Born: May 22, 1813; Germany
Died: Feb 13, 1883; Italy
Period: Romantic
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 inRead more 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 glories 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 nineteenth 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. Read less
Label: Nimbus
Catalog: 7851
Release Date: 05/19/1998
Number of Discs: 1
Composer:
Karl Millöcker,
Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky,
Francesco Cilèa,
Amilcare Ponchielli
...
Performer:
Jussi Björling,
Fritz Wunderlich,
Tito Gobbi,
Kirsten Flagstad
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Label: Emi Classics
Catalog: 72030
Release Date: 01/20/1998
Number of Discs: 2
Composer:
Gioachino Rossini,
Gaetano Donizetti,
Vincenzo Bellini,
Giuseppe Verdi
...
Performer:
Maria Callas
Conductor:
Alfredo Simonetto,
Oliviero de Fabritiis,
Nicola Rescigno,
Antonino Votto
...
Orchestra/Ensemble:
Italian Radio Symphony Orchestra Milan,
Italian Radio Symphony Orchestra Rome,
Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra
...
Label: Teldec Historic Series
Catalog: 95516
Release Date: 03/07/1995
Number of Discs: 1
Composer:
Richard Wagner
Performer:
Martha Mödl,
Johanna Blatter,
Wolfgang Windgassen
Conductor:
Arthur Rother
Orchestra/Ensemble:
Berlin City Opera Orchestra
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Label: Rca Victor Red Seal
Catalog: 61886
Release Date: 10/26/1993
Number of Discs: 1
Composer:
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart,
Georges Bizet,
Richard Wagner,
Charles Gounod
...
Performer:
Julia Varády,
Franco Corelli,
Leontyne Price,
Placido Domingo
...
Conductor:
Sir Colin Davis,
Herbert von Karajan,
Henry Lewis,
Nello Santi
...
Orchestra/Ensemble:
Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra,
Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra,
Philharmonia Orchestra
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Label: Nimbus
Catalog: 7818
Release Date: 12/02/1992
Number of Discs: 1
Composer:
Pietro Mascagni,
Richard Wagner,
Manuel Ponce,
Jacques Offenbach
...
Performer:
Mafalda Favero,
Kirsten Flagstad,
Nina Koshetz,
Maggie Teyte
...
Conductor:
Antonio Sabino,
Hans Lange,
Eugene Ormandy,
Sir John Barbirolli
...
Orchestra/Ensemble:
Philadelphia Orchestra,
London Symphony Orchestra,
Paris Opéra Comique Orchestra
Label: Nimbus
Catalog: 7847
Release Date: 12/02/1992
Number of Discs: 1
Composer:
Carl Maria von Weber,
Richard Wagner,
Ludwig van Beethoven
Performer:
Kirsten Flagstad
Conductor:
Eugene Ormandy,
Edwin McArthur,
Hans Lange
Orchestra/Ensemble:
Philadelphia Orchestra,
San Francisco Opera Orchestra,
Orchestra
Label: Rca Victor Gold Seal
Catalog: 7915
Release Date: 04/19/1990
Number of Discs: 1
Composer:
Richard Wagner
Performer:
Kirsten Flagstad,
Lauritz Melchior
Conductor:
Edwin McArthur,
Eugene Ormandy,
Hans Lange
Orchestra/Ensemble:
San Francisco Opera Orchestra,
Philadelphia Orchestra,
RCA Victor Symphony Orchestra
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