Richard Wagner: From Devotion To Theatre

On his return to Hamburg he ventured, on 21st September 1848, to give a concert on his own account for the first time. The programmed included the adagio and tondo from a concerto by Rosenhain, Dohler?s fantasy on William tell, a serenade for the left hand alone by his master, Marxsen, a study by the fashionable Henri Herz, a Bach fugue, and his own Variations on a Folksong. He early showed as love for the folksong of his fatherland, which he used as themes for some remarkable variations a musical form, by the

Wagners parents remain uncertain . He is either the son of police Friedrich Wagner, who died after Richard was born, or the son of the man he called his stepfather, the painter, actor and poet Ludwig Geyer . When he was younger he attended school in Dresden , Germany . He never showed passion for music as a kid . When he was 11 years old, he wrote his first drama . By the

Mendelssohn was born in Hamburg in 1809. His father Abraham Mendelssohn was a banker, while his mum Lea Mendelssohn was a highly educated artist and musician. Mendelssohn first had his piano lesson from his mum, but soon he was sent to study with the best teachers at that time such as Marie Bigot and Ludwig Burger. He also took composition lessons with Karl

In 1832 he published his first composition which was a piano sonata and symphony that were influenced heavily by Beethoven (Bonds 464). However; in attempting to write these kinds of music he realized he loved theatre music (Bonds 463). Wagner spent a lot of time with the theatre he was able to see Geyer preform and see all the inner workings of the theatre (Jacobs 3). Through his experiences with the theatre he began to develop his own ideas of music. He only valued music for the operatic images that struck him (Jacobs 6). His image of music from the beginning seemed to be very narrow

Born in 1813 in Leipzig, Germany, Richard (Wilhelm) Wagner was destine to work in the arts. His father died while Wagner was still an infant and his mother, an actress, remarried Ludwig Geyer, an actor, singer, author, portrait painter, and an old friend of her late husband (Henderson, 1923, 3). Wagner would go on to become one of the key figures in the development of the opera. Through his reform, Wagner was largely responsible for altering the course of the opera in the Nineteenth Century. But it was not only his operas that Wagner was known for. He was also an active figure in the changing 19th century German society.

“’We are still waiting for the man who can compose and write a genuine opera.’” (Furness 14). That man was Wilhelm Richard Wagner he was known for his operas and other compositions which influenced many other composers. Wagner wrote many amazing operas, compositions, and poetic lyrics. Some think he wasn’t so important, but some even think he was one of the best holding him up to Beethoven for his compositions (Furness 7). Wagner’s best composition from his career is a composition called Der Rings Des Nibelungen, which is a composition that is eighteen hours long and four operas which had reoccurring themes connecting them all together.

Salome is an opera libretto composed by Richard Strauss, which is based off a play written by Oscar Wilde. Strauss’s first two operas ridiculed Wagnerian ideas and themes, by choosing Salome, Strauss “broke his attempt to write mock-Wagnerian operas” (Gilman 37). This mock-Wagnerian break allowed Strauss to identify with the “moderns,” and Salome can be seen as Strauss’s first “modern” opera (37). Strauss, in his writings, acknowledges that Salome is a “Jewish” opera (39). Jewish people at the time were seen as outsiders, and Strauss’s “association of the Jew with the cultural avant-garde influences his selection of the Salome libretto” (39). The author Oscar Wilde was homosexual and his popularity declined in Britain. His convictions and

Richard Wagner came from a theatrical gamily. He was inspired at a young age by Beethoven’s music. He composed several operas in his twenties and was appointed as the conductor of the Dresden Opera where he spent six years as both an opera composer and conductor. Die Walkure is the second and most widely performed of the four music dramas of Der Ring des Nibelungen. The opera, based off Nordic mythology, presents passion and emotion that grasps at audience members. While Wagner did not invent leitmotifs, he molded and expanded upon them to create a flow of continuous melodies.

George Frideric Handel was born in 1685 in Germany, therefore leading all his compositions to be part of the baroque era. In 1705 he made his debut as an opera composer with Almira. He produced several operas, most of which were composed for the first Royal Academy of music such as his opera Rodelinda. Rodelinda is an Italian opera seria which was first performed in London in 1725.

On April 5th in Daniel Recital Hall Haochen Tan, a composer and a pianist, had a junior recital. He performed on the piano Etude-Tableau in C major, op. 33, No. 2 by Sergei Rachmaninoff, Isolde’s Liebestod by Richard Wagner arr. Franz Liszt, and Caution to the winds by James Mobberley. Apart from this, he played piano part in his Trio for Flute, violin, and piano, and other musicians performed Reed Quintet composed by him. The piano was in the center of the stage and he wore a black suit. I really enjoyed his performance. The music that he composed was amazing even not to include his piano skills. As he said in the beginning, his music includes some Chinese elements. During this recital, Chinese international students, Fangzhou Wang and Kelly

The term, Gesamtkunstwerk, means total work of art, which came from Richard Wagner’s (a German composer) essays in 1849-50. The concept of Gesamtkunstwerk was not originally proposed by Wagner (in fact, it emerged a few decades earlier); however, people today regard his statement as a momentous breaking and a starting point of modern movement.3

Composer Karlheinz Stockhausen was born August 22, 1928 in the small town of Mödrath located just west of Cologne Germany. He was the first child of three born to Simon and Gertrud Stockhausen. Early in his life, the Stockhausen family struggled financially. Germany was in a low point of stability after WWI and most people had trouble making ends meet. Simon Stockhausen, a teacher at the time, was forced to move from one temporary post to another on average twice a year. Unfortunately in 1932 when he was four years old, Stockhausen’s mother Gertrud was committed into a sanatorium. This was likely due to the depression she encountered associated with the instability, poverty, and having three children so close to one another. In 1935 Shortly after his wife became ill, Simon Stockhausen was promoted to head teacher at a small village school located in Altenburg. The newly formed Third Reich led by Adolf Hitler used him in this position to influence the local community by spreading propaganda and organizing fundraisers for the new movement.

At the age of four, he could already learn a piece of music in half an hour. At five he was playing the clavier. At six years old, he started composing. At eight, he began writing his first symphonies. At 12 years old, he produced his first real operas – the German Singspiel and the Bastien und Bastienne. At 14, he set off for Italy to make his own way in being known as an opera composer. The rest as they say was history.

Chopin was born in Warsaw, Poland on March 1, 1810. He grew up in an artistically talented family, with his father playing the flute and violin, and his mother playing the piano. After demonstrating a love for music, Frederic was enrolled as a student to Wojciech Żywny. Żywny soon realized Chopin’s gift as a child prodigy. At the age of seven, he composed two polonaises, as well as started publicly performing in concerts. (Chopin) Constantly gaining more and more fame, Chopin perfected his skills and was invited to perform at prestigious concerts and recitals for royalty and commoners alike. When he was 15, he was invited to play for Tsar Alexander I, and was given a diamond ring as a gift.

I have a friend, Matthew, who is a Wagnerian. For those of you who don't