Wagner biography summary. Brief biography of Richard Wagner

Richard Wilhelm Wagner

Path German composer Richard Wagner as a man and an artist amazingly combines determination with the sharpest and unexpected turns. An ardent supporter and even participant revolutionary movement in his youth, he mature years finds himself a crowned patron of the arts. Dreams about the whole people, as in ancient Greece, theater are realized in the construction of a theater only for Wagner’s works and... only for a very select audience.

The fascination with the harsh heroics of ancient Germanic myths is replaced by the poeticization of Christian humility and forgiveness... And with all this, Wagner always and everywhere remained Wagner, a composer with the brightest individuality, whose style can be guessed from a few bars of music.

He had no indifferent listeners: they immediately became either enthusiastic fans or fierce opponents.

And only half a century after the creation of his most controversial works, passions subsided, and Wagner’s legacy became a classic of musical art.

Nowadays no one doubts the genius of the composer.

Wagner's path to the heights of art was unusual. It's hard to believe that the composer who opened new paths in music was almost self-taught. Wagner was almost self-taught

From childhood, he was attracted to art: this was also facilitated by the family atmosphere: Wagner’s stepfather was an actor and playwright, his older sisters and brother also devoted themselves to the theater - opera and drama. It is clear that Richard was fond of theater in his adolescence and, as a fifteen-year-old schoolboy, decided to create a tragedy with music.

But how to do this without having a clue about the laws of musical creativity?

Secretly, he began to take music theory lessons from one of the orchestra musicians, but he could only give the most basic information. Wagner gained professional skills by transcribing Beethoven's scores

Still, Richard was confident that he could become a composer. He himself came up with an unusual way of self-study: rewriting the scores of Beethoven's symphonies (this composer was his idol), following the course of musical thought and presentation techniques. This method turned out to be effective, and when Wagner finally found an experienced teacher, six months of classes were enough for yesterday’s self-taught person to acquire the necessary professional skills.

Real knowledge of the laws theatrical arts, the possibilities of the orchestra, singing voices came to Wagner after several years practical work. His brother Albert, a singer at the Würzburg Theater, hired Richard there as a choirmaster. This was the beginning of wanderings around small theaters in provincial cities- Wurzburg, Magdeburg, Koenigsberg, Riga - as a conductor and musical director of the theater.

But Wagner dreamed of Paris, and one of his first works - the historical opera "Rienzi" - was conceived with the theatrical style of the Parisian grand opera: spectacular, lush, decorative.

In 1839, Wagner went to Paris. He was twenty-six years old, full of energy, plans, and hopes.

He brought it to Paris already ready-made essays, but no one knew him, and not a single theater wanted to risk staging an opera by an unknown musician. The opera "Rienzi" was first accepted for production at the Dresden Theater

Three Parisian years passed in vain attempts to stage Rienzi and in search of daily income. Wagner did not refuse any work: he wrote newspaper articles, made arrangements for various instruments of melodies from fashionable operas.

In the end, convinced that he could not conquer Paris, he returned to his homeland. The matter was decided by the news that the opera “Rienzi” had been accepted for production at the Dresden theater.

This was the first success, and even triumph. The legendary wheel of fortune - the goddess of fate - suddenly turned in his direction. After the misadventures in Paris, Wagner received an invitation to the post of conductor of the opera house, which meant that the opportunity opened up to stage operas - his own and those of other composers - in accordance with the ideal of the unity of music and drama.
"Tristan and Isolde" (1859)

And there was also the opportunity to create on my own, already having the confidence that the new work would see the light of the stage. It would seem that the Dresden years were extremely productive. Wagner staged classical operas by Gluck, Mozart, Beethoven, and operas by Weber, one of the first German romantics. Under his direction, an opera orchestra and choir of three hundred people performed Beethoven's Ninth Symphony, which was considered extremely difficult.

The creative result of the Dresden years is the operas “Tannhäuser” and “Lohengrin”. The plots are borrowed from old German tales, freely revised by the composer (Wagner always wrote the libretto for his operas himself). His talent was already fully revealed here. Clear relief of musical themes that expressively convey the essence artistic image, bright, rich colors orchestras create a special musical atmosphere in each opera.

Wagner's work on both Dresden operas took place in significant, pre-storm years. In 1848, a wave of uprisings swept across Europe. In the spring of 1849, it also affected Dresden. Wagner was personally connected with revolutionary circles (including the Russian revolutionary Bakunin) and in “ May days“The uprising took a direct part in it, printing and posting revolutionary proclamations. The uprising was brutally suppressed, its leaders and many participants were arrested. Portrait of Wagner at the piano

Wagner managed to escape. The years of exile began, which became years of work on major works - literary and musical.

Wagner was not a consistent revolutionary. He acutely felt the injustice of the bourgeois social system, the undivided power of money, inequality, horrific poverty next to fabulous luxury. This led him to the revolution.

But most of all, he was oppressed by the dependent position of the artist, forced to turn a work of art into a commodity. In his book “Art and Revolution,” written during the years of Swiss exile, Wagner recalled: “I was not interested in the very moment of political and social revolution, but in the order of life in which my projects related to art could find fruition.”

Wagner's literary works are devoted mainly to issues of operatic art. In the book “Opera and Drama,” he sharply criticizes contemporary opera for the fact that in it music dominates drama. He himself believed that drama should be the goal, and music should be the means. He even calls his mature works not operas, but musical dramas.

But it must be said that, contrary to his own theoretical views, Wagner in his writings is much stronger as a musician than as a playwright.

The range of ideas expressed in the book “Art and Revolution” is also reflected in Wagner’s central musical work - a monumental cycle of four plot-related musical dramas (“Das Rheingold”, “Walkyrie”, “Siegfried”, “Death of the Nibelungs”) under the general title "The Ring of the Nibelung". The names of the characters and some plot motifs are borrowed from the old German “Song of the Nibelungs” - the children of the fog, a tribe of evil dwarfs who own countless treasures. But Wagner freely and creatively recreates these myths, giving them modern sound and based the "Ring" on the idea destructive power gold.

The treasure lying at the bottom of the Rhine and passing from hand to hand brings only misfortune to its owners. He is the cause of betrayals, atrocities, murders. Only a hero who knows no fear - Siegfried - can free the world from the curse that lies on this gold. He gets the main treasure - the ring. But, having become a victim of treachery, Siegfried dies, the home of the gods Valhalla perishes in fire, and the ring returns to the waters of the Rhine. So, on Siegfried’s funeral pyre, Wagner burned his dreams of liberating the world from the power of gold...

In The Ring of the Nibelung, Wagner abandons the usual structure of opera as a sequence of recitatives, arias, and ensembles. The music flows in a continuous stream, the melodies combining declamation and melodiousness. The main role is assigned to the orchestra, which must reveal the subtext of what is happening on stage.

Each character, each concept, even some objects that are especially important for the development of the plot (a ring, a sword) have their own specific musical themes-characteristics (the so-called leitmotifs), emphasizing the essence of a given situation and repeated in similar situations.

When, for example, the daughter of the gods, the Valkyrie Brünnhilde, appears before one of the heroes - Sigmund - a mysterious and mournful motive of fate sounds in the orchestra, preparing the words of Brünnhilde - the messenger of death.

There are about a hundred leitmotifs in The Ring, and, of course, even a very trained listener cannot remember them all. But they are very expressive and in most cases give rise to vivid and precise associations. The sparkling, playing motif of fire, the warlike fanfare of the sword, the already mentioned motif of fate are remembered for a long time and firmly. Wagner masterfully develops them and connects one to the other. Thus, the funeral march at the "Death of the Gods", where all the main motives of the "Ring" take place, not only mourns the dead Siegfried, but seems to tell again - now in language instrumental music- the whole saga of the gold of the Nibelungs. "Das Rheingold" (1854)

In parallel with his work on The Ring, which took more than twenty years, Wagner created two completely different operas: Tristan and Isolde and Die Mastersingers of Nuremberg. First - tragic story about the love of a knight for the king’s bride, a forbidden love that brings death to both. The second is a funny comedy about a singing competition. But her characters no longer knights, as in Tannhäuser, but German artisans, lovers and connoisseurs of singing, and the main authority among them is the shoemaker Hans Sachs.

In Die Meistersinger of Nuremberg, Wagner returns to many traditional elements operas that previously seemed to him not to correspond to the ideal " musical drama": ensembles, choirs.

Wagner was about sixty years old when he began to realize his long-standing dream - to build a theater specifically for the performance of his works. At that time he was at the height of his glory, he was patronized by the Bavarian king Ludwig II, in different cities Wagner societies were organized in Germany, promoting his music and collecting funds for the construction of a theater.

And finally, in 1876, the House of Ceremonial Performances was opened in Bayreuth for one and a half thousand spectators and the entire cycle “The Ring of the Nibelung” was staged, of which only the first two parts had been performed before. The dream came true, but how different its implementation was from the previous Wagnerian ideal of a national theater! Boxes filled with aristocratic audiences displaying jewelry and fashionable toilets...

And Wagner himself was already different. Less and less of the democratic artist of the 40s remained in him; egocentrism, intolerance, and the reactionary-nationalist spirit characteristic of many German figures after the unification of Germany in 1871 became more and more evident in him. Glory - unprecedented glory! - was achieved, but the controversy surrounding Wagner did not cease. They were also seething among Russian musicians - Wagner's contemporaries.

He assessed Wagner more objectively than others, who came to Bayreuth for the premiere of The Ring of the Nibelung.

Wagner Wilhelm Richard (1813-1883), German composer.

Born on May 22, 1813 in Leipzig into an artistic family, he was interested in literature and theater from childhood. His acquaintance with the work of L. van Beethoven had a huge influence on the formation of Wagner as a composer. Studying a lot on his own, he took lessons piano playing from organist G. Müller, music theory from T. Weiling.

In 1834-1839 Wagner had already worked professionally as a bandmaster in various opera houses. In 1839-1842. lived in Paris. Here he wrote his first significant work - the historical opera Rienzi. In Paris, Wagner failed to stage this opera; it was accepted for production in Dresden in 1842. And until 1849, the composer worked as conductor and conductor of the Dresden Court Opera. Here in 1843 he staged his own opera “The Flying Dutchman”, and in 1845 - “Tannhäuser and the Wartburg Singing Competition”. In Dresden, one of the most famous operas Wagner's "Lohengrin" (1848).

In 1849, for his participation in revolutionary unrest in Dresden, the composer was declared state criminal and was forced to flee to Switzerland. The main ones were created there literary works, such as “Art and Revolution” (1849), “Artwork of the Future” (1850), “Opera and Drama” (1851). In them, Wagner acted as a reformer - primarily of the art of opera. His main ideas can be summarized as follows: in opera, drama should dominate music, and not vice versa; at the same time, the orchestra is not subordinate to the singers, but is an equal “actor”.
Musical drama aims to be universal a work of art capable of morally influencing the audience. And such an impact can only be achieved using philosophical and aesthetic concepts generalized in a mythological plot.

The composer always wrote the libretto for his operas himself. In addition, in Wagner, each character, even some objects important for the development of the plot (for example, a ring), have their own musical characteristics (leitmotifs). The musical outline of the opera is a system of leitmotifs. Wagner embodied his innovative ideas in a grandiose project - “The Ring of the Nibelung”. This is a cycle of four operas: Das Rheingold (1854), Die Walküre (1856), Siegfried (1871) and Twilight of the Gods (1874).

In parallel with his work on the tetralogy, Wagner wrote another opera, Tristan and Isolde (1859). Thanks to the patronage of the Bavarian king Ludwig II, who favored the composer since 1864, a theater was built in Bayreuth to promote Wagner's work. At its opening in 1876, the tetralogy “The Ring of the Nibelung” was staged in its entirety for the first time, and in 1882 Wagner’s last opera, “Parsifal,” was released, which the author called a solemn stage mystery.

The work of Richard Wagner has become a symbol of a turning point in musical traditions Europe XIX century. He made bold discoveries, without fear of condemnation and relying only on his own impeccable musical intuition. Wagner had a difficult fate, but perhaps it was precisely those painful trials that befell him that served as the impetus for revolutionary changes not only in opera, but also in symphonic genres. The great reformer, who had a significant influence, became the only musician in history who was awarded the honor of having his own theater, and the festival named after him to this day brings together only the best representatives of the musical art.

short biography

Wilhelm Richard Wagner was born on October 22, 1813, becoming youngest son in a large family of a police official in the German city of Leipzig. The father of the family unexpectedly died of typhus without seeing his six-month-old heir. A little later, Wagner’s mother remarried, and Ludwig Geyer became little Richard’s stepfather. He was engaged in painting, played in the theater and in every possible way supported any creative endeavors of his adopted children, becoming, in fact, a real father to them. Less than a year later, Geyer was invited to serve in the royal theater, and the family moved to Dresden, where Richard began his education under the name of his stepfather. When the boy was 14 years old, Ludwig died suddenly. The mother was forced to return to her native Leipzig.

Inspired by creativity Beethoven, Richard begins to study music at the school at the Church of St. Thomas, where he was once baptized. In a fairly short period of time, the young man shows real talent and begins to try his hand at composing, and quite successfully: in the period from 1828 to 1832 he creates sonatas, piano pieces, including the Faust overture, works for orchestra, and a symphony. Many of these works were soon performed at concerts; at that time, Wagner was not yet 20 years old.

According to Wagner's biography, in 1833 he left hometown, going at the invitation of his brother to Wurzburg. Then Richard lives in Magdeburg for three years, visits Königsberg, and stays in Riga for two years. The first operas created at this time did not receive high ratings, but Wagner did not stop there, and the next opera, Rienzi, the Last Tribune, became quite successful.

His work as a composer did not bring in a decent income, and Wagner soon became mired in debt, from which he decided to escape in Paris. He secretly moved there with his wife, actress Minna Planer. However, even in this city Richard did not find recognition and financial well-being, despite the fact that he did not disdain even such low-paid and routine work as copying notes. But his talent and amazing ability to work soon bore fruit: Wagner brought the works “Rienzi” and “Faust” to perfection. The first of them even had some success at the Dresden Theater in 1842. During this period, life's ups and downs force him to seriously reconsider his views on life and creativity. Just a year later, in the same hall, the premiere of “The Flying Dutchman” takes place, in the production of which the author himself takes an active part, and then “Tannhäuser”. It seems that Wagner has finally found his refuge in Dresden: he writes a lot, devotes time to composition, and many works in various genres come from his pen.

The flow of creative self-improvement was interrupted by the revolution in Germany in 1848. Wagner decided not to stand aside from such fateful events and ardently supported the revolutionaries. But when opponents occupied Dresden, the musician nevertheless left the city that gave him real recognition.

• In the Church of St. Thomas, where he was baptized and began his musical education Wagner, served as cantor for a quarter of a century Johann Sebastian Bach.
• The first stone for the building of the future Wagner Theater was laid on the musician’s birthday, May 22, 1872.
• The cycle of 4 operas “The Ring of the Nibelung” has a total performance time of about 15 hours.
• The Bayreuth Theater operates as intended for only 4 weeks a year - from July to August, during the Wagner Festival. The rest of the time it can be viewed on excursions, but you cannot enjoy the unique acoustics.
• Wagner was an ardent anti-Semite, as a result of which some of his articles are today recognized as extremist and prohibited from publication.
• When, before the premiere of Parsifal, Wagner learned that the king had chosen Hermann Levi as conductor, former Jew, the composer tried with all his might to disrupt the monarch’s plans, and even demanded that Herman be baptized, but he categorically refused.
• All his life Wagner was terrified of " damn dozen" - the number 13. He was born in the year 13, and the number of letters in his name written with Latin letters, also equals 13. He categorically forbade scheduling the premieres of his operas on the 13th. By a strange coincidence, the maestro died on February 13th.

• From Wagner's biography we learn that while living in Paris, the composer was so poor that he decided to take the humiliating position of a chorister. However, during the audition, it turned out that the musician had absolutely no voice, and his singing abilities were not enough even for a choir.
• During Wagner's performances in Britain, many art lovers were annoyed that he conducted Beethoven's works from memory. This was considered a disdain for the great composer and reprimanded Richard. At the next performance, the conductor had the score in front of him, and afterward they began to praise him and point out that the orchestra sounded much better. In fact, Wagner placed a completely different score on the music stand, and upside down, too, and conducted as usual - from memory.
• Wagner always created librettos for his operas himself, and never agreed to proposals from other authors to use their texts. Wagner refused the next poet, saying that his work would take a place in his library from the previously proposed librettos under number 2985.

• Wagner's talent remained unrecognized for a long time in his native Germany. Once in Vienna, one of the spectators dared to ask the composer a question whether his music seemed too loud to him. “This is all so that I can be heard in Germany!” - Wagner said loudly, folding his hands like a mouthpiece.
• For the premiere of the opera "Die Walküre" in Vienna, black horses were required to appear on stage. All trained animals capable of such a performance turned out to be gray. Wagner was indignant and threatened to cancel the premiere. Then one of the diplomats proposed a non-standard solution - to paint the horses black. The performance was a success, and Wagner warmly thanked the resourceful diplomat.

New Opera

One of Wagner's main achievements in the world classical music considered his reformation of the genre operas, the creation of the so-called musical drama. Wagner's early works are still thoroughly imbued with imitation of the geniuses of romanticism, but he soon begins to think that current forms and methods of expression are unable to fully reveal everything that he would like to convey in his most monumental work - the tetralogy " Ring of the Nibelung" And Wagner takes on an unprecedented job - he almost completely rebuilds the form and structure of operatic works.

Under Wagner’s hand, the previously clearly demarcated arias, ensembles and choruses turned into long, chanting monologues and dialogues of the characters, closer to colloquial speech, which do not have a specific “start” and “end” point. They seemed to intertwine with each other, building a completely new narrative thread, continuously supported by the orchestra. The orchestra also received a new function in Wagnerian opera: it did not simply accompany the vocal parts of the characters, but represented an additional way of expressing emotions, indicating storylines and heroes. Wagner assigned his own leitmotif to each new action, character or phenomenon. As a result, as the performance progressed, the leitmotifs became recognizable, mixed and combined with each other, but invariably helped the viewer more accurately understand the meaning of what was happening on stage.

The significance of Wagner in the history of world music

Wagner's innovations in the opera genre were supported by such a famous contemporary as Franz Liszt, who also became Richard's father-in-law. The Weimar school of music, created by Liszt, is to this day the main stronghold of the Wagner cult. Many young talents who studied there adopted the desire to enhance the methods of expression available to the musician. Many names of famous composers are on the list of those who imitated Wagner and were inspired by his work.

However, like any great achievement, Wagner’s reform, in addition to supporters, also found ardent opponents, whose common name is “anti-Wagnerites.” Such representatives of this movement as Brahms and Hanslick argued that music is a completely self-sufficient art and does not need additional means of expression. Nevertheless, Wagner's works are recognized as the highest stage in the development of romanticism in Europe and at the same time - the basis for subsequent modernist movements in music. The innovations applied by Wagner have become familiar elements of opera today.

Wagner's music in films

There are many significant names in the history of opera, but one of them serves as a milestone or, better said, a watershed. Richard Wagner divided the entire history of world opera - before and after him. The work of this German composer brought revolutionary changes to the art of opera. The opera genre after Wagner will never be the same as it was before him.

“Not many musicians have received such contradictory, polar assessments as Richard Wagner,” stated writer and musicologist Édouard Schuré, who knew the composer. “He suffered the fate of all major reformers. Opponents and enemies who recognized the indomitable fighter mainly by those blows which they received from him portrayed him as a man of extremes, exorbitant pride and boundless egoism, taking into account people and objects only to the extent that he needed them, and indifferent to everything else.”

“What Nietzsche wrote about Wagner cannot give us a correct assessment of Wagner as a poet and thinker; what Nordau said about him in his “Degeneration”, we consider vulgar and frivolous. “Who,” as the newest historian of German literature says Kuno-Franke, - German literature owes the first energetic proclamation artistic ideals of the future, the ideals of collectivist pantheism,” is worthy in our Rus' of a more objective and more correct assessment,” S. Soloviev emphasized in December 1904 in the preface to the Russian translation of Henri Lishtanberger’s book “Richard Wagner as a Poet and Thinker.” Perhaps it was the poet Sergei Mikhailovich Solovyov, nephew of the philosopher and poet Vladimir Solovyov, second cousin of Alexander Blok. He complained about how few books about Wagner there are in Russia.

And now, on the eve of Wagner’s anniversary, a Russian biography of the composer was published, which will fill many gaps in Wagner’s life. Its author, Marina Zalesskaya, writes: “The controversy around Wagner’s work still continues, which causes fanatical delight among some, and persistent rejection among others. Needless to say, the personality of the composer himself is equally contradictory and ambiguous? On the one hand, this a radiant knight in shining armor praising beauty eternal love. On the other hand, there is a person who tramples on the sacred bonds of friendship and is deprived of an elementary feeling of gratitude. Wagner - genius composer, reformer, philosopher, “poet and thinker,” according to the apt expression of a deep researcher of his work, Henri Lishtanberger. And he is a petty miser, greedy for money and always fleeing from his creditors."

Born on May 22, 1813, the youngest child in the Wagner family was baptized in the Leipzig Church of St. Thomas, where the great Johann Sebastian Bach served as cantor for more than a quarter of a century. Wilhelm Richard Wagner's father died of typhus exactly six months after the birth of his fourth son. In August 1814, his mother remarried an old family friend, actor and painter Ludwig Heinrich Christian Geyer, who actually replaced Wagner's father. On next year the actor received an invitation to the Dresden Royal Theater and the family left Leipzig. The boy was sent to school under his stepfather's name. “Thus,” Wagner wrote in his autobiography, “my Dresden childhood comrades knew me until the age of fourteen under the name of Richard Geyer.” And only six years after the death of his stepfather, returning to his hometown, Richard from “Korshun” (surname Geyer homophone of the word "kite" - Geier) again turned into a “carriage maker” (Wagner).

The famous German literary critic, almost official biography composer, suggested that Geyer was not a stepfather, but Richard’s own father. The founder and director of the Wagner Society in Riga, Karl Friedrich Glasenapp, made his conclusion based on one episode from the composer’s life, when Richard, looking at the portrait of Geyer hanging in his office, suddenly caught a similarity between his son Siegfried and the probable “grandfather”. The composer really had a spiritual closeness with his stepfather and Richard subconsciously strived to be like Geyer.

Another person who had a huge impact on the future musical genius was Pastor Wetzel, who mentored Richard (then Geyer) for a year. As for creativity, the young composer was influenced, first of all, by Beethoven, K. M. Weber, Mozart, and then G. A. Marshner. And, of course, we must not forget how close the writer and musician Ernst Theodor Amadeus Hoffmann turned out to be for the young Wagner. If we use Goethe’s expression, “Ah, two souls live in my sick breast,” then in Richard’s healthy breast lived passions that were not alien to each other. To music and literary creativity. As a 15-year-old teenager, classically trained Wagner wrote great tragedy Leubald und Adelaide. In it, researchers see the influence of Shakespeare and Goethe, especially his “Goetz von Berlichingen”. The heroine's name is borrowed from Beethoven's "Adelaide".

Richard's family did not like his play, and he decided to write music for it. But necessary knowledge He didn’t have one yet, and his mother didn’t allow him to take systematic music lessons. My first piano sonata d-moll(D minor) Wagner wrote in 1829, followed by a string quartet D major(D major), not yet having a clear understanding of the laws of composition. The failure of the next overture forced him to put an end to amateurism in music. Richard began taking music theory lessons from Theodor Weinlich, the cantor of the Church of St. Thomas, in which he was baptized. Having mastered music, Richard began writing librettos for his own operas. This first happened when musical critic, librettist and later friend of the composer, Heinrich Rudolf Constanz Laube, offered Wagner his finished opera text - the heroic opera Kosciuszko. But the composer, as he admitted, “immediately felt that Laube was mistaken about the nature of the reproduction historical events". After several squabbles with Laube, Richard decided that from now on he would write all the librettos for his operas himself. At that time, Wagner replaced the patriotic gentlemen with the plot of Carlo Gozzi's fairy tale "The Snake Woman". He will call his opera "Fairies" ( Die Feen).

Name: Richard Wagner

Age: 69 years old

Place of Birth: Leipzig, Germany

A place of death: Venice, Italy

Activity: composer, conductor

Family status: was married

Richard Wagner - biography

Wilhelm Richard Wagner is not a simple composer, he is an art theorist, one who influenced the whole European culture music and reformed opera.

Childhood, Wagner family

Richard's father was an official, but it turned out that the boy was raised by his stepfather, actor Ludwig Geyer. Nine children were born into the Wagner family, but two children died, and when the future composer was born, his father died. The head of the family was a fan of the Melpomene temple, and in his honor, four of the children connected their lives with the theater.

Immortal creativity of the composer

Wagner composed brilliant overtures and operas. The Royal Saxon court became a refuge for the composer for some time, where he worked as a bandmaster. Often Wagner's music reflected the feelings and emotions that filled the composer's world. More than any other composer, he called for turning to one’s nature, to the strong connection that exists between man and all of nature as a whole.

Wagner's ideas

Art is created by man and for man - the idea of ​​​​Wagner's entire work. The Opera Theater now began to be perceived as the highest form of reproduction of works of art, as a temple. And what happened on the stage in the temple of art bore a new name: musical drama. It embodied the combination of words and music. This became the meaning of the composer’s entire life. “The Flying Dutchman”, “Tannhäuser” and “Lohengrin”, “Tristan and Isolde”, “The Ring of the Nibelung” and “Parsifal” are whole line masterpieces created by the German maestro.

Orchestra at the opera

The composer’s entire biography is a life in music, in opera and in its improvement. Wagner brought the art of opera closer to life, denying excessive pomp and falsehood in classical opera. In addition, he devoted Special attention not the vocal performance of the parts, but the music, which was intended to reveal the feelings and experiences of the heroes of the work. The orchestra in his operas played a separate role, it gave musical characteristic every hero, living creature, symbolic object. The viewer does not have the opportunity to relax, he is constantly tense, since the musical denouement will only be at the end of the work.

Philosophy in Wagner's music

The fascination with the ideas of the philosopher Schopenhauer can be traced in the works of Wagner. The composer believes that the universe is imperfect, meaningless and dysfunctional. Music should help you find true pleasure. If humanity continues to chase power and gold, then a world catastrophe may soon occur. Richard makes only two themes the most basic in his work: love and death. He links them inextricably in his operas. The system of leitmotifs was inherited not only by Wagner’s followers, but also by his contemporaries.

Some Russian great musicians took opposite position in relation to the music of the great reformer. These included M.P. Mussorgsky and A.P. Borodin. Wagner, in turn, was so individual that he did not want to take into account the work of some composers who had Jewish roots ().

Richard Wagner - biography of personal life

In Magdeburg, Richard met the actress Minna Planer. Work in the theater did not go well for Wagner, the prima went to Berlin. This departure of his beloved woman forced the composer to confess his love and propose marriage. The marriage was hasty and unhappy. There was not enough money, the beloved was not an exalted person and did not live with dreams. She was four years older than her husband, had a very practical approach to life and did not understand her husband. The theater was closed, the composer lived in Riga for two years, studied French, and dreamed of conquering France.

But this is a little later, while Richard was inflamed with feelings for Matilda Wesendonck, a married beauty and an exalted nature. This woman was always among the very first listeners of the musician’s works. But marital duty remained a true duty for Matilda; she did not leave her husband for Wagner. And Wesendonck forever remained a financial assistant and friend for the composer.