The Life of Richard Wagner

Newman's Life of Wagner, published between 1933 and 1947, the culmination of forty years' research, is a classic biography.

Ernest Newman (Author)

9781108007719, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 20 March 2014

626 pages
22.9 x 3.5 x 15.2 cm, 0.91 kg

Ernest Newman's four-volume Life of Wagner, originally published between 1933 and 1947, remains a classic work of biography. The culmination of forty years' research on the composer and his works (Newman's first Study of Wagner was first published in 1899), these books present a detailed portrait of perhaps the most influential, the most controversial and the most frequently reviled composer in the whole history of western music. Newman was aware that no biography can ever claim to be complete or completely accurate: 'The biographer can at no stage hope to have reached the final truth. All he can do is to make sure that whatever statement he may make, whatever conclusion he may come to, shall be based on the whole of the evidence available at the time of writing.' In this aim he triumphantly succeeds. Volume 3 covers the years 1859 to 1866.

Foreword
1. The second assault on Paris
2. The year 1860
3. En route to 'Tannhäuser'
4. Gathering clouds
5. The storm breaks
6. Between Paris and Vienna
7. The Minna crisis
8. Shipwreck
9. The rescue
10. Wagner and Ludwig
11. At the Villa Pellet
12. Cosima
13. Settling down in Munich
14. Trouble brewing
15. The 'Tristan' production
16. After 'Tristan'
17. Semper and the Festival Theatre
18. 'Vincere scis, Hannibal'
19. '– Victoria uti nescis'
20. Haven in Triebschen
21. The triangle
22. The king and the triangle
Appendixes
Index.

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