Richard Wagner Essay

Wilhelm Richard Wagner was a German composer, conductor, writer, and theatre director who is primarily known for his operas. Unlike most opera composers, Wagner wrote both the music and the text for his works. His compositions, particularly those of his later period, are notable for their complex textures, rich harmonies and orchestration. Wagner revolutionized opera through his concept of the Gesamtkunstwerk ("total work of art"), by which he sought to synthesize the poetic, visual, musical and dramatic aspects to create his complete masterpiece. He advanced musical language with his innovative writing style which greatly shaped European classical music. The effect of his ideas can be traced in many of the arts throughout the 20th century into current day. His influence spread beyond composition into conducting, philosophy, literature, the visual arts and theatre. Wagner’s legacy lives on today through his opera house, the Bayreuth Festspielhaus. The Festspielhaus is located north of Bayreuth, Germany and continues to celebrate the genius of Wagner by only preforming his famous 19th century operas at an annual festival. However looking past Wagner’s musical achievements, his life was very polarizing. He lived a life that involved debt, political exile, and numerous love affairs.

Wilhelm Richard Wagner was born on May 22, 1813 in Leipzig, Germany. At six months old, Wagner lost his father Frau Karl Friedrich to typhoid, which he caught from the corpses lying unburied in the streets after the Napoleonic War in Leipzig. Less than a year later, Wagner’s mother married Ludwig Geyer, who Wagner believed was his real father. Geyer, like Wagner had an artistic gift. He was an actor and playwright. Geyer's love of the theatre came to ...

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...tten to be performed on the Festspielhaus stage. Wagner completed Parsifal in January 1882, and a second Bayreuth Festival was held for the new opera, Wagner was by this time extremely ill. He went to Venice for the winter, and died there in February of the heart trouble that had been with him for some years. His body was returned for burial at Bayreuth.

Wagner traveled all over Europe, going to place to place. His life had many influences that made him wrote the operas and essays he did. Wagner did more than any other composer to change music, and indeed to change art, thinking about it, and perceiving it. He brought multiple aspects of art together to complete a full work, connecting visual art and aural art. His life and his music arouse passions like no other composers. His works are subjected as much as they are worshipped; but no-one denies their greatness.