Wagner and his world

by Charles Osborne

Wagner And His World, by Osborne, Charles This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0684148927
• ISBN13: 9780684148922
• Release Date: January 1977
• Publisher: C. Scribner's Sons
• Length: 128 Pages
• Weight: 1.23 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Nature's contrarian

Richard Wagner was born the same year as Giuseppe Verdi. He was an autodict. His use of language was imprecise. In 1836 he married Minna Planer. In Riga Wagner devoted himself to the compostion of RIENZI. On a trip to England, undertaken to evade creditors, Wagner had a vision of the Flying Dutchman. Traveling to Boulogne, Wagner used his letter of introduction to Meyerbeer. Meyerbeer in turn introduced Wagner to his friends in Paris. He met Heine and Berlioz. Berlioz believed that Wagner was intellectually lazy. In 1840 Wagner was imprisoned for debt. RIENZI was produced in Dresden. THE FLYING DUTCHMAN was Wagner's first real encounter with myth. It also had its premiere in Dresden. TANNHAUSER was finished in 1845. Before its completion Wagner began LOHENGRIN. By 1848 it was complete, having its first performance under Liszt in Weimar, 1850. In LOHENGRIN Wagner uses for the first time the device of leitmotif. Wagner's inconsistency of temperament was a creative component of his work. By 1852 the libretto of the Ring cycle operas had been written. TRISTAN UND ISOLDE was composed partly in Venice. Venice, then under Austrian control, expelled Wagner and he decamped to Lucerne. With the financial support of Otto Wesendonk, Wagner set himself up in Paris again. Reviews were hostile, attendance at performances of his work was poor. For failure to please the influential Jockey Club, there was an uproar at TANNHAUSER. At the time of the death of his first wife, Wagner was involved with Cosima von Bulow. Ludwig II of Bavaria became infatuated with Wagner. He sought to become the composer's protector. TRISTAN UND ISOLDE was given in 1865. Former friends and admirers felt that Wagner had become by then a monster of vanity. The opera had been written under the influence of Schopenhauer's philosophy. In TRISTAN the drama flows. In December 1865 Ludwig asked Wagner to leave the Kingdom of Bavaria, Munich, being concerned for his safety. He moved to Lake Lucerne, Triebschen. Ludwig paid the rent there. Ludwig identified with the hero of DIE MEISTERSINGER. In 1868 Wagner met Friedrich Nietzsche. From 1869 to 1871 Nietzsche was a constant visitor at Triebschen. DAS RHEINGOLD was produced in Munich, September, 1869. Wagner sought to sabotage the performance there being led by the inexperienced Hans Richter. DIE WALKURE was brought out the following June. The small Bavarian town of Bayreuth became the site of the special theater Wagner and Ludwig had planned earlier for the production of Wagner's works. The operas of the Ring Cycle have over two hundred leitmotifs. Arguably the message in them is delivered by the music alone. Tchaikovsky was among the distinguished guests assembled in Bayreuth in 1876. PARSIFAL was completed in 1882. In 1883 Wagner died in Cosima's arms in Venice. The illustrations are the meat of the book. Useful paraphernalia at the back include a chronology, bibliography, a tabl