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: Arias & Incidental Music
The Ljubljana Symphony Orchestra
Symphonic Music - Released by Stradivari Classics on Jan 1, 1992
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Wagner (The classical collection)
Classical - Released by Armasi on Jul 12, 2019
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Wagner: Siegfried
Royal Swedish Opera Orchestra, Sixten Ehrling
Opera - Released by Sterling on Mar 4, 2022
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Wagner - Overtures & Preludes
Classical - Released by Piros - Dienc on Jun 1, 2015
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
Classical - Released by UME - Global Clearing House on Mar 12, 2021
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Hans Hotter Sings Wagner and Verdi
Opera - Released by Regis Records on Jan 27, 2014
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
100 Must-Have Opera Spectaculars
Opera - Released by Cobra Entertainment LLC on Oct 21, 2014
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Richard Wagner: Inspiring Classics
Classical - Released by UME - Global Clearing House on Oct 18, 2022
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Trahisons
Orchestre de la Francophonie Canadienne, Jean-Philippe Tremblay
Classical - Released by Analekta on Jan 27, 2009
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Wagner: Götterdämmerung, Act III
Dimitri Mitropoulos, Astrid Varnay, Ramón Vinay
Classical - Released by Urania on Jan 1, 2005
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Themusicotheque: Il Grande Cinema
Orquesta Lírica de Barcelona, José María Damunt, Coral Lírica de Las Palmas
Film Soundtracks - Released by Piros Comercial Digital on Jan 22, 2014
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Wagner: Siegfried, Parsifal - Beethoven: Symphony No. 7
Classical - Released by Urania on Jan 1, 2000
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Wagner: Parsifal - Good Friday Spell & Symphonic Synthesis Act 3
Classical - Released by Everest Records on Aug 1, 1959
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
The Art of Nikolai Golovanov: Wagner - Overtures and Selections from Operas
Classical - Released by Music Online on Dec 7, 2007
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Tristan und Isolde
Opera - Released by Opera d'Oro on Nov 19, 1996
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
Opera - Released by EMG Classical on Oct 16, 2015
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Ride of the Valkyries (Studio Recording)
Opera - Released by Artemisia on Mar 27, 2023
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
Classical - Released by Pastel Records Canada on Jun 15, 2023
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Masters Of Classical Music
Sofia Philharmonic Orchestra, Budapest Symphony Orchestra, Vassil Kazandjiev & Gyorgy Lehel
Classical - Released by Cobra Entertainment LLC. on Dec 1, 2009
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Wagner: Magic Fire Music
Classical - Released by Cobra Entertainment LLC. on Dec 1, 2009
16-Bit CD Quality 44.1 kHz - Stereo -
Albumblatt, WWV 94 (Arr. for Violin and Piano by August Wilhelmj)
Classical - Released by Azul Music on Feb 24, 2023
24-Bit 48.0 kHz - Stereo