Early Days
Richard Wagner was born in Leipzig on May 22nd, 1813, at a time when military engagements focused on Napoleon, who had retreated from Moscow and was seeking to control Prussia. As ninth child of Friedrich Wagner, life was precarious and insecure with the death of his father due to a typhoid epidemic when only 6 months old. This sense of insecurity would be carried forward with him throughout his life, to a greater or lesser degree. His mother soon married a close friend in the family, Ludwig Geyer, an actor within a prominent theatre company. This is perhaps what introduced Wagner to the performing arts. In addition, Ludwig Geyer was also an accomplished painter and would undertake portrait commissions during ‘gaps’ in stage productions. Despite his best intensions, Geyer could not interest Wagner in painting. Geyer succumbed to tuberculosis in September 1821 when Richard was 8 years old.
With the support of Geyer’s extended family, Richard Wagner was admirably cared for and experienced a mismatch of educational establishments. He was intrigued by musical performances and identified strongly with the work of Carl Maria von Weber, although he showed no ambition to perfect orthodox keyboard skills. As a late teenager, he immersed himself to the study of specific pieces of Beethoven, in particular his Ninth Symphony "Ode to Joy," but showed no in-depth application. As one of his teachers was later to remark, "He was quick to learn but idle and unwilling to practice. He was my worst pupil." Perhaps this is an indication not to be too hasty to assess the talents of young people.
Student Life
As a student of music in Leipzig in 1831, Wagner was very much one of the lads, engaging in frequent drinking sessions and managing to lose his mother’s pension at the gambling table before a stroke of luck allowed him to make good all his losses. He also escaped three sword duels in amazingly fortuitous circumstances. In 1832, he received tuition in composition from Theodor Weinlig who had studied at Bologna. This probably laid the foundations for the technical achievement for future complex operas. Around this time, he completed the operas Die Feen and Das Liebesverbot – the latter based on Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure, though there was little if any recognition of these items within the cultural environment of this time. His C major symphony of this period conveys, however, youthful expectation and anticipation.
In 1833, he was to move to Würzburg, where his brother Albert had been able to secure for him the post of chorus master. The experience gained in this role allowed him to be offered the directorship of the Magdeburg theatre company which he joined at the provincial town of Bad Lauchstädt and where he was to meet Minna Planer, the leading juvenile actress in the company. Returning to Magdeburg, he developed his skills as a conductor, demonstrating in the process unorthodox techniques.
La Vie Parisienne
Richard and Minna were to marry in 1836, but very soon this relationship proved problematic. A reconciliation was eventually reached. One side was the tension of Wagner’s spendthrift habits and on the other the exposure to Minnna of numerous admirers as a result of her stage role. After securing a position in Riga on the Baltic, he found time to devote to a new opera Rienzi and became re-united with his new wife. After being replaced in his position in Riga in 1839, Wagner sought his fortune in Paris, running the gauntlet of his growing number of creditors. After a hazardous crossing of the Russian/Prussian border, passage was obtained on a ship, the Thetis (mother of Achilles), heading for London. The experiences of storms encountered in the resulting sea voyage were later to become enshrined in the opera The Flying Dutchman - Der Fliegende Hollaner.
The artistic environment within Paris provided a mutual support system for fellow struggling artists but there was little interest in a young up-and-coming German composer. It was at this stage, however, that it became apparent to the more perceptive companions that Wagner had a very sound grasp of musical techniques and systems of orchestration and could quite readily separate his own vision of music from that of the current music establishment. A significant meeting during this period was with Frans Lizt – who years later would conduct the premier of Lohengrin while Wagner was in exile. Meanwhile, in Paris, schemes for producing work like Das Liebesverbot were to come to no avail. In the background, Wagner was completing Rienzi and proposing a-one act "Flying Dutchman."
His fortunes in Paris were at their lowest in the autumn of 1840, but some better news surfaced in March of 1841. Rienzi was to be produced at Dresden and the musical sketch based on The Flying Dutchman was sold to the Grand Opera in Paris. Later in the year he was able to complete the score of The Flying Dutchman in four months. He describes himself as being "quite delirious with joy" as music flows from his pen. This is a point where Wagner is aware of his "revolution against the contemporary world of art." He is now aware of his ability to convey new dimensions in music. Around this time Wagner became aware of the Tannhauser story.
Lohengrin Discovered
After leaving Paris in April 1842, Wagner romantically longed for the intellectual stimulation of the fair city. Dresden was in one of the poorer regions of Germany. The production of Rienzi in Dresden in October 1842 was an artistic success but still ran at a loss. This was in part due to the attention to details in the quality of the production. The whole fee that Wagner obtained for staging the opera was less than the cost of crafting a suit of silver armour for the production. This was to be a recurrent theme throughout Wagner’s artistic journey. The Flying Dutchman was also successfully premiered in Dresden in January 1843, in spite of the quality of the scenery and props. Subsequently, Tannhauser was to be premiered in October 1845 in front of an enthusiastic audience. This work contained many innovative musical constructs.
There had also been a parallel theme of awareness of the Lohengrin theme. In its fullest form, the Lohengrin story is treated in a German epic poem composed c.1285–1290 and ascribed to Wolfram von Eschenbach by its unknown author. Joseph von Görres, a scholar based in Heidelberg, edited the epic Lohengrin in 1813 (the year of Wagner’s birth) and it is likely that this is the version read by Wagner. Wagner, however, felt a certain artistic tension in confronting the Lohengrin legend and instead devised the plot of Die Meistersinger. The essential music for Lohengrin was composed between May 15 and July 30 1846 in the village of Gross-Graupa to the east of Dresden. The building where he composed the work is currently a Richard Wagner museum. The detail of the music, however, was completed in an unhurried fashion. There were interruptions, and with the detail being completed in the spring of 1848.
This period in time also marked the rising of political tensions in Europe, with the declaration of a republic in France in February 1848 and the rippling out of this effect across the continent. There was a broad republican movement within Germany to unite the various states such as Saxony, Bavaria, within a single German identity. The thinking in favour of this goal was the consideration that the various separate monarchies had restricted a broad range of freedoms in order to maintain control. Wagner tended to side with the republican viewpoint and was perhaps persuaded by the limitation and restrictions which he saw stifled artistic freedoms. A social revolution, he anticipated, would allow a new sense of artistic expression to be developed. Open conflict between a local militia and soldiers loyal to the local monarch broke out in Dresden, eventually forcing Wagner to flee for his life as a dangerous revolutionary. At one stage he would have been shot on sight as a dangerous revolutionary. Returning to Paris by way of Zurich, he remained there with no interest in performing his current works such as Rienzi and Tannhauser
The premier of Lohengrin was held at Weimer in August 1850, conducted by Frans Lizt. This did not seem to be a great success and could have been influenced by the difficult political climate of the times. Around this time, the structure of the operas of the Ring Cycle was being identified though this major work would not be completed till 1874.
Through the creation of the opera Lohengrin, Wagner had brought into the public consciousness the existence of subtle spiritual forces, embodied within the mystery of the Holy Grail. A conclusion with the Grail legend was reached with Parsifal, Wagner’s last completed opera. Later, Ludwig II of Bavaria would build his famed castle - Neuschwanstein – and embellish it with frequent swan motifs linking it with the Lohengrin ledgend together with many of the scenes from the operas of Wagner.
Douglas Clarkson - I have always had a keen interest in writing and find that the focus of writing about topics provides the necessary concentration to take ...
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