Richard Wagner Music Analysis

Johann Sebastian Bach (1685-1750) was unlike most other composers of his time. “He wrote music for the glory of God, and to satisfy his own burning curiosity, not for future fame.” During the 1700s, people knew him as a talented musician, not as a composer, as we do today. He never left his country to pursue bigger and better things. Bach was content as long as he could play music. Traditions were very important to him. He wanted to carry on the musical tradition of his family, and never opted to change the traditional ways of composing, as did most composers. Bach’s work is vast and unique.

When looking throughout the history of music, there is no name with a larger impact than Bach. Writing over 200 pieces throughout his 65 year life. Many people know the names of Mozart, Beethoven, and Brahms; but only a select few know the specifics about these land mark composers. “Most would say that Beethoven should have been named called ocean instead of brook” Bach in German. During this papers I will be giving a brief look into the life of one of the most prolific composer that ever lived.

Romantic music inspired two smaller movements: nationalistic music and music about legends. Richard Wagner (1813-1883) is a German composer who wrote many pieces on the basis of a story or myth. He revolutionized opera through creativity, discontent with musical formulas and his focus on drama.

Who is Richard Wagner? Who is John Williams? How did Richard Wagner influence John Williams? What is leitmotif and how did both of these men use the idea of leitmotif? In this paper I am going to talk about whom these men are and what advancements they brought to their era of composition.

The Classical and the 19th century Romantic Period were eras where many of the most famous composers and compositions that we know today were born. The Classical Period brought forth big name composers like Joseph Haydn, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, CP Bach, and Ludwig van Beethoven. The 19th century Romantic Period was characterized by composers like Franz Schubert, Felix Mendelssohn, Robert Schumann, and Edvard Grieg. But, what really were these artistic periods? What makes them different from each other? And how did the Classical Period inevitably end and influence the beginning of the Romantic Period? Here we will not only cite in depth research of both the Classical and the 19th Century Romantic Period, but also pull direct characteristics of the classical period from Beethoven’s “Zärtliche

Richard Wagner’s many musical innovations changed the course of music and compositional theory and make him one of the most—if not the most—influential composers of all time. Among Wagner’s changes were new ideas on harmony (i.e. the “Tristan” chord) and symphonies of scale. These changes would set the tone for the atonality and dissonance that would mark Modern classical music. Indeed, works such as Debussy’s Syrinx and Prelude to the Afternoon of a Faun extended these harmonic ambiguities, which allowed the music to revolve in a circular fashion seemingly without a destination. This was in sharp contrast to the Classical style, in which dissonance and musical instability were used to optimize the resolution. Concurrently, composers such as Bruckner and Mahler heeded Wagner’s symphonies of scale, extending melodies to create endlessly building sequences. Indeed, whereas Classical composer’s pieces were contained in volume and length, Bruckner’s and Mahler’s modern symphonies reached incredibly loud moments and lasted far longer than their pre-Wagnerian counterparts.

Wilhelm Richard Wagner was a renowned German opera composer who lived in the 1800s. Besides his extravagant operatic works, he dabbled in written essays with the most notable being his Judaism in Music published in 1850. Wagner’s essay made very clear his views on Jewish composers and performers in the German musical realm—he loathed them. His anti-Semitism is made blatantly clear in the very first paragraph, “It will not be a question, however, of saying something new, but of explaining that unconscious feeling which proclaims itself among the people as a rooted dislike of the Jewish nature.” While his ideology was not the first part of Wagner that Hitler took a liking to, it became a defining factor in Hitler’s perspective on society during the reign of the “Thousand Year Reich”.

In this essay, I will be discussing the music of Jewish composers who were unable to showcase their pieces, due to the massive animosity towards their race, despite having composed several outstanding pieces of music. Although they were persecuted severely during the Nazi era, they too contributed to the international music community. For many of the Jewish composers, the rise of the Nazi Party in Germany and Austria was an increasing danger to their safety in the country. They had to make difficult choices to survive –To stay in Germany and remain oppressed in their very own country, or to leave, and be detached from their own cultural roots forever.

Richard Wagner Who is the most important person in the music history? There is no one in this world that does not love music, doesn’t matter who they are and where they are, all the people on the Earth have at least one special song and one favorite genre of music. Most of the amateur listeners think that the most important person in music history is someone like Bach, Beethoven or Mozart. Music is about emotions or points of view that came to be spoken by either with our voice or our instruments.

A controversial topic in music history is the question: Should Brahms be considered a conservative or progressive composer? It is a difficult question to answer, with many different things to take into account. In this essay I will try and explore various points of view on this topic, with reference to musical examples, and then come to a conclusion with which argument I personally believe to be the truest of them all. Brahms was a composer at a time of great change in the world of music. He was at the tipping point at which the classical era was coming to an end and the romantic era was just beginning.

mark on the musical world. From Mozart, to Beethoven, to Chopin, to Brahms, each famous

Melody and rhythm for Wagner are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to art. Wagner believes that the art of the future needs to combine the three different forms of art, dance, tone, and poetry. He believes the previous attempts at combining them failed miserably. Wagner writes, "write symphonies with or without voices, write masses, oratorios- those sexless operatic embryos!-make songs without words, operas without texts; you produce nothing that has real life in it" (Wagner, 6).

Although my interests are numerous, my passions are very few. First and foremost, I have a passion for classical music. There is an indescribable sensation I feel when hearing Johann Pachelbel’s Gigue, “The Variations of The Canon,” preformed by the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. For three minutes and two-seconds, I was mesmerized and I realized why I persuaded my mother to buy me his CD. His music, in its grandeur and consonance is perfect, the climax of coloratura repertoire, hitting every F note with glorious precision as the forty piece orchestra projects their brilliant voice. The last movement of Beethoven’s “Pastorale” symphony overwhelms me with the simplicity of its majestic melody repeating itself through crescendos, building itself to toward a climax, only to resolve with a final electrifying current rendered by a solo French horn. However, the feeling composing this music lacks parallel. When I hum Mozart’s melodious lieder, I can hardly control my shivers, convinced Mozart wrote his famous song cycles especially form me. My love of classical music has been enriched, and has reached a point where it defines me, and its hold on me is unshakeable; to neglect it would be impossible.

Wilhelm Richard Wagner was one of the greatest opera writers of all time. He helped to take opera to a whole new level from even Verdi and Puccini. Some say that Wagner was very egotistic, however; “his extreme egotism rested on conviction, Wagner had the ability to do great things” (Colles 207). He was extraordinary at composing music as well as formulating words. He was not a prodigy however his musical skills surpassed many other composers from his time period.

In the course of the development of music, many great composers have contributed their brilliance towards the revolution of music. To be a great composer does not necessarily mean that they have reached a vast amount of fame. However, it means that their compositions have ingenuity and value. The melodies they have cleverly created have reached a point of worthiness in the world of music. For it is the sweet harmonies a composer creates that defines who he is. One of these gifted composers was Frederic Chopin, born on February 22, 1810 in Zelazowa Wola, Poland. Young Chopin was already composing by the age of eight and as his musical career developed he became known as a master of piano composition. Although he was often misunderstood