Sometimes people are born into the world who are destined to perpetuate their name in history. This is exactly what Wilhelm Richard Wagner was, one of the greatest composers of all times and peoples. His powerful works, making their way to the farthest corners of the soul, are still rattling in concert halls around the world. Deep, powerful, sometimes solemn, but always magical music of Wagner falls in love with himself from the very first audition.
The future composer’s love for music was influenced by his stepfather, who in every way contributed to the development of the stepson’s musical talent. The musical genius graduated from school at the age of thirteen. The period of age from 20 to 30 years of Wagner marked by great need – he could barely make ends meet, earning a living as a conductor and choirmaster. During this time he managed to live in Magdeburg, Konigsberg and Riga. At the age of 36, he participated in the uprising in Dresden. After the defeat of the rebels, Wagner fled to Switzerland. It was these events that prompted him to write the famous cycle “The Ring of the Nibelung.” Richard Wagner had a tremendous impact on opera, actually becoming his reformer.
He was married twice, and the second time to the daughter of the composer Franz Liszt, who left her husband and two children for his sake. When fame and fame came to him, Wagner was still a poor man. Fortunately for him, the King of Bavaria favored the talented composer — in fact, he supported him and paid all his debts. Wagner’s personality was ambiguous – for example, he was noted for a number of anti-Semitic speeches and publications, which caused a lot of scandals around him at one time. The famous composer Rimsky-Korsakov publicly criticized Wagner’s work.
Wagner’s phenomenal memory allowed him to conduct Beethoven’s works by heart. Once, this led to a funny story in London, where he was asked to play with a score. He complied, and after the concert, the listeners vied with one another to praise Wagner with the words “well, this is a completely different thing, not like by heart!” And then everyone saw that the score refers to another work, written in another language and generally lies on the music stand upside down. The aforementioned cycle “Ring of the Nibelung” lasts sixteen hours. Wagner wrote fourteen operas, not counting many other smaller works.
He sympathized with the ideas of Arthur Schopenhauer. While composing operas, the composer dressed in clothes corresponding to the time in which the action of the work created by him took place. His work Wagner considered primarily as a way to convey to the public his philosophical ideas. For the perfect sound of the “Ring of the Nibelung”, he built his own theater in the city of Bayreuth, considering that none of the already existing opera houses in the world can properly “sound”. Richard Wagner wrote many works on the history and theory of art. The great German composer died of a heart attack in Venice.
