Richard Wagner
His Life and his Dramas; a Biographical Study of the Man and an Explanation of his Work

An illuminating 1902 account of Wagner's life and artistic aims, with an analysis of each of his music dramas.

William James Henderson (Author)

9781108062459, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 6 June 2013

522 pages, 1 b/w illus.
21.6 x 14 x 2.9 cm, 0.657 kg

The American music critic and lecturer William James Henderson (1855–1937) wrote for The New York Times and The New York Sun, provided the libretto for Walter Damrosch's opera Cyrano (1913) and authored fiction, poetry, sea stories and a textbook on navigation. He also taught at the New York College of Music and the Institute of Musical Art. Taking up the cause of Wagner with considerable understanding, he published this substantial work in 1902, barely twenty years after the composer's death. It is an illuminating account of Wagner's life and artistic aims, complemented by an insightful analysis of each of his music dramas from Rienzi to Parsifal. Its purpose, states Henderson, 'is to supply Wagner lovers with a single work which shall meet all their needs'. With Ernest Newman's Study of Wagner (1899), also reissued in this series, it reflects the composer's contemporary popularity.

Preface
Part I. The Life of Wagner: 1. The boyhood of a genius
2. The first operas
3. Königsberg and Riga
4. 'The end of a musician in Paris'
5. Beginning of fame and hostility
6. Lohengrin and Die Meistersinger
7. 'Art and revolution'
8. Preaching what he practised
9. A stranger in a strange land
10. A second end in Paris
11. A monarch to the rescue
12. Some ideals realised
13. Finis coronat opus
14. The last drama
15. The character of the man
Part II. The Artistic Aims of Wagner: 1. The lyric drama as he found it
2. The reforms of Wagner
3. The musical system
4. The system as completed
Part III. The Great Music Dramas: 1. Introductory
2. Rienzi
3. Der fliegende Holländer
4. Tannhäuser und der Sängerkrieg auf Wartburg
5. Lohengrin
6. Tristan und Isolde
7. Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg
8. Der Ring des Nibelungen
9. Parsifal
Appendix A
Appendix B
Index.

Subject Areas: Classical music [c 1750 to c 1830 AVGC4]