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List Of Prose Works By Richard Wagner
This is a list of mostly prose works by the German composer Richard Wagner. In addition to writing operas, Wagner was a prolific essayist. Wagner began compiling his prose and poetry in the 1860s, going on to publish them in ten volumes as the ''Gesammelte Schriften und Dichtungen (GS&D, Collected Writings and Poems).'' The first edition was published in Leipzig by Fritzsch, Wagner's main publisher, between 1871 and 1883. The ''Collected Writings and Poems'' includes essays, theoretical treatises, poems, published letters, and opera libretti, reflecting Wagner's thoughts on music, art, politics, religion, and philosophy. The list has been structured and named according to the conventions of William Ashton Ellis, who first translated and published the complete prose works in English in eight volumes between 1892 and 1907. The libretti (poems) of Wagner's completed stage works are not included. Sources External links Richard Wagner's Prose Worksat the International Music Sco ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Richard Wagner
Wilhelm Richard Wagner ( ; ; 22 May 181313 February 1883) was a German composer, theatre director, essayist, and conductor who is chiefly known for his operas (or, as some of his mature works were later known, "music dramas"). Unlike most opera composers, Wagner wrote both the libretto and the music for each of his stage works. Initially establishing his reputation as a composer of works in the romantic vein of Carl Maria von Weber and Giacomo Meyerbeer, Wagner revolutionised opera through his concept of the ''Gesamtkunstwerk'' ("total work of art"), whereby he sought to synthesise the poetic, visual, musical and dramatic arts, with music subsidiary to drama. The drama was to be presented as a continuously sung narrative, without conventional operatic structures like Aria, arias and Recitative, recitatives. He described this vision in a List of prose works by Richard Wagner, series of essays published between 1849 and 1852. Wagner realised these ideas most fully in the first ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Leipzig
Leipzig (, ; ; Upper Saxon: ; ) is the most populous city in the States of Germany, German state of Saxony. The city has a population of 628,718 inhabitants as of 2023. It is the List of cities in Germany by population, eighth-largest city in Germany and is part of the Central German Metropolitan Region. The name of the city is usually interpreted as a Slavic term meaning ''place of linden trees'', in line with many other Slavic placenames in the region. Leipzig is located about southwest of Berlin, in the southernmost part of the North German Plain (the Leipzig Bay), at the confluence of the White Elster and its tributaries Pleiße and Parthe. The Leipzig Riverside Forest, Europe's largest intra-city riparian forest, has developed along these rivers. Leipzig is at the centre of Neuseenland (''new lake district''). This district has Bodies of water in Leipzig, several artificial lakes created from former lignite Open-pit_mining, open-pit mines. Leipzig has been a trade city s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Ashton Ellis
William Ashton Ellis (20 August 1852 – 2 January 1919) was an English doctor and theosophist. He is remembered for translating the complete prose works of Richard Wagner. Life Born in London, the son of the surgeon Robert Ellis (1823–1877), he was originally intended to follow a medical career. His interest in theosophy (he was personally acquainted with Madame Blavatsky) and his devotion to the music of Wagner combined in 1887 to lead him to resign his job as a medical officer, and to become the editor of the journal of the London Wagner Society, "The Meister". Ellis wrote that Wagner's music and ideas would free mankind "from the tightening grip of crushing scientific materialism" of his era: "at no time adthere been such a widespread desire to search all things, and to bring forth some of the hidden secrets of that which is above and beyond matter." Ellis's own articles in "The Meister" included reviews of material by other writers on Wagner, (including the biography by H ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
List Of Works For The Stage By Richard Wagner
Richard Wagner's works for the stage, representing more than 50 years of creative life, comprise his 13 completed operas and a similar number of failed or abandoned projects. His first effort, begun when he was 13, was a prose drama, '' Leubald'', but thereafter all his works were conceived as some form of musical drama. It has been suggested that Wagner's wish to add incidental music to ''Leubald'', in the manner of Beethoven's treatment of Goethe's drama '' Egmont'', may have been the initial stimulus that directed him to musical composition. Wagner's musical education began in 1828, and a year later he was producing his earliest compositions, writing words and music, since lost, for his first opera attempt, '' Die Laune des Verliebten''. During the subsequent decade he began several more opera projects, none of which was successful although two were completed and one was staged professionally. His first commercial success came in 1842 with ''Rienzi'', by which time he had compl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Autobiographic Sketch (Wagner)
Richard Wagner's "Autobiographic Sketch" (in the original German, ''Autobiographische Skizze'') was written in 1842. It is the composer's earliest autobiographical account. Background Wagner wrote the "Autobiographic Sketch" following his unsuccessful years in Paris (1839–42) at the request of Heinrich Laube, the editor of the magazine ''Zeitung für die Elegante Welt'' (''Journal for Elegant Society''). Wagner submitted it literally as a sketch – the sentences are short and the grammar far less convoluted than his normal writing style – expecting that Laube would expand it. However, Laube published it (in 1843) just as it was, commenting The storm and stress of Paris have turned the Musician into a Writer. I should only spoil the life-sketch, did I attempt to alter a word of it Contents In the first pages, Wagner gives a breezy and self-deprecating account of his early life and ambitions. At the age of 21 he hears for the first time the singer Wilhelmine Schröder-Devrie ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Art And Revolution
"Art and Revolution" (original German title "") is a long essay by the composer Richard Wagner, originally published in 1849. It sets out some of his basic ideas about the role of art in society and the nature of opera. Background Wagner had been an enthusiast for the revolutions of 1848 and had been an active participant in the Dresden Revolution of 1849, as a consequence of which he was forced to live for many years in exile from Germany. "Art and Revolution" was one of a group of polemical articles he published in exile. His enthusiasm for such writing at this stage of his career is in part explained by his inability, in exile, to have his operas produced. But it was also an opportunity for him to express and justify his deep-seated concerns about the true nature of opera as music drama at a time when he was beginning to write his libretti for his Ring cycle, and turning his thoughts to the type of music it would require. This was quite different from the music of popular grand ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Artwork Of The Future
"The Artwork of the Future" () is a long essay written by Richard Wagner, first published in 1849 in Leipzig, in which he sets out some of his ideals on the topics of art in general and music drama in particular. Background The essay is one of a series which Wagner produced in a period of intensive writing following his exile after the Dresden May uprising of 1849. It follows " Art and Revolution" and precedes " Jewishness in Music", developing the ideas of the one and prefiguring some of the issues of the other. Wagner wrote the whole essay over about two months in Zürich. He wrote to his friend Uhlig in November 1849, 'This will be the last of my literary works'. On this, as on many other matters in his life, Wagner was to change his mind. The essay is dedicated to the philosopher Ludwig Feuerbach, whose works (perhaps particularly ''Principles of the Philosophy of the Future''), inspired some of its ideas. In September and October 1849, Wagner had read both Feuerbach's '' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Wieland Der Schmied (libretto)
''Wieland der Schmied'' (, "Wieland the Smith") is a draft by Richard Wagner for an opera libretto based on the Germanic legend of Wayland Smith. It is listed in the Wagner-Werk-Verzeichnis as WWV82. Background Wagner was motivated by his enthusiasm for the ''Romeo and Juliet'' symphony of Hector Berlioz to create a libretto which might serve for a production at the Paris Opéra, with music perhaps to be written by Berlioz or by himself. The draft, which is mostly in prose, was written between December 1849 and March 1850. It was published as an appendix to Wagner's essay '' The Art-Work of the Future'' as an example of the ideals to which such art-works should aspire - "a glorious Saga which long ago the raw, uncultured Folk of old-time Germany indited for no other reason than that of inner, free, Necessity". The libretto contains many elements which are found in other of Wagner's operas (a swan, a wound, a spear, a ring, smithying, an absent mysterious father, a forbidden quest ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
A Communication To My Friends
"Eine Mitteilung an meine Freunde", usually referred to in English by its translated title (from German) of "A Communication to My Friends", is an extensive autobiographical work by Richard Wagner, published in 1851, in which he sought to justify his innovative concepts on the future of opera in general, and his own proposed works in particular. Background "A Communication to my Friends" was written at a period which was turbulent even in the context of Wagner's very eventful life. Having been forced to flee Dresden, where he had been ''Kapellmeister'' at the Opera House, following his involvement with the May Uprising of 1849, he lived in exile, based in Zürich. He had no regular income and, although he had completed the score of his opera '' Lohengrin'', he had at first little prospect of getting it performed, or of furthering his career as a composer. During the period 1849–51 he in fact wrote hardly any music, instead concentrating on writing a series of essays in which he ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Opera And Drama
''Opera and Drama'' () is a book-length essay written by Richard Wagner in 1851 setting out his ideas on the ideal characteristics of opera as an art form. It belongs with other essays of the period in which Wagner attempted to explain and reconcile his political and artistic ideas, at a time when he was working on the libretti, and later the music, of his Ring cycle. Background As the longest of all of Wagner's literary works apart from his autobiography ''Mein Leben'' (376 pages long in its English translation), ''Opera and Drama'' is perhaps better described by the word 'treatise', as suggested by its translator W. Ashton Ellis. It follows from his earlier writings of the period 1849–50: more particularly " Art and Revolution" (1849), which sets out Wagner's ideals for an artwork that would be appropriate for his ideal society; " The Artwork of the Future" (1849), which sets out ideas for a music drama which would meet such ideals; and " Jewishness in Music" (1850), an a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Das Judenthum In Der Musik
"Das Judenthum in der Musik" (German for ''Judaism in Music'', but perhaps more accurately understood in contemporary language as ''Jewishness in Music''), is an antisemitic essay by composer Richard Wagner which criticizes the influence of Jews and their "essence" on European art music, arguing that they have not contributed to its development but have rather commodified and degraded it. It alleges that Jews infiltrated the music industry not through their artistic capabilities, but because of their control over financial resources. In particular it discusses the music of Jewish composers Felix Mendelssohn and Giacomo Meyerbeer, acknowledging its technical proficiency but criticizing it as lacking genuine artistic passion. According to Wagner, authentic art is rooted in immersion within the organic life of a culture, and Jews, indicated as being outsiders to this culture, are capable of only making artificial or superficial contributions. It was first published under a pseudonym ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Music Of The Future
"Music of the Future" ("") is the title of an essay by Richard Wagner, first published in French translation in 1860 as "La musique de l'avenir" and published in the original German in 1861. It was intended to introduce the librettos of Wagner's operas to a French audience at the time when he was hoping to launch in Paris a production of ''Tannhäuser'', and sets out a number of his desiderata for true opera, including the need for 'endless melody'. Wagner deliberately put the title in quotation marks to distance himself from the term; ''Zukunftsmusik'' had already been adopted, both by Wagner's enemies, in the 1850s, often as a deliberate misunderstanding of the ideas set out in Wagner's 1849 essay, ''The Artwork of the Future'', and by his supporters, notably Franz Liszt. Wagner's essay seeks to explain why the term is inadequate, or inappropriate, for his approach. Background Early use of the term, and its anti-Wagnerian overtones The earliest public use of the pejorative Germ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
