Download Free Richard Wagner Songs

Richard Wagner music biography continued...

use of leitmotifs: musical themes associated with specific characters, locales, or plot elements. Wilhelm Richard Wagner was born on May 22, 1813 in Leipzig, Germany. He took music lessons as a student, but was mainly self-taught, and composed his first complete opera, Die Feen (The Fairies) in 1833. Wagner's subsequent operas can be broken down into three stages: in his early stage famous Wagner operas included, Das Liebesverbot (The Ban on Love), and Rienzi. These works are seldom performed today. His middle-stage operas consisted of more accomplished work such as Der fliegende Holländer (The Flying Dutchman), followed by Tannhäuser and Lohengrin. The first of Wagner's mature operas was Tristan und Isolde (Tristan and Isolde), often considered his masterpiece. Next was Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg (The Mastersingers of Nuremberg), the only comedy in his oeuvre apart from Das Liebesverbot, and one of the longest operas still performed. This was followed by Der Ring des Nibelungen, commonly referred to as the Ring cycle, a set of four operas based on German and Scandinavian mythology. Spanning roughly 14 hours in performance, the Ring cycle has been called the most ambitious artistic work ever made. Wagner's final opera, Parsifal, is a contemplative work based on the Christian legend of the Holy Grail.
Music critics have called Wagner's music dramas seamless webs of musical ideas, with the music itself telling as much of the story as the action on the stage. By the time he died on February 13, 1884 in Venice Italy, Wagner had established a stunning body of work. However, due to the uncompromising nature of his musical ideals, or perhaps due to the difficulty of his politics and personality, he has served (and still serves) as a polarizing figure in music. His fans have carried his legacy into the 21st Century, while detractors have tried to distance themselves as much as possible from his ideas and teachings. Overall, Wagner is destined to spark controversy in musical circles for a long time to come.