Wagner (with CD-ROM)

Author: Liu Xuefeng / Country: Mainland China
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2005-12-01
Features: On May 22, 1813, Richard Wagner was born on Brühl Street in Leipzig. His father, Friedrich, was a junior police officer, educated, and an art enthusiast. He passed away six months after Wagner was born, and his friend—Ludwig Geyer, who possessed talents as an actor, painter, and poet—took over everything. When Wagner was just one year old, his mother married Geyer and the family moved to Dresden. As the son of an actor, Wagner was deeply fascinated by the fantasy world of the theater. He grew up under Geyer’s loving expectations, who promised to give him a good education. The premiere of Weber’s opera Der Freischütz in Dresden in June 1821 was a turning point in German musical history... This performance not only symbolized that the German music scene was no longer dominated by Italian composers like Rossini but also established true German romantic opera. Wagner was deeply captivated by the supernatural elements and emotional intensity of the music in Der Freischütz, leading him to worship Weber obsessively. To master Der Freischütz, he began to practice piano techniques diligently. Later, he admitted that Weber was indeed the first person to ignite his passion for music. In December 1822, Wagner entered the Kreuzschule in Dresden for his studies, where a rich classical literature education slightly cooled his overheated teenage imagination. There, he studied Greek and Latin, ancient Greek tragedies, and Shakespearean plays. The history of Greece and Homer’s epics still inspired him with a lasting enthusiasm for heroes, myths, and legends. When he graduated from Kreuzschule in 1827, he declared that he would “become a poet.” In 1827, Wagner’s family moved back to Leipzig, and he transferred to the city’s best Nikolai School. By his early teens, he began writing a five-act tragedy in the style of Shakespeare, titled Loyabaed, with a plot so bloody that by the end, there were no survivors. The impact of Beethoven’s death on the musical world made him Wagner’s new hero. From 1828 onwards, music became Wagner’s primary interest. He first taught himself composition by borrowing books from the library, then studied with a local musician, Gottlieb Müller, for several years. According to Wagner’s autobiography, a turning point in his life occurred in 1829. At that time, he heard the renowned soprano Wilhelmine Schr?der-Devrient perform Fidelio. He said, “Looking back at my life, I can find no other experience that had such a profound impact on me. That night, she made me swear that I would embark on the path that led to the man I am today.” On October 10, 1830, Wagner submitted a piano arrangement of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony to the publisher Franz Schott in Mainz, but it went unnoticed. That same year, he entered the Thomasschule and began studying the violin with Hipp. In the autumn of 1831, he began studying music under the choirmaster of the St. Thomas Church, Christian Friedrich Weinrich, who introduced him to the fundamentals of harmony and counterpoint, guiding his abundant musical talent onto the right path and benefiting him greatly. In 1832, Wagner’s formal musical education came to an end, and by then, he had already composed many works, including the C Major Symphony, which was heavily influenced by Mozart and Beethoven and premiered in Prague that year. P5-6