Great Composers of music (Richard Wagner)

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Part of The Young Citizen: The Magazine for Young People

Title: Great Composers of music (Richard Wagner)
Year: 1940
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Fulltext: 420 THE YOUNG CITIZEN NofJtmber, 1940 MUSIC APPRECIATION SECTION GREAT COMPOSERS OF MUSIC By BERT PAUL OSBON • IX. WAGNER, WRITER OF MUSIC-DRAMAS Richard W agntr RICHARD WAGNER ( pronounced vahg-ner), who has great])' enriched the modern world of music, was born in Germany in 1813. As a youth he delighted in reading the heroic myths ·of Greek gods and goddesses. He. liked to 'read the story of Rome, and similar stories and legends. As a boy he became greatly interested in the theater through his stepfather .who was an actor. R ichard was given music lessons, but he never became a great singer or piano player. He went to school in Germany and later attended a German university. Greek and Shakespeare were.his favorite studies. At the age of thirteen he wrote a tragedy and began to study harmony (the science of writing music). After he had learned to know Beethoven's works thoroughly, he decided to devote his life to music. (See the article Beethoven, Mu•Formerly Head o.f the Music Department, Shortrid' e High School1 . Indianapolis, Indiana, u. s. A. . sical Genius in the July, 1940, issue of THE YOUNG CITIZEN.) We later find him wandering from town to town in Germany, conducting orchestras and leading choruses. Then he traveled to Paris and to Russia, but was not successful there in music, so he returned to Germany. Unfortunately Wagner became involved in German political struggles. For this reason he was forced to leave the country and go to Switzerland. Dur.ing his eleven years of exile he spent his time in writing books and essays and in music composition. . In all his troubled days of exile and failure Wagner worked faithfully at his dream of a ·new kind of opera. From Switzerland he sent to his friend Liszt (a great pianist and composer) an opera which he had completed there. This opera is called Lohengrin (pronounced lo-en-grin). · At this time a great celebration was being prepared in Germany in honor of one of the German poets. Famous men and women would come from ·distant cities to attend the celebration. Wagner's friend Liszt (pronounced list) was one of those in charge of the celebration program. L iszt had W agner's opera Lohengrin performed at this celebration. In no other way could the fame of Wagner have spread so quickly. The audience realized that this opera was· the work of a genius. Wagner had turned to the Middle 'Nov~mbtr, 1940 THE YOUNG CITIZEN Ages for the story which he used in his opera Lohengrin. The story is about a knight of mystery named Lohengrin. A noble maiden named Elsa had dreamed that a mysterious knight would come in a boat drawn by a swan to rescue her from the false charge of having killed her brother. Who Lohengrin was, how he saved Elsa, how they were happily married, and by what means Elsa lost Lohengrin is a story you will want to read for yourself. Wagner did not use the word opera for his dramatic musical plays, but instead he called them .mus i c-dramas. As a writer o f great 1nusicd ram as he became famous. dramas of Wagner the .singing is more often like dramatic speech than melody. While he was exiled in Switzerland, Wagner worked out. the idea of a series of music-dramas in which the old legends of Nor them Europe were used. No single legend suited him, so he planned t<i write a group of music-dramas that should tell the whole story of the mythology·· of Northern Europe. He found enough material for four music-dramas. He called this series of four music-dramas The Ring of the Nibelungs. The Nibelungs, according to German mythology, were the children of the· mist, a l egendary ra c e of .dwarfs or demons, the original possessors of the hoard and ring won by a mythical hero named Siegfried: He believed that the musicd r a m a sho11ld ·be a heroic story told in noble Contest of the M innesingtrs T h e se four musicpoetry. He wrote the poetry as well as the music of his productions. He thought that the music should suggest the true character of each person in the story, and used a musical phrase to describe a character or an idea. T his phrase he called a leitmotif (pronounced light-mo-teef}. It is like a key that unlocks the door to understanding. Such ideas sound very reasonable, but it was many years before people accepted them. l'eople missed the old melodious singing of former operas. In the inusic- dramas center around this mythical hero Siegfried, and the story is about the ring made from the stolen gold of the Rhine river. This ring was the cause of conflicts between the gods and men, and the final defeat of the gods. T he four music-dramas of The Ring of the N ibelungs are : ( 1) T he Rhinegold, (2) The V alkyrie, (3) S iegfried, and (4) The Twilight of the Gods. Wagner wrote other dramatic musical compositions. One of these is called Tannhauser (pronounced tahn-hoi-zer), (Pltau turn to page 437.) November~ 1940 WAGNER (Continued from page 421) THE YOUNG CITIZEN 437 THE BAT COLLECTING BUTTERFIES (Continu~d from page 423) (Continued from page 435) and another is known as -ghosts that come out of ly. Then I. arrange them The M astersinger. 'There their graves at night, ac- in my display case. I fasten were knightly singers· who cording to superstition, and each specimen securely in wandered about Germany suck the blood of human place by sticli.ing a pin during the Midde Ages. beings. Of course, this be~ through it. Sometimes these singers lief is only a superstititon- My mother admires my met in contests to decide most certainly it is not true. collection very much. So who was the best singer. An There are thousands and. do many of my. friends, and artist has painted an imagi- thousands of bats in the some of them have gone nary. scene representing a Philippines which help and into the business of collectcontest of these minnesing- benefit the Filipinos. Have ing moths and butterflies.for ers, as they 'were called. A ,you ever seen thoughtless themselves. copy. of .this picture is Filipino boys stoning or I took my collection to shown on page 421. killing a bat? Do you think school where it was on disAfter years of exile, they. should do th~t? ·cer- play. My teacher showed Wagner was permitted to tainly not. We should pro- it ·to other teachers and return to Germany. With tect the bats, for that is the pupils and the visitors who considerable difficulty he only way we can repay came to 'our school. built a theiiter in the little them for their good work. Any one living here in city of Beyreuth 0 (pro- the Philippines can make nounced bigh-roit). He which place his famous a good collection of moths called this theater his Festi- theater is still in 'use. and butterflies. There are val Playhouse, and it has I plenty of specimens here. become very famous. It REVIEW took a long time to get it built, but at last it was finished. Wagner had fulfilled his dream of the union of arts in the creation of the music-drama and the Festival Playhouse. The last opera which Wagner wrote was Parsifal which tells of a knight named Parsifal and his deeds. This was completed in 1882. Failing health caused Wagner to spend the following winter at Venice, where, in 1883, he suddenly died. He was buried at Beyreuth, at I. Tell of Richard Wagner as a boy. 2. Tell of his early study of music. 3. When he was a young man what did he do in music? 4. Why did Wagner have to leave his country? · 5. What did Wagner call his musical plays? BOOK ADVENTURE (Continued from page 418) A sinking ship, a desolate cry, Tell of men who soon will die; The pirates now have gained the .top. Hurry! Can no man make them stop? 6. What stories did he One man left to save the use in his series known as ship! The Ring of the Nibelungs? One man left! He must not 7. Name the fou·r music- slip. dramas of this series. Far into the night so late, · 8. Have you ever heard I read to learn this one any of Wagner's music? man's fate.