Being Wagner
Subtitle: the story of the most provocative composer who ever lived
By: Simon Callow
Published: 2018
Language: eng
Number of pages: 232
ISBN-13: 9780525436188
Subjects: Composers; Biography
Description: Richard Wagner's music dramas have never been more popular or more divisive. His ten masterpieces, created against the backdrop of a continent in severe political and cultural upheaval, constitute an unmatched body of work. A man who spent most of his life in abject poverty, inspiring both critical derision and hysterical hero-worship, Wagner was a walking contradiction: belligerent, flirtatious, disciplined, capricious, demanding, visionary, and poisonously anti-Semitic. Acclaimed biographer Simon Callow evokes the intellectual and artistic climate in which Wagner lived and takes us through his most iconic works, from his pivotal successes in The Flying Dutchman and Lohengrin, to the musical paradigm shift contained in Tristan and Isolde, to the apogee of his achievements in The Ring of the Nibelung and Parsifal, which debuted at Bayreuth shortly before his death. Being Wagner brings to life this towering figure, creator of the most sublime and most controversial body of work ever known.
Notes: Originally published: London : William Collins, 2017.

Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: Young Richard; title: Out in the world; title: Doldrums; title: Triumph; title: The world in flames; title: Pause for thought; title: It begins; title: Suspension; title: Limbo; title: Enter a swan; title: Towards the green hill; title: The long day's task is done.