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: Die Walkure
Astrid Varnay, Birgit Nilsson, Hans Hotter
Opera - Released by Urania on 11 Aug 2009
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
So lang mein Herz noch schlägt
Germany - Released by Artistfy Music on 10 Mar 2023
24-Bit 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Richard Wagner: Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg (Prelude to Act I), Parsifal, Götterdämmerung & Tristan und Isolde (Prelude & Liebestod)
Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, William Steinberg
Classical - Released by Soundmark Records on 24 Feb 2014
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
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The Best of The Classics Volume 16
Philharmonic Wind Orchestra, Marc Reift
Classical - Released by Marcophon on 11 Jul 2014
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
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Reminiscences: Romantic Works for Violin & Piano
Lisa Schatzman, Benjamin Engeli
Chamber Music - Released by Claves Records on 15 Apr 2014
24-Bit 88.2 kHz - Stereo -
Uri Caine Ensemble, Wagner
Classical - Released by ClassicalPirosDigital on 30 Nov 2015
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Movies Classical Music
Classical - Released by Syrinx on 19 Nov 2017
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Masters - Wagner
Classical - Released by UME - Global Clearing House on 18 Jul 2020
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Grandes Epocas de la Música, Wagner, La Walkiria
Staatliche Symphonieorchester Wien, The NDR Symphony Orchestra
Classical - Released by JamadaClassics on 23 Nov 2015
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Travel Classical Music
Classical - Released by Armasi on 15 Jun 2018
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
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Richard Wagner: The Ring (Part 2)
Orchestra Sinfonica e Coro della Radio Italiana, Wilhelm Furtwängler
Opera - Released by Big Eye on 1 Jan 2008
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Wagner: Tannhäuser: Overture (Digitally Remastered)
Slovak Philharmonic Orchestra, Libor Pešek
Opera - Released by EMG Classical on 23 Oct 2015
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
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Wagner: Arias & Incidental Music
The Ljubljana Symphony Orchestra
Symphonic Music - Released by Stradivari Classics on 1 Jan 1992
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Wagner (The classical collection)
Classical - Released by Armasi on 12 Jul 2019
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Tristan und Isolde - Oper erzählt als Hörspiel mit Musik
Miscellaneous - Released by Amor Verlag GmbH on 7 Jan 2014
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Wagner: Siegfried
Royal Swedish Opera Orchestra, Sixten Ehrling
Opera - Released by Sterling on 4 Mar 2022
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Wagner - Overtures & Preludes
Classical - Released by Piros - Dienc on 1 Jun 2015
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo