Nibelung

The Ring of the Nibelung, and two more—Tristan and Isolde and Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg. Wagner’s musical scores accumulated without hope of performance; Europe contained neither singers nor a theater capable of presenting them. But he soon found support and admi- ration of the young monarch Ludwig II of Bavaria, who commissioned Wagner to complete the Ring, and Wagner picked up where he had left off a number of years earlier. A theater was planned speci cally for the presentation of Wagner’s music dramas, which ultimately became the Festival Theater at Bayreuth (see illustration, p. 253). And he found a woman he considered his equal in will and courage—Cosima, the daughter of his old friend Liszt. She left her husband and children in order to join Wagner The Wagnerian gospel spread across Europe as a new art-religion. The Ring cycle was com- pleted in 1874, and the four dramas were presented to worshipful audiences at the rst Bay- reuth Festival two years later. At age seventy, Wagner undertook Parsifal (1877–82), a drama based on the legend of the Holy Grail. Wagner died shortly thereafter and was buried at Bayreuth. Major Works: 13 operas (music dramas), including Rienzi (1842), Der iegende Holländer (The Flying Dutchman, 1843), Tannhäuser (1845), Lohengrin (1850), Tristan und Isolde (1865), Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg (The Mastersingers of Nuremberg, 1868), and Parsifal (1882) • Cycle of music dramas: Der Ring des Nibelung (The Ring of the Nibelung), consisting…

The musical selection that I chose to listen to was the opening and finale of the third act in Die Walküre (The Valkyrie). Richard Wagner composed this piece in the mid 1850’s and made it part of The Ring of the Nibelung which was a series of four operas performed in four straight days. During the opening of The Valkyrie I listened to what is known as the Ride of the Valkyries. This piece’s leitmotif was very repetitive and had a high energy. In addition the range of the dynamics were…

Giacomo Puccini was an Italian composer who was widely regarded as one of the most significant exponents of the genre of operatic realism and one of the creators of some of the best-loved operas. Richard Wagner was a German-born composer known not only for his dramatic compositions, but it is said that his artistic philosophy extended and had an enormous influence on not only his contemporaries but to other genres such as painter, playwrights, and poets. It is said that few composers had such a…

story of the opera was changed from its original myth. In the original myth of Eurydike, Orpheus failed to rescue Eurydike and murdered at last; however, since this opera had to perform for the noble people, the writer of this opera, Ottavio Rinucci’ni, changed its finale to the happy ending. After the 17th century, opera started to spread out from Italia to the overall Europe. In this period, Mozart composed ‘Don Giovanni’ and ‘The Marriage of Figaro’ and Beethoven composed ‘Fidelio’, the only…

music should not be played publically because of its association to the Holocaust and the strong emotions that it solicits. The problem with trying to separate Wagner from politics is that Wagner himself associated his works with politics. In Cosima’s Diary entry on October the 17th 1882, she writes “. . . in the evening the third act of Siegfried, well played by Herr Rubinstein, pleases both him and us. "That is Gobineau music" Richard says as he comes in, "that is race. Where else will you…

most known composers in the world. Mozart’s most famous piece is called, “Eine Kleine Nachtmusik.” Which means, ‘A Little Night Music.” Beethoven’s most famous piece is called “Fur Elise.” Many people back then listened to it, people nowadays still listen to it. People even have it has ringtones or text tones on their phones. In the 1800’s, Louis Spohr, Franz Schubert, and Richard Wagner were only a few of the well known musicians. Spohr was known for his work, “Jessonda,” which is an opera.…