Wilhelm Richard Wagner, born on May 22, 1813 in Leipzig, Kingdom of Saxony, is a German composer and a famous romantic music master.

He is an important master in the history of German opera. The former inherited the opera tradition of Mozart, and the latter started the trend of post-romantic opera composition, followed closely by Richard Strauss. At the same time, because of the complexity of his political and religious thoughts, he became the most controversial figure in the history of European music. Basic introduction Chinese name: Wilhelm Richard Wagner Foreign name: Wilhelm Richard Wagner Nationality: German Ethnicity: Germanic Birthplace: Leipzig, Kingdom of Saxony Date of birth: May 22, 1813 Date of death: February 1883 13th Occupation: Composer Graduate School: University of Leipzig Major Achievements: A figure who connected the past and the future in the history of German opera pushed romantic opera to its peak Representative works: "Tristan and Isolde", "Rienzi" and "Floating Holland" "Man", "Tanh?user", "Lohengrin", "Ring of the Nibelung" Place of death: Venice, Kingdom of Italy Category: Romantic characters' lives, major works, character evaluation, character's life Wagner May 22, 1813 He was born in a family of petty officials in Leipzig. Six months after he was born, his father, who worked as a police officer, passed away. In his childhood, he loved literature, drama and painting. In 1831, he studied philosophy and composition theory at the University of Leipzig. His mother soon remarried an actor and playwright. Soon the family moved to Dresden where the stepfather worked. Under the care of his stepfather, Wagner received his initial artistic influence. He was very interested in drama and music. In 1827, the family moved back to Leipzig. At the Gewandhaus Theater in Leipzig, he heard Beethoven's Ninth Symphony for the first time and was deeply moved. In 1831, he entered the University of Leipzig to study composition. A year later, he composed the Beethoven-style "Symphony in C Major". Wagner in his youth In 1832, introduced by his brother, he went to Würzburg as a choral conductor. That same year he composed his first full-length opera, Le Sylphide. Afterwards, he served as music conductor in Magdeburg and K?nigsberg. Since 1833, he has served as conductor and music director in opera houses in some small and medium-sized cities. Rich performance practice played a positive role in the formation of his opera creation and opera reform ideas. She got married for the first time in 1836, and the following year she went to Riga, Russia, to serve as music conductor of an opera house. In 1839, due to debts, he fled to London by ship. Spent 1840-1841 in Paris. In 1842, he returned to Dresden, Germany, and served as conductor of the court orchestra of the Kingdom of Saxony. In 1842, his opera "Rienzi" was successfully staged at the Dresden Opera House, and he was appointed conductor of the theater. Later, influenced by Bakunin, he participated in the bourgeois revolution. After the defeat, he went into exile in Switzerland, turned to compromise, and believed in Schopenhauer's pessimistic philosophy. In 1849, he participated in the May Uprising in Dresden. After the failure, he was wanted and spent the next 12 years in exile in Paris and other places. While in Paris, he met Liszt and later married Liszt's daughter Cosima. After the wanted order was lifted in 1861, he returned to Germany and lived in the town of Brich in Wiesbaden. In 1864, he returned to Munich at the call of King Ludwig II of Bavaria. In the 1870s, in order to practice his ideas of opera reform, he built his own opera house in Bayreuth and staged his operas such as "The Ring of the Nibelung". His operas include "The Flying Dutchman", "Tanh?user", "Lohengrin", "Master of Songs", "Parsifal", etc. It is advocated that opera reform should take Fuzhou as the theme, drama and music must form an organic whole, and symphonic development should be the main means of dramatic expression. He used the dominant motivation technique of uninterrupted musical structure, chromatic harmony system and orchestration effects to enrich the artistic expression of opera and had a profound influence on the development of professional music in Europe. Started in 1865, it was sponsored by King Ludwig II of Bavaria. On February 13, 1883, while traveling to Venice to escape the cold, he died of myocardial infarction in the Vendelamin Palace in Venice. Wagner's son Siegfried Wagner was also a composer. Death After 1879, Wagner spent four consecutive winters in Italy due to his health.

In the spring of 1881, Wagner went to Berlin to participate in the performance of "Twilight of the Gods". Amidst the cheers, he suddenly turned pale and hurriedly retreated into the lounge. Waves of severe heart pain threatened his life. Wagner survived, but his health declined. In 1882, Wagner returned to Bayreuth, where he attended the premiere of "Parsifal" and conducted the final performance in person. Afterwards, Wagner returned to Venice to recuperate, but eventually suffered a recurrence of heart disease and failed to treat. He died in Venice on February 13, 1883. Wagner's body was transported to Bayreuth via Munich. At two o'clock in the afternoon on February 16, the special train carrying Wagner and his family left Munich. Countless people gathered at every station along the way to pray silently. At night, at the Munich station, there were thousands of Wagner admirers waiting with torches in their hands. When the car drove out of the station, hundreds of hanging flags hung down. Play the funeral march from Wagner's masterpiece "Twilight of the Gods". When the train arrived in Bayreuth, a huge cry filled the station. Black hanging flags were tied in front of every house, and street lamps were wrapped in cloth. A huge funeral procession passed slowly through the streets. News of Wagner's death quickly spread around the world, and condolences flew in from all directions. Verdi was extremely sad after learning the bad news. He wrote in a letter to a friend: "Sad! Sad! Sad! Wagner is dead!!! The big man has disappeared, the name that left great traces in the history of culture! ! ” The sculptor Oxda used plaster to engrave the remains of the deceased. Wagner's wife Cosima suffered a heart attack, so she cut off a lock of blond hair and placed it in the coffin to accompany her husband forever. Major works Die Feen (1833-34, first performed in 1888) Forbidden Love (Das Liebesverbot oder Die Novize von Palermo 1834-36, first performed in 1836) Rienzi (der Letzte der Tribunen 1837-40, First performed in 1842) Der Fliegende Hollaender (1843) Tannhaeuser (1845) Lohengrin (1850) Tristan und Isolde (1865) Meistersinger of Nuremberg (Die Meistersinger Von Nürnberg, 1868) Der Ring des Nibelungen (1876) Das Rheingold (1854) Die Walküre (1856) Siegfried (1871) Various Twilight of the Gods (Goetterdaemmerung, 1874) Parsifal (1882) Orchestral arrangement of Gluck's opera "Iphigenia in Tauride" Overture Re-orchestration C major Symphony Faust Overture 5 pieces by Weisendonk What is worth mentioning in the evaluation of song characters is Wagner's worship of women in his musicals. For many years, Wagner had believed in women as possessing both redemptive and destructive qualities. This contradiction makes the female images he creates usually complex, heroic sopranos with great pain. It is reflected in his musicals, such as Elizabeth in "Tanh?user", Isolde in "Tristan and Isolde", and through the love in "The Ring of the Nibelung". Brünnhilde, who devotes her life to saving mankind, and the allegorical female Condry in "Parsifal". Wagner's musical techniques and theater concepts have deeply influenced various arts in the twentieth century. In particular, film art was most inspired by Wagner. It is worth mentioning that Israel has always had an informal ban on Wagner's anti-Semitic ideas and the Nazis. Wagner's works have never been performed in Israel, but this has been slightly relaxed in recent years. Richard Wagner In the era when Wagner lived, Germans generally believed that the German language was not elegant enough. Italian and French operas were popular inside and outside the court, focusing on the magnificence of musical techniques and ignoring the content of the drama. Wagner put forward the slogan of "musical drama", advocated the creation of operas with equal emphasis on music and drama, suggested that the composer personally participate in the creation of the script, and believed that the themes of operas should only be suitable for musical treatment.

He elevated the status of the orchestra, which had previously only appeared in the prelude or overture, to the extreme, making it the unifying pillar of the entire play. Another obvious reform lies in the dominant motives in his musicals. In fact, no matter in the past or modern times, composers will use dominant motives in their works. But Wagner was different from them. He systematically used dominant motives and combined several dominant motives through polyphony. It can be said that the web of dominant motives created by the extremely concentrated plot covers the entire play, making the perfect combination of written language and musical language a precise and simple subtext. In addition, there are almost no parts in his musicals. The use of brass is more free and flexible. The emotional meaning is expressed by the band through melody and harmony. The vocal parts float on the surface of the orchestral flow, announcing There is no clear distinction between aria and aria. Wagner's opera reform mainly began with "Tristan und Isolde". The performance of this opera in Munich in 1865 marked the beginning of a new dialect in the musical language of the Western world and the beginning of the disintegration of the tonal system. . From then on, "Wagnerian style" became synonymous with "advanced" and unconventional in opera or in music in general. In order to realize his ideals of opera reform and present it to the world, Wagner specially organized the Bayreuth Music Festival to perform his works. This music festival has always attracted the attention of music lovers from all over the world. It is said that Hitler once asked someone to perform Wagner's works specially for him in Bayreuth. At that time, he was moved to tears and wished he could hold hands and talk with this genius of the last century. Many people want to mention his thoughts while listening to Wagner's music. It is undeniable that the personality and thoughts of musicians have a great influence on their creative works. In his youth, Wagner's thoughts mainly tended to be "German". He was influenced by Feuerbach and Bakunin, wrote many fanatical and radical articles, and even participated in the Dresden revolution. After the failure of the European bourgeois revolution in 1848, Wagner gradually accepted Schopenhauer's pessimism, Nietzsche's supermanism and other ideas, and later Arthur de Gobineau's Aryan racism theory. In his later years, Wagner was also influenced by religious mystical thoughts. Wagner and Nietzsche were close friends, and their friendship lasted for ten years. When Nietzsche's relationship with Schopenhauer broke down, and because Wagner was still a disciple of Schopenhauer, Nietzsche's friendship with him naturally broke off. On January 3, 1878, Wagner presented "Parsifal" to Nietzsche. Nietzsche wrote his last letter to Wagner and gave him his new book "Human Nature, All Too Human" in return. In 1888, Nietzsche wrote "The Wagner Affair" and "Nietzsche Against Wagner" to formally express his views on this former friend. King Ludwig II of Bavaria has always been Wagner's most important supporter and protector, and many of Wagner's works are dedicated to him. Ludwig II was also a fervent admirer of Wagner. He built the palace Neuschwanstein Castle with the content of Wagner's opera as the theme. Inside, there is a golden statue of Siegfried slaying the dragon, a tapestry depicting the story of "Tristan and Isolde", and "Soup". He planned to dedicate the castle as a gift to Wagner and use it as the background of the opera "Parsifal". He financed Wagner's construction of the Bayreuth Festival Theater and attended the opening performance as a guest of honor. Artistic Achievements ① Completely reformed traditional opera. In the reform, he implemented the methods of "overall artistic concept", "endless melody" and "leading motivation", and emphasized that drama comes first and music comes second. He insisted that music must obey the principle of creation based on the content of drama. After the reform, The opera is called Das Musikdrama. ② He created epoch-making classic musicals such as "The Ring of the Nibelungs" and "Tristan and Isolde", which brought the development of romantic opera to its peak. ③ The composition of the orchestra in the opera is expanded (three pipes or four pipes), the expressive power of the band is strengthened, and the traditional opera method of treating the orchestra as a "giant guitar" with vocal accompaniment is changed. He captured the performance characteristics of the band and elaborated on the dramatic content through the use of "leading motives", making the band an effective tool to express the plot content. ④ Established chromatic harmony, downplayed mode and tonality, and created "Tristan" ***, which had an important impact on the concept of music in the 20th century.