Opera Music Composer RICHARD WAGNER Bayreuth Festival ~ 1894 Photogravure Print

Description: WAGNER AND HIS FRIENDS BY WILHELM BECKMANN A HIGH QUALITY PHOTOGRAVURE BOOKPLATE FROM THE 1890'S!! PERFECT FOR FRAMING AS AN ART PRINT FOR YOUR DEN !! VERY ANTIQUE & OLD WORLD LOOKING. ITEM(s) OVER 100 YEARS OLD!! Richard Wagner (1813-83) was a German composer, b. Leipzig. Wagner was reared in a theatrical family, had a classical education, and began composing at 17. He studied harmony and the works of Beethoven and in 1833 became chorus master of the theater at Würzburg, the first of a series of theatrical positions. Die Feen (composed 1833), his first opera, was in the German romantic tradition begun by Weber; Das Liebesverbot (1835-36) demonstrated his assimilation of the Italian style. In Paris he completed Rienzi (1838-40) but was unable to have it performed there. Its production in Dresden in 1842 was highly successful, and in 1843 Wagner was made musical director of the Dresden theater. Der Fliegende Holländer (1841) was less successful. It was based on Heine's version of the legend of the Flying Dutchman, a legendary phantom ship, and it foreshadows the idea, developed in Tannhäuser (1843-44) and prevalent in later works, of redemption by love. Tannhäuser, based in part on the actual life of Tannhäuser, and Lohengrin (1846-48) brought the German romantic opera to culmination. In Lohengrin, Wagner for the first time is more interested in his characters as symbols than as actual personages in a drama. Wagner participated in the Revolution of 1848, fled Dresden, and with the help of Liszt escaped to Switzerland, where he stayed eight years. There he wrote essays, including Oper und Drama (1851), in which he began to articulate aesthetic principles that would guide his subsequent work. Der Ring des Nibelungen (1853-74), his tetralogy based on the Nibelungenlied (see under Nibelungen), embodies the most complete adherence to his stated principles. In 1857, having completed the composition of the first two works of the cycle, Das Rheingold (1853-54) and Die Walküre (1854-56), and two acts of Siegfried (1856-69), Wagner laid the Ring aside without hope of ever seeing it performed and composed Tristan und Isolde (1857-59) and Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg (1862-67), his only comic opera. Tristan, based on the legend of Tristram and Isolde, was so utterly in opposition to the operatic conventions of the day that it required the intercession and support of Louis II of Bavaria to have it produced (1865) in Munich. In 1872 Wagner moved to Bayreuth, where in 1874 he completed the third act of Siegfried and all of Götterdämmerung, the last work of the Ring cycle. There he was able to build a theater, Das Festspielhaus, adequate for the proper performance of his works, in which the complete Ring was presented in 1876. At Bayreuth, Wagner entertained the great musicians of his day. Parsifal (1877-82) was his last work. Wagner indulged in much financial foolishness and in the end enjoyed considerable critical success. Although during his lifetime opposition to him and to his ideas went to fantastic lengths, Wagner's operas held a position of complete dominance in the next generation, retaining their enormous popularity in the 20th century. Wagner's operas represent the fullest musical and theatrical expression of German romanticism. His ideas exerted a profound influence on the work of later composers. For the principle of sharply differentiated recitative and aria, Wagner substituted his "endless melody" and his Sprechgesang [sung speech], calling his operas music-dramas to signify the complete union of music and drama that he sought to achieve. He thought that music could not develop further with the resources it had employed since Beethoven's time, and he maintained that the music of the future must be part of a synthesis of the arts. Adapting German mythology to his dramatic requirements, Wagner applied to it an increased emotional intensity, derived from the harmonic complexity and power of Beethoven's music, to produce what he termed a "complete art work." He achieved a remarkable dramatic unity due in part to his development of the leitmotif, a brief passage or fragment of music used to characterize an episode or person and brought in at will to recall it to the audience. At the same time, Wagner greatly increased the flexibility and variety of his orchestral accompaniments. He was responsible for the productions of his works from libretti to details of sets and costumes. SIZE: Image size in inches is 5 1/2" x 7", overall page size is 7" x 10". CONDITION: Condition is clean, no foxing, stains or tears. Nothing on reverse. SHIPPING: Buyers to pay $4.00 shipping/handling, domestic orders receives priority mail, international orders receive regular mail. We pack properly to protect your item! An engraving is an intaglio process of printing, with the design to be produced is cut below the surface of the plate (made of copper, steel or wood), and the incised lines are filled with ink that is then transferred to paper. The portraits on our currency are good examples of engraved images. A Photogravure is an intaglio process in which the plate is produced photographically. The item(s) being sold is an image on paper made from the original master and IS NOT a block of wood or steel. IMAGE IS MUCH SHARPER AND CLEARER THAN SCAN SHOWS !! THIS IS AN ACTUAL ANTIQUE ITEM FROM THE 1890's! NOT A MODERN REPRODUCTION!

Price: 8.99 USD

Location: New Providence, New Jersey

End Time: 2025-01-01T14:51:18.000Z

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