Richard Wagner
Composer

Born Into a Family Full of Question Marks

I was born in Leipzig in 1813, the ninth and youngest child, and my father died when I was only a few months old. My mother then lived with the actor Ludwig Geyer, and I went by the name Wilhelm Richard Geyer until I was fourteen. Whether Geyer was really my father nobody can prove, though I probably believed it myself. After he died in 1821 I went to school in Dresden, and later I studied composition with Theodor Weinlig, who kindly refused to take any payment.

Learning the Trade the Hard Way

My first jobs were in small theatres, starting as a choirmaster in Würzburg in 1833 and then moving on to Magdeburg and Riga. In 1836 I married the actress Minna Planer, and I'll admit the marriage was a troubled one. My real breakthrough came in Dresden in 1842, when my opera Rienzi was staged for the first time and the audience took to it. It felt wonderful to finally be noticed after years of working in the provinces.

A Court Conductor in Dresden

Dresden gave me the title of Royal Saxon Court Conductor, which sounds grand and came with plenty of duties. In January 1843 I presented Der fliegende Holländer there, and in October 1845 came Tannhäuser. I was busy rehearsing, conducting and writing, and I had no intention of doing any of it quietly. For a few years the city was the place where I could try out my ideas in front of a real orchestra.

The Piece Everyone Knows

If you only know one thing by me, it's probably Ride of the Valkyries. It starts with a driving, galloping rhythm, and the brass calls out a theme that sounds like a whole troop of warriors charging across the sky. The music keeps building until it feels as if the ground itself is shaking, and then it rushes on without letting up. You've most likely heard it in films and commercials, so you already know more of my music than you think.

Exile, Debts and Other Hobbies

In 1849 I took the wrong side in the May Uprising in Dresden, and I had to flee and live in exile, mostly in Zürich, until the ban on me was lifted in 1862. While I was away my friend Franz Liszt conducted the first performance of Lohengrin in Weimar in August 1850, which was a kindness I could not have repaid. Minna and I parted for good in 1862, and my money troubles never really left me. In 1864 King Ludwig II of Bavaria brought me to Munich and paid off my debts, but by 1865 I had to leave again.

Bayreuth at Last

In 1870 I married Cosima, the daughter of Liszt, who had been married to the conductor Hans von Bülow. We lived at Tribschen for a while, and in 1872 we settled in Bayreuth, where I finally got to build my own theatre. The Festspielhaus opened on 13 August 1876 with Das Rheingold, the start of the first complete Ring cycle, and the festival ended with a deficit of about 150,000 marks. I premiered my last opera, Parsifal, there in 1882, and I died in Venice in February 1883, aged 69.

What Stayed Behind

I'm buried in the garden of our house in Bayreuth, and Cosima's ashes were placed next to mine in 1977. The festival I started still goes on there today, and people travel from all over the world to sit in that theatre. I also have to be honest that I published an essay in 1850, under a pseudonym, that attacked Jews, and I reissued it under my own name in 1869, and that is a dark stain on my name. My music changed what an opera could be, but you should know the whole story of the man who wrote it.

What I'd Like You to Take Away

I'd like to give you the feeling of being completely swept up in a sound. My pieces take their time, and they ask you to sit back and let them carry you somewhere. You don't need to know any music theory or any story to feel that surge when the orchestra swells. So start with Ride of the Valkyries, and see where it takes you.