Richard Wagner, Composer of Operas

For those who have ears, eyes and understanding _Tristan and Isolda_ is Wagner's most perfect work, is the finest opera in the world. Unluckily there are in the world far too ma...

The next period of Wagner's life, from the date of finishing _Tristan_, 1859, till King Ludwig sent for him, 1864, was stormy. The struggles and endless disappointments made of...

The journey to Zurich was a risky one. Wagner, the composer of what is now the most popular of all operas, _Lohengrin_, might indeed pass unnoticed, for the work had not been he...

Were _Rienzi_ an opera of the highest artistic importance, I suppose I should have read ere now Bulwer Lytton's novel of that name. As it is, I must confess my utter inability t...

The _Rhinegold_ suffers from a plethora of undeveloped themes, some of which are treated at length as the _Ring_ proceeds. Of all announced only two remain unchanged, the Valhal...

Wagner alternated between what we may call the worldly--the sensual or animal, or love of outward show--and the magical, mystical or religious. After _Die Feen_, a story of magi...

_Lohengrin_ was first drafted in 1845--for Wagner during this period allowed no grass to grow under his feet. He was a member of a coterie that met at Angell's restaurant, and t...

In the second half of the eighteenth century some enthusiasts at Leipzig had founded a series of concerts, with a very small orchestra, which were given in "Apel's house"; in 17...

In a letter to Liszt Wagner says he would not have undertaken the toil of completing so gigantic a work as the _Ring_ but for his love of Siegfried, his ideal of manhood. It is...

After Wagner had completed the _Ring_, a work which, in regard to its gigantic size and proportions, stands without a parallel in music, he was an exhausted and beaten man. Outw...

The late Sir Charles Hallé, probably retailing a story he had heard, relates in his reminiscences that when Heine heard of a young German musician coming from Russia to Paris to...

In the case of few artists is there an account of the creation of their works worth serious consideration. In the colloquial as well as the true sense of the word they are apt t...

As the springtide of 1813 was melting into early summer the poet and musician of spring days and summer nights was born at the house of the Red and White Lion on the Brühl in ol...

When Wagner left Paris on the proceeds of some work for Schlesinger which still remained to be done, he had learnt three lessons. The first, that it was foolish for an unknown m...

So far all we can learn about Wagner that is worth knowing amounts to this: he was born into and passed his first years in the precincts of Bohemia, where the Bohemian atmospher...

In resuming Wagner's biography we may conveniently take it up after the completion of _Tristan_ in August, 1859. I summarised the events leading up to his beginning on the _Mast...

With the exception of _Die Feen_, nothing composed by Wagner prior to _Rienzi_ calls for serious attention, nor would receive any attention whatever were not the author's name W...

This, the last of Wagner's really great works, was composed in hot haste for the first Bayreuth festival. True, the festival did not take place until some time after its complet...