Opera
Wagner's operatic works are his primary artistic legacy.
Unlike other opera composers, who generally left the task of writing the libretto (the text and lyrics) to others, Wagner wrote his own libretti, which he referred to as "poems". Further, Wagner developed a compositional style in which the orchestra's role is equal to that of the singers. The orchestra's dramatic role, in the later operas, includes the use of leitmotifs, musical themes that can be interpreted as announcing specific characters, locales, and plot elements; their complex interweaving and evolution illuminates the progression of the drama. Ultimately he urged a new concept of opera often referred to as "music drama",(although he did not use or sanction this term himself)in which all musical poetic and dramatic elements were to be fused together—the
Gesamtkunstwerk.
Wagner's operas are typically characterized as belonging to three chronological periods.
Early stage (to 1842)
Wagner's first attempt at an opera, at the age of 17, was
Die Laune des Verliebten. This was abandoned at an early stage of composition, as was
Die Hochzeit (
The Wedding), on which Wagner worked in 1832. Wagner then completed
Die Feen (
The Fairies, 1833, unperformed in the composer's lifetime) and
Das Liebesverbot (
The Ban on Love, 1836, taken off after its first performance), before working on the aborted singspiel
Männerlist grösser als Frauenlist (Men's cunning greater than women's). This was followed by
Rienzi (1842), Wagner's first opera to be successfully staged. The compositional style of these early works was conventional—the relatively more sophisticated
Rienzi showing the clear influence of Meyerbeerean Grand Opera—and did not exhibit the innovations that would mark Wagner's place in musical history. Later in life, Wagner said that he did not consider these immature works to be part of his oeuvre, and none of them have ever been performed at the Wagnerian Bayreuth Festival. These works have been only rarely revived in the last hundred years, although the overture to
Rienzi is an occasional concert piece.
Middle stage (184351)
Wagner's middle stage output begins to show the deepening of his powers as a dramatist and composer. This period began with
Der fliegende Holländer (1843) (
The Flying Dutchman), followed by
Tannhäuser (1845) and
Lohengrin (1850). These three operas reinforced the reputation among the public in Germany and beyond that Wagner had begun to establish for himself with
Rienzi. However, during his exile following the 1849 May Uprising in Dresden he began to reconsider his entire concept of opera and eventually decided, as explained during a series of essays between 1849 and 1852, that these operas did not represent what he hoped to achieve. In his essay
A Communication to My Friends (1851), intended as a preface to the printed libretti of the
Dutchman,
Tannhäuser and
Lohengrin, Wagner (to the confusion of many of his friends, since at that time
Lohengrin had not even been staged) effectively disowned these operas and declared his intention to strike out in new directions.
I shall never write an Opera more. As I have no wish to invent an arbitrary title for my works, I will call them Dramas [...]
I propose to produce my myth in three complete dramas, preceded by a lengthy Prelude (Vorspiel). [...]
At a specially-appointed Festival, I propose, some future time, to produce those three Dramas with their Prelude, in the course of three days and a fore-evening. The object of this production I shall consider thoroughly attained, if I and my artistic comrades, the actual performers, shall within these four evenings succeed in artistically conveying my purpose to the true Emotional (not the Critical) Understanding of spectators who shall have gathered together expressly to learn it. [...]
Wagner later reconciled himself to the works of this period, though he reworked both
Dutchman and
Tannhäuser on several occasions. The three operas are the earliest works included into the Bayreuth canon, the list of mature operas which Cosima put on at the Bayreuth Festival after Wagner's death in accordance with his wishes. They continue to be regularly performed today and have been frequently recorded. They show increasing mastery in stagecraft, orchestration and atmosphere.
Late stage (18511882)
Starting the Ring
Main articles: Der Ring des Nibelungen, Composition of the music and Composition of the poemWagner's late dramas are considered his masterpieces.
Der Ring des Nibelungen, commonly referred to as the
Ring cycle, is a set of four operas based loosely on figures and elements of Germanic mythology...particularly from the later Norse mythology...notably the Old Norse
Poetic Edda and
Volsunga Saga, and the Middle High German
Nibelungenlied. They were also influenced by Wagner's concepts of ancient Greek drama, in which tetralogies were a component of Athenian festivals, and which he had amply discussed in his essay "Oper und Drama"
The first two components of the
Ring cycle were
Das Rheingold (
The Rhinegold) (completed 1869) and
Die Walküre (
The Valkyrie) (completed 1870). In
Das Rheingold, with its "relentlessly talky "realism" [and] the absence of lyrical "numbers" ", Wagner came very close to the pure musical ideals of his 184951 essays.
Die Walküre, with Siegmund's almost full-blown aria (
Winterstürme) in the first act, and the quasi-choral appearance of the Valkyries themselves, shows more 'operatic' traits, but has been assessed as "the music drama that most satisfactorily embodies the theoretical principles of "Oper und Drama". A thoroughgoing synthesis of poetry and music is achieved without any notable sacrifice in musical expression".
Tristan und Isolde and Die Meistersinger
While still composing the
Ring, (leaving the third
Ring opera
Siegfried uncompleted for the while), Wagner paused between 1857 and 1864 to compose the tragic love story
Tristan und Isolde and his only mature comedy
Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg (
The Mastersingers of Nuremberg), two works which are also part of the regular operatic canon.
Tristan und Isolde uses a story line deriving from the poem
Tristan und Isolt by the 13th century poet Gottfried von Strassburg. Wagner noted that "its allpervading tragedy [...] impressed me so deeply that I felt convinced it should stand out in bold relief, regardless of minor details." This impact, together with his discovery of the philosophy of Schopenhauer in October 1854, led Wagner to find himself in a "serious mood created by Schopenhauer, which was trying to find ecstatic expression. It was some such mood that inspired the conception of a Tristan und Isolde." Wagner half-parodied the powerful erotic atmosphere of the opera in a letter to Mathilde Wesendonck:
Child! This Tristan is turning into something terrible. This final act!!! I fear the opera will be banned [...] only mediocre performances can save me! Perfectly good ones will be bound to drive people mad.
The work was first performed in Munich on 10 June 1865, conducted by Hans von Bülow.
Tristan is often granted a special place in musical history. It has been described as "fifty years ahead of its time" because of its chromaticism, long-held discords, unusual orchestral colouring and harmony, and use of polyphony. Wagner himself felt that his musico-dramatical theories were most perfectly realised in this work with its use of "the art of transition" between dramatic elements and the balance achieved between vocal and orchestral lines.
Die Meistersinger was originally conceived by Wagner in 1845 as a sort of comic pendant to
Tannhäuser. It was first performed in Munich, again under the baton of Bülow, on 21 June 1868, its accessibility making it an immediate success. It is "a rich, perceptive music drama widely admired for its warm humanity"; but because of its strong German nationalist overtones, it is also held up by some as an example of Wagner's reactionary politics and antisemitism.
Completing the Ring
When Wagner returned, with the added experience of composing
Tristan and
Die Meistersinger, to write the music for the last act of
Siegfried and for
Götterdämmerung (
Twilight of the Gods), as the final part of the
Ring was eventually called, his style had changed once again to one more recognisable as 'operatic' (though thoroughly stamped with his own originality as a composer, and suffused with leitmotivs) than the aural world of
Rheingold and
Walküre. This was in part because the libretti of the four 'Ring' operas had been written in reverse order, so that the book for
Götterdämmerung was conceived more 'traditionally' than that of
Rheingold; still, the self-imposed strictures of the
Gesamtkunstwerk had become relaxed. As George Bernard Shaw sardonically (and slightly unfairly) noted,
- And now, O Nibelungen Spectator, pluck up; for all allegories come to an end somewhere[...] The rest of what you are going to see is opera, and nothing but opera. Before many bars have been played, Siegfried and the wakened Brynhild, newly become tenor and soprano, will sing a concerted cadenza; plunge on from that to a magnificent love duet[...]The work which follows, entitled Night Falls On The Gods [Shaw's translation of Götterdämmerung], is a thorough grand opera.
However, the differences are also because of Wagner's development as a composer during the period in which he composed
Tristan,
Meistersinger and also the Paris version of
Tannhäuser. From Act III of Siegfried onwards, the
Ring becomes chromatic, and both harmonically more complex and more developmental in its treatment of leitmotifs.
Having taken 26 years from the first draft of a libretto in 1848 until the completion of
Götterdämmerung in 1874, the
Ring represents in all about 15 hours of performance, the only undertaking of such size to be regularly represented on the world's stages.
Parsifal
Wagner's final opera,
Parsifal (1882), which was his only work written especially for his Festspielhaus in Bayreuth and which is described in the score as a "Bühnenweihfestspiel" (festival play for the consecration of the stage), has a storyline suggested by elements of the legend of the Holy Grail. It also however carries elements of Buddhist renunciation suggested by Wagner's readings of Schopenhauer. Wagner described it to Cosima as his "last card". The composer's treatment of Christianity in the opera, its eroticism, and its supposed relationship to ideas of German nationalism (and of antisemitism) have continued to render it controversial for non-musical reasons. However, musically it has been held to represent a continuing development of the composer's style , with "a diaphanous score of unearthly beauty and refinement".
Non-operatic music
Apart from his operas, Wagner composed relatively few pieces of music. These include a single symphony (written at the age of 19), a Faust Overture (the only completed part of an intended symphony on the subject), and some overtures, choral and piano pieces. His most commonly performed work not drawn from an opera is the
Siegfried Idyll, a piece for chamber orchestra written for the birthday of his second wife, Cosima. The
Idyll draws on several motifs from the
Ring cycle, though it is not part of the
Ring. Also performed are the
Wesendonck Lieder for voice and piano, properly known as
Five Songs for a Female Voice, which were composed for Mathilde Wesendonck while Wagner was working on
Tristan. An oddity is the
American Centennial March of 1876, commissioned by the city of Philadelphia (on the recommendation of conductor Theodore Thomas, who was subsequently very disappointed with the work when it arrived) for the opening of the Centennial Exposition, for which Wagner was paid $5,000.
The rarely performed
Das Liebesmahl der Apostel (
The Love Feast of the Apostles) is a piece for male choruses and orchestra, composed in 1843. Wagner, who had been elected at the beginning of the year to the committee of a cultural association in the city of Dresden, received a commission to evoke the theme of Pentecost. The premiere took place at the Dresdner Frauenkirche on 6 July 1843, and was performed by around a hundred musicians and almost 1,200 singers. The concert was very well received.
After completing
Parsifal, Wagner expressed an intention to turn to the writing of symphonies. However, no sketches for such works have survived, if indeed they were undertaken.
The overtures and orchestral passages from Wagner's middle and late-stage operas are commonly played as concert pieces. For most of these, Wagner wrote short passages to conclude the excerpt so that it does not end abruptly. Another familiar extract is the "Bridal Chorus" from
Lohengrin, frequently played as the bride's processional wedding march in English-speaking countries.
Writings
Wagner was an extremely prolific writer, authoring hundreds of books, poems, and articles, as well as voluminous correspondence, throughout his life. His writings covered a wide range of topics, including politics, philosophy, and detailed analyses of his own operas. Essays of note include "Art and Revolution" (1849), "Opera and Drama" (1851), an essay on the theory of opera, and "Das Judenthum in der Musik" ("Jewishness in Music", 1850), a polemic directed against Jewish composers in general, and Giacomo Meyerbeer in particular. He also wrote various autobiographical works, including "My Life" (1880).In his later years Wagner became a vociferous opponent of experimentation on animals and in 1879 he published an open letter, "Against Vivisection", in support of the animal rights activist Ernst von Weber.
There have been several editions of Wagner's writings, including a centennial edition in German edited by Dieter Borchmeyer (which however omitted the essay "Das Judenthum in der Musik") The English translations of Wagner's prose in 8 volumes by W. Ashton Ellis, (189299), are still in print and commonly used, despite their deficiencies. A complete edition of Wagner's correspondence, (estimated to amount to between 10,000 and 12,000 surviving items), of which the first volume appeared in 1967, is still under way.