - Global Clearing House am 17.09.2022
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Wagner: Overtures
State Symphony Orchestra of the USSR
Klassik - Erschienen bei Pipeline Music am 28.11.2006
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Classics In The Pop Of Treatments. Wagner - The Best
Klassik - Erschienen bei Russian Compact Disc am 07.06.1998
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Classical Pieces
State Symphony Orchestra of the USSR
Klassik - Erschienen bei Pipeline Music am 08.06.2006
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Richard Wagner: The Best Loved Opera Melodies
New Philharmonic Orchestra, Rita Noel, Choir of the Budapest State Opera
Oper - Erschienen bei Blaricum CD Company (B.C.D.) B.V. am 18.12.2013
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Summer Classical Music
Klassik - Erschienen bei Paradise Classical am 20.06.2017
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The Best of The Classics Volume 20
Marc Reift, Philharmonic Wind Orchestra
Klassik - Erschienen bei Marcophon am 28.07.2014
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Luxe Classics. Marcha Radetsky
Klassik - Erschienen bei Piros Comercial Digital am 20.02.2014
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Wagner: Das Rheingold
Wolfgang Windgassen, Ferdinand Frantz, Lorenz Fehenberger
Oper - Erschienen bei Past Classics am 03.10.2012
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Richard Wagner. 20 Golden Melodies In Modern Processing
Klassik - Erschienen bei Russian Compact Disc am 15.06.2000
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Big Disgrace
Electronic - Erschienen bei Sonar Kollektiv am 11.08.2006
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Auf die Freundschaft
Hard Rock - Erschienen bei Artistfy Music am 01.03.2024
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Kompass auf stürmischer See
Pop/Rock - Erschienen bei Artistfy Music am 26.12.2023
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Classical Masterpieces of the Millennium: Wagner
Klassik - Erschienen bei Cobra Entertainment LLC am 29.10.2013
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Famous Opera Choruses
Klassik - Erschienen bei Tuxedo Music am 30.04.2013
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Sad Mood
Klassik - Erschienen bei Paradise Classical am 26.09.2017
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Epic Classical Music
Klassik - Erschienen bei Paradise Classical am 16.06.2017
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The Ring of Nibelung (The Best from Four Epic Operas - The Rhine Gold / The Valkyrie / Siegfried / Twilight of the Gods)
Oper - Erschienen bei Cobra Entertainment LLC am 25.11.2014
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Wagner, Los Grandes de la Música Clásica
Klassik - Erschienen bei Piros Comercial Digital am 19.09.2014
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