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Wagner, The Art Of Life

Better Essays

Mark Duley
Instructor Jones
Music 150
12 November 2015
Wagner, the Art of Life May 22, 1813, Leipzig, Modern-Day Germany; a boy is born to a baker’s daughter and clerk. Unbeknownst to them, this boy would go on to challenge the very idea of musical, its relation to life, and its role as an art. Wagner will come into his age and our modern age defined as many things; racist, genius, poet, philosopher, politician, and musician. So what is Wagner, why should we care and how can someone who died before the turn of the 20th century have any impact on our lives? It really is quite the behemoth to tackle, trying to explain a man so indecipherably complicated as Wagner in a few pages is a daunting task for the best of us. But perhaps, just maybe, …show more content…

Wagner entered into a traditional pastoral school at the age of 7, there he would receive his first attention in the education of music. Wagner would receive proper instruction, only to realize that his learning capabilities were more attuned to learning by ear. At the age of 8 Geyer would die and a member of Geyer’s family would send Wagner to a school of classical education. Here Wagner would gain his first real taste of classical pieces of art, music, and literature, drawing inspiration from the likes of Goethe and Shakespeare. Until his time in university Wagner would go on to experience and absorb the works of Beethoven and Mozart, with great admiration. In adulthood, following his university education, Wagner would start to form bonds, connections, and ideals that would shape his life and music. Wagner would travel from Germany, after financial loss, to Russia, with his actress wife, he would then flee back to Dresden, ultimately to be exiled because of his, then, extreme left political involvement. Wagner’s years in exile would result in some of the most despairing moments of his life but would also prove to be some of his most explosive years of creation. During this dark stretch of time Wagner would work on some of his most important creations. Drawing from the likes of Schopenhauer Tristan und Isolde would be started, Der Ring des Nibelungen would be finished, and the famous Die Walküre would be completed. Wagner’s darkest moments would give the Western

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