Richard Wagner and Opera Essay

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

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.

He developed the idea of Gesamtkunstwerk, or “total work of art”, which strived to bring music, poetry, visual and dramatic arts together. Wagner was a prolific writer as well as a composers. He made contribution to the practice of conducting as well.

This paper discusses Mozart's life, his compositions and his importance to the world and the world of music. It explains how Mozart's music is still some of the most popular classical music played today and his life is still studied because his music is so well known and liked.

Wolfgang’s life was profoundly impacted by the history of his time, it allowed him to compose, play and direct music and eventually live freely, ultimately setting the stage for him to create some of the best music pieces to date.

Franz Schubert composed the German Lieder, Gretchen Am Spinnrade, in 1814. This composition is one of Schubert’s pinnacle compositions, which introduced the world to the idea of the Romantic Lied, veering away from the already existing Classical Lied. Observing the form, rhythmic structure, key modulations and dynamics with relation to the text, Schubert paints a beautiful emotional drama for the listener allowing them to dive into the thoughts and emotions the woman, Gretchen, is experiencing while longing for her lover, Faust.

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.

At the age of nineteen, Schumann left Leipzig to attend Heidelberg. While there, he followed Franz Schubert’s style in composing waltz. Schumann practiced vigorously and thought often about abandoning law to become a virtuoso pianist (Par 4). His mother agrees with him and he returns to Leipzig in 1830 to study with Wieck (Par 4). Although Wieck was pleased with Schumann talents, he was concerned about the constancy and ability to demonstration hard work from Schumann.

Like other great musicians before him, Brahms moved to Vienna during the beginnings of his career in order to be at the center of music. Unlike other Romantic composers, Johannes still drew inspiration from Classical forms, sometimes twisting them to give them a new feel. Brahms music emanates rich emotion yet still utilizes advancements of the past, something many other Romantics failed to accomplish or did not even attempt. Also projecting from Brahms music are strong religious elements. One of his most renowned pieces, the German Requiem, is solely a religious piece, detailing man's hope of resurrection and the emptiness of life. Included in his arsenal as well was a talent for songwriting, another area in which his fame grew. Brahms wrote songs, composed symphonies, and transcribed piano and clarinet quartets. Brahms' skill encompassed a wide array of musical

He remained a clerk for three years. He hated his job but he worked feverishly at it for he worked hard at every task he was given. He continued to be drawn into the music world and he took piano and theory lessons. Finally, in 1862, he quit his job and devoted the rest of his life to music which he began by entering the St. Petersburg Conservatory. He graduated with a silver medal in 1865. After graduation he was unsure of what to do until 1866 when Nicholas Rubenstein offered him the job of professor of harmony at the newly formed Moscow Conservatory. It was here that he wrote his first serious works which included AA Festival Overture on the Danish National Hymn,@ his First Symphony in G AWinter Daydreams,@ and his first opera AThe Voyevode.@ Showing his desire for perfection he tore up the opera because he was dissatisfied with it and it wasn=t until 1949 that it was revived.5

As stated by Burkholder, Grout and Palisca, Weber’s Der Freischutz’s “rustic choruses, marches, dances and airs”; multisectional aria form (influence from Rossini) and florid vocal lines were all common characteristics of the Italian Opera. Meanwhile in Verdi’s Otello, Wagnerian influence could be seen. Verdi used melodic motives to show the characters’ emotions. In Act 4 scene 3, the orchestra was used to heighten the dramatic moment instead of the voice, which was a breakthrough in the history of Italian Opera. It is apparent that both Italians and Germans knew how to blend the musical elements and text well to demonstrate the Romantic traits in their opera.

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

Jean-Philippe Rameau, George Frederic Handel, and Christoph Willibald Gluck were the most significant opera composers of the first two-thirds of the 18th century. However, their works were surpassed by the brilliant operas of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. In the early 19th century, Gioacchino Rossini and Gaetano Donizetti dominated Italian opera. In the later 19th century the greatest works were those of Giuseppe Verdi and Richard Wagner. Wagner, with his bold innovations, became the most influential operatic figure since Monteverdi. Richard Strauss and Giacomo Puccini wrote the most popular late 19th- and early 20th-century operas. Though the death of Puccini in 1924 is often cited as the end of grand opera, new and often experimental works—by composers such as Alban Berg, Benjamin Britten, Gian Carlo Menotti, John Adams, and Philip Glass—continued to be produced to critical acclaim. Opera entered the 21st century as a vibrant and global art form.

Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, the Austrian wunderkind, was an accomplished and magnificently gifted musician. He is attributed with the composition of 22 operas in his 35-year life, but his most successful theatre work was his last. Die Zauberflöte, completed in 1791, was written specifically for the Theater auf der Wieden in Vienna. The theatre housed a troupe of actors led by Emmanuel Schikaneder, a versatile actor and writer who crafted the libretto of Zauberflöte and portrayed Papageno at its premiere. Zauberflöte was written in the singspiel operatic style; the libretto is in the vernacular – German – language, spoken dialogue is interspersed with recitative and aria, and there is a folk-like strophic style in the music. Schikaneder had

Before looking more closely at the composers’ works, they must be placed in their proper historical contexts. Bach was a great composer of the