Richard Wagner

[swaas]

(1813 - 1883)

Richard Wagner was one of the most revolutionary figures
in the history of music, a composer who made pivotal
contributions to the development of harmony and musical
drama that reverberate even today.

Indeed, though Wagner occasionally produced successful
music written on a relatively modest scale, opera —
the bigger, the better — was clearly his milieu, and
his aesthetic is perhaps the most grandiose that Western
music has ever known.

Early in his career, Wagner learned both the elements
and the practical, political realities of his craft by writing
a handful of operas which were unenthusiastically,
even angrily, received.

Beginning with Rienzi (1838-40) and The Flying Dutchman (1841),
however, he enjoyed a string of successes that propelled
him to immortality and changed the face of music.

His monumental Ring cycle of four operas — Das Rheingold
(1853-54), Die Walkure (1854-56), Siegfried (1856-71)
and Gotterdammerung (1869-74) — remains the most
ambitious and influential contribution by any composer
to the opera literature.

Tristan and Isolde (1857-59) is perhaps the most
representative example of Wagner's musical style, which
is characterized by a high degree of chromaticism,
a restless, searching tonal instability, lush harmonies,
and the association of specific musical elements
(known as leitmotifs, the flexible manipulation
of which is one of the glories of Wagner's music) with
certain characters and plot points.

Wagner wrote text as well as music for all his operas,
which he preferred to call "music dramas."


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Comments

[pashka-broner.livejournal.com]

Эк тебя, право, разобрало.
Хотя...
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