The Wheeling daily intelligencer. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1865-1903, 1883-02-14
A sNApPED CHORD.
The Sudden Death OF Richard Wagner,
the Celebrated Composer.
VENICE, February 1S.-Richard Wagner,
the eminent composer, died this afternoon.

The sudden death OF Richard Wagner
removes from the world musical genius
Of the first order. An eccentric man whose
life was turmoil Of ceaseless contention, a
man OF letters and philosopher. Born
in Leipsic, April %, 1913, he had nearly
lived out bis three score years and ten.
His schooling was comparatively meagre,
and 80 much as he did receive was
rather the whim OF a self
willed lad than the selection Of
authority. He was but twelve years Of
age when he turned poet and dramatist,
but he was iated to wait many years to see
creation Of his on the boards. He tried a
little painting, but slaid the brush aside.
Weber's Der FreySchut. and Beethoven's
symphonies sunk into his soul and gave
tie one touch that fixed him to a purpose.
His early years were devoted to the musi.
cal study, and to compositions which found
no market. In his twenty.third year be
was made director OF music in the Magde-
burg theatre; and in the same year wrote
two operas, one OF which, "The Faries,"
was not produced, the other, "The Novice
OF Palermo" achieving the distinction oi
instant and utter failure. Discouraged.
he resigned and his wanderings began. AT
Riga he devoted himself to comic opera,
several Of which he afterwards composed
aud all OF which proved failures, In Paris
he offered his Faust" but the Societe des
Concerts smiled at its eccentricity and tied
up the score. He turned once more to
light opera and vaudeville music for the
gay little theatres, but II was voted un:
suited TO the purpose, as well any work OF
Wagner's might be. He tried the novel,
and this was his first hit Of any
kind. But music was his idol. HIS
"Rienzi" had been accepted in Dresden,
and thither he hastened. Dresden smiled on
the musical philosopher, and "Tannhauser"
the famous, was the philosophical resort
the first serious attempt to give form to bis
serious art theories. Made Kapelmeister to
the King Of Saxony, he pushed Tam.
haussr," in 1916 brought it out at Dresden
with some foretaste Of the care he after.
wards bestowed on the "Trilogy" and
"Parsifal," and once more encountered
failure. He had completed "Lohen-
grim" another advance toward his
Emusic OF the future" when the storm OF
revolution broke upon the Kingdom OF
Saxony. Wagner enlisted under the revo.
lutionary banner, for the peculiar reason
that he desired to release the theater from
court control and leave, as he thought he
would, a better chance for his works. The
revolution crushed, the composer was ex-
lied. He found an asylum in Switzer.
land and a friend in List. AT
Weimar-the two founded aschool Of music,
and Wagners fame took in wider circle.
Now 'Tannhauser" began to make its way,
though as late as 1861 it fell flat in Paris
after success in Stuttgart and Just before a
handsome reception in Vienna. Wagner
was subsequently pardoned for his
revolutionary freak and allowed TO
return to Dresden. With his later
career the world Is more familiar. His
great festival at Bayreuth in 1875, and
again so late as last summer when he pro.
duced his religious music drama, "Parsifal"
with great cast OF 254 persons-an event
in the worlds art history. In appearance
Wagner was the ideal German philosopher,
in his work essentially German artist.
His types were highly nationalized, and
however fantastic his plots feeling in.
tensely German pervaded them.