Richard Wagner

Wagner's mature music is characterized by endless melody—continuous musical flow without traditional set pieces, held together by a web of leitmotifs. His harmonies are intensely chromatic, especially the 'Tristan chord' that destabilized tonality and pointed toward atonality. His orchestration is rich and massive, using the orchestra as dramatic participant, not mere accompaniment. He favors building to overwhelming climaxes through accumulation and harmonic intensity.

Beethoven's symphonies showed him music's expressive possibilities. Weber's German Romantic opera influenced his early works. Schopenhauer's philosophy shaped Tristan's metaphysics. Liszt was his father-in-law and supporter. He influenced everyone who followed—Strauss, Mahler, Schoenberg, even Debussy (in reaction). His harmonic innovations changed Western music's trajectory.

His early operas are conventional German Romantic works. The 1840s brought breakthrough with Tannhäuser and Lohengrin. After exile following the 1849 revolution, he theorized his reforms and composed Tristan and the Ring—his revolutionary mature works. Parsifal, his final opera, achieves a kind of ritualistic transcendence. Each work pushed further into chromatic harmony and continuous drama.

Wagner built his own theater in Bayreuth specifically for performing his Ring cycle—the Festspielhaus opened in 1876 with acoustics designed to blend the orchestra with the stage, and covered the orchestra pit so musicians were invisible. He literally built a temple to his own art, and it's still operating today, pilgrimage site for Wagnerians worldwide.

Wagner's prose writings fill ten volumes—he wrote extensively on politics, anti-Semitism, culture, and music theory, seeing himself as philosopher-artist. Reading his theories (while acknowledging their often-toxic content) illuminates his musical radicalism.

Wagner is both evergreen and controversial—his operas are constantly performed despite length and expense, and orchestra programs include overtures and preludes regularly. The Ring is staged worldwide, though complete cycles are major undertakings. His anti-Semitism is acknowledged in program notes and scholarly discussions. He's fundamental to opera history and impossible to ignore.