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114-630: It has been used with reference to late-19th-century composers such as Richard Wagner particularly by Carl Dahlhaus who describes his music as "a late flowering of romanticism in a positivist age". He regards it as synonymous with "the age of Wagner", from about 1850 until 1890—the start of the era of modernism , whose leading early representatives were Richard Strauss and Gustav Mahler ( Dahlhaus 1979 , 98–99, 102, 105). It has been applied to writers, painters, and composers who rejected, abandoned, or opposed realism , naturalism , or avant-garde modernism at various points in time from about 1840 down to

228-653: A Berlin court on 18 July 1870. Richard and Cosima's wedding took place on 25 August 1870. On Christmas Day of that year, Wagner arranged a surprise performance (its premiere) of the Siegfried Idyll for Cosima's birthday. The marriage to Cosima lasted to the end of Wagner's life. Wagner, settled into his new-found domesticity, turned his energies towards completing the Ring cycle. He had not abandoned polemics: he republished his 1850 pamphlet "Judaism in Music", originally issued under

342-502: A Lebanese Maronite raw silk manufacturer, Fares Rihani. In 1888, his father sent his brother and Ameen to New York City ; he followed them a year later. Ameen, then eleven years old, was placed in a school where he learned the rudiments of the English language. His father and uncle, having established themselves as merchants in a small cellar in lower Manhattan, soon felt the need for an assistant who could read and write in English. Therefore,

456-514: A book of allegories and a few short stories and plays. Rihani, who was influenced by the American poet Walt Whitman, introduced prose poetry to Arab literature. His new style of poetry was published as early as 1905. This new concept flourished in the Arab world and continued to lead modern Arab poetry after Rihani's death in 1940 and throughout the second half of the 20th century. Additionally, he lectured at

570-510: A daughter, named Isolde , a child not of Bülow but of Wagner. Cosima was 24 years younger than Wagner and was herself illegitimate, the daughter of the Countess Marie d'Agoult , who had left her husband for Franz Liszt . Liszt initially disapproved of his daughter's involvement with Wagner, though nevertheless the two men were friends. The indiscreet affair scandalised Munich, and Wagner also fell into disfavour with many leading members of

684-566: A distance, [was] a menace to his peace of mind." Wagner continued his correspondence with Mathilde and his friendship with her husband Otto, who maintained his financial support of the composer. In an 1859 letter to Mathilde, Wagner wrote, half-satirically, of Tristan : "Child! This Tristan is turning into something terrible . This final act!!!—I fear the opera will be banned ... only mediocre performances can save me! Perfectly good ones will be bound to drive people mad." In November 1859, Wagner once again moved to Paris to oversee production of

798-514: A head in 1849, when the unsuccessful May Uprising in Dresden broke out, in which Wagner played a minor supporting role . Warrants were issued for the revolutionaries' arrest. Wagner had to flee, first visiting Paris and then settling in Zürich where he at first took refuge with a friend, Alexander Müller . Wagner was to spend the next twelve years in exile from Germany. He had completed Lohengrin ,

912-425: A lengthy Prelude (Vorspiel).... At a specially-appointed Festival, I propose, some future time, to produce those three Dramas with their Prelude, in the course of three days and a fore-evening [emphasis in original]. Wagner began composing the music for Das Rheingold between November 1853 and September 1854, following it immediately with Die Walküre (written between June 1854 and March 1856). He began work on

1026-473: A letter to Mathilde from him. After the resulting confrontation with Minna, Wagner left Zürich alone, bound for Venice , where he rented an apartment in the Palazzo Giustinian , while Minna returned to Germany. Wagner's attitude to Minna had changed; the editor of his correspondence with her, John Burk, has said that she was to him "an invalid, to be treated with kindness and consideration, but, except at

1140-720: A new revision of Tannhäuser , staged thanks to the efforts of Princess Pauline von Metternich , whose husband was the Austrian ambassador in Paris. The performances of the Paris Tannhäuser in 1861 were a notable fiasco . This was partly a consequence of the conservative tastes of the Jockey Club , which organised demonstrations in the theatre to protest at the presentation of the ballet feature in Act ;1 (instead of its traditional location in

1254-703: A novel in English, and (rewritten) in Arabic, describing the oppression of the woman (represented by Mariam) during the Ottoman Empire, Jihan , a novel in English about the role of Levantine women during World War I, The Luzumiyat , translation of the Arabic poetry of Al-Ma’arri into English with Rihani's introduction highlighting the significance of this poet to the Western mind, The Path of Vision , essays in English on East and West, A Chant of Mystics , poetry in English, The Descent of Bolchevism , political analysis in English on

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1368-432: A pastoral opera based on Goethe 's Die Laune des Verliebten ( The Infatuated Lover's Caprice ), written at the age of 17, Die Hochzeit ( The Wedding ), on which Wagner worked in 1832, and the singspiel Männerlist größer als Frauenlist ( Men are More Cunning than Women , 1837–1838). Die Feen ( The Fairies , 1833) was not performed in the composer's lifetime, and Das Liebesverbot ( The Ban on Love , 1836)

1482-536: A piano transcription of the 9th Symphony. He was also greatly impressed by a performance of Mozart 's Requiem . Wagner's early piano sonatas and his first attempts at orchestral overtures date from this period. In 1829 he saw a performance by dramatic soprano Wilhelmine Schröder-Devrient , who became his ideal of the fusion of drama and music in opera. In Mein Leben Wagner wrote, "When I look back across my entire life I find no event to place beside this in

1596-449: A pseudonym, under his own name in 1869, extending the introduction and adding a lengthy final section. The publication led to several public protests at early performances of Die Meistersinger in Vienna and Mannheim. In 1871, Wagner decided to move to Bayreuth , which was to be the location of his new opera house. The town council donated a large plot of land—the "Green Hill"—as a site for

1710-631: A reconciliation with Minna during this Paris visit, and although she joined him there, the reunion was not successful and they again parted from each other when Wagner left. The political ban that had been placed on Wagner in the North German Confederation after he had fled Dresden was fully lifted in 1862. The composer settled in Biebrich , on the Rhine near Wiesbaden in Hesse . Here Minna visited him for

1824-616: A scant living by writing articles and short novelettes such as A pilgrimage to Beethoven , which sketched his growing concept of "music drama", and An end in Paris , where he depicts his own miseries as a German musician in the French metropolis. He also provided arrangements of operas by other composers, largely on behalf of the Schlesinger publishing house. During this stay he completed his third and fourth operas Rienzi and Der fliegende Holländer . Wagner had completed Rienzi in 1840. With

1938-415: A small pension which she maintained until 1859. With help from her friend Jessie Laussot, this was to have been augmented to an annual sum of 3,000 thalers per year, but the plan was abandoned when Wagner began an affair with Mme. Laussot. Wagner even plotted an elopement with her in 1850, which her husband prevented. Meanwhile, Wagner's wife Minna, who had disliked the operas he had written after Rienzi ,

2052-477: A visionary. As a result of Ar-Rihaniyyaat , the Egyptian media hailed him as "The Philosopher of Freike". During this same period of mountain solitude The Book of Khalid was written and was later published in 1911 after he returned to New York. The illustrations for this book, which was the first English novel ever written by a Lebanese/Arab, were provided by Khalil Gibran . A reception was held in honor of Rihani for

2166-590: A year, passed the Regents Exam, and in 1897 entered the New York Law School . A lung infection interrupted his studies, and at the end of his first year, his father had to send him back to Lebanon to recover. Once back in his homeland, he began teaching English in a clerical school in return for being taught formal Classical Arabic . Rihani had first become familiar with Arab poets in 1897. Among these poets were Abul-Ala Al-Ma’arri , whom Ameen discovered to be

2280-481: Is German?" (1878, but based on a draft written in the 1860s), repeated Wagner's antisemitic preoccupations. Wagner completed Parsifal in January 1882, and a second Bayreuth Festival was held for the new opera, which premiered on 26 May. Wagner was by this time extremely ill, having suffered a series of increasingly severe angina attacks. During the sixteenth and final performance of Parsifal on 29 August, he entered

2394-401: Is the first Arab to write English essays, poetry, novels, short stories, art critiques, and travel chronicles. He published his works in the U.S. during the first four decades of the twentieth century. In this sense, he is the forerunner of American literature written by well known Middle Eastern writers. Rihani is also considered to be the founder of "Adab Al-Mahjar" (Immigrant Literature). He

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2508-529: Is the first Arab who wrote complete literary works, either in Arabic or in English, and published in the U. S. (New York). His writings pioneered the movement of modern Arabic literature that played a leading role in the Arab Renaissance and contemporary Arab thought. Rihani's Arabic book of essays entitled Ar-Rihaniyyaat (1910), endorsed his major philosophic and social beliefs and values that were reflected in his future works. These beliefs were addressed in

2622-475: The Gesamtkunstwerk ("total work of art"), by which he sought to synthesise the poetic, visual, musical and dramatic arts, with music subsidiary to drama. The drama was to be presented as a continuously sung narrative, without conventional operatic structures like arias and recitatives . He described this vision in a series of essays published between 1849 and 1852. Wagner realised these ideas most fully in

2736-621: The Authors’ Club , and the New York Pen League . On the political front, he advocated several causes and worked tirelessly towards these goals: the rapprochement between East and West as a major step towards global cultural dialogue, the liberation of Lebanon from the rule of the Ottoman Empire, and the advocating for Arab nationalism and promoting what he called “The United States of Arabia”. In 1922 Rihani traveled throughout Arabia, meeting and getting better acquainted with its rulers. He

2850-524: The Centennial March for America, for which he received $ 5,000. Following the first Bayreuth Festival, Wagner began work on Parsifal , his final opera. The composition took four years, much of which Wagner spent in Italy for health reasons. From 1876 to 1878 Wagner also embarked on the last of his documented emotional liaisons, this time with Judith Gautier , whom he had met at the 1876 Festival. Wagner

2964-580: The Indian literature neo-romanticism was represented by the Chhayavaad movement. Beginning in the mid-1930s and continuing through World War II, a Japanese neo-romantic literary movement was led by the writer Yasuda Yojūrō ( Torrance 2010 , 66). British: Indian Richard Wagner Wilhelm Richard Wagner ( / ˈ v ɑː ɡ n ər / VAHG -nər ; German: [ˈʁɪçaʁt ˈvaːɡnɐ] ; 22 May 1813 – 13 February 1883)

3078-1160: The Modern Arabic literature , neo-romanticism began in the early 20th century and floureshed during the 1930s–1940s, that sought inspiration from French or English romantic poetry. Most famous its part is the Mahjar (" émigré " school) that includes Arabic -language poets in the Americas Ameen Rihani , Kahlil Gibran , Nasib Arida , Mikhail Naimy , Elia Abu Madi , Fawsi Maluf, Farhat, and al-Qarawi. The neo-romantic current also involved poets in every Arabian country: Abdel Rahman Shokry , Abbas Mahmoud al-Aqqad and Ibrahim al-Mazini in Egypt, Omar Abu Risha in Syria, Elias Abu Shabaki and Salah Labaki in Lebanon, Abu al-Qasim al-Shabbi in Tunisia, and Al-Tijani Yusuf Bashir in Sudan.( Jayyusi 1977 , 361–474) In

3192-581: The National Theatre Munich on 10 June 1865, the first Wagner opera premiere in almost 15 years. (The premiere had been scheduled for 15 May, but was delayed by bailiffs acting for Wagner's creditors, and also because the Isolde, Malvina Schnorr von Carolsfeld , was hoarse and needed time to recover.) The conductor of this premiere was Hans von Bülow , whose wife, Cosima , had given birth in April that year to

3306-462: The Philharmonic Society of London , including one before Queen Victoria . The Queen enjoyed his Tannhäuser overture and spoke with Wagner after the concert, writing in her diary that Wagner was "short, very quiet, wears spectacles & has a very finely-developed forehead, a hooked nose & projecting chin." Wagner's uneasy affair with Mathilde collapsed in 1858, when Minna intercepted

3420-668: The Poetry Society of America and the Pleiades Club , and also became a regular contributor to an Arabic daily newspaper, Al-Huda , published in New York. He wrote about social traditions, religion, national politics and philosophy. Thus, he began his extensive literary career, bridging two worlds. He published his first two books in Arabic in 1902 and 1903. In 1905 he returned to his native mountains. During an ensuing six-year period of solitude, he published, in Arabic, two volumes of essays,

3534-506: The Ring cycle (which was not resumed for the next twelve years) and begin work on Tristan . While planning the opera, Wagner composed the Wesendonck Lieder , five songs for voice and piano, setting poems by Mathilde. Two of these settings are explicitly subtitled by Wagner as "studies for Tristan und Isolde ". Among the conducting engagements that Wagner undertook for revenue during this period, he gave several concerts in 1855 with

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3648-560: The Ring , and the other operas Wagner planned. Wagner also began to dictate his autobiography, Mein Leben , at the King's request. Wagner noted that his rescue by Ludwig coincided with news of the death of his earlier mentor (but later supposed enemy) Giacomo Meyerbeer , and regretted that "this operatic master, who had done me so much harm, should not have lived to see this day." After grave difficulties in rehearsal, Tristan und Isolde premiered at

3762-422: The "void" of modern existence. Critics such as Hermann Bahr , Heinrich Mann , and Eugen Diederichs came to oppose naturalism and materialism under the banner of "neo-romanticism", demanding a cultural reorientation responding to "the soul's longing for a meaning and content in life" that might replace the fragmentations of modern knowledge with a holistic world view ( Kohlenbach 2009 , 261). "Neo-romanticism"

3876-546: The American Zionist movement and published numerous articles critical of political Zionism. During the last eight years of his life, Ameen Rihani wrote the remainder of his books, continued to be active in his political, literary and philosophical endeavors, and maintained close contacts with several political leaders, poets, writers, scholars and artists. Samir Kassir points to Rihani's role in bringing Beirut into intellectual contact with its "cultural environment as well as

3990-688: The Arab American movement championing the Arab Palestinian cause. Much of this activity focused on countering the rising influence of the American Zionist lobby, which supported a separate Jewish state in Palestine. He met with various U.S. officials in this regard and, during the 1920s and 1930s, was active on behalf of the Arab American, Palestine Anti-Zionism Society (later renamed the Arab National League). Rihani publicly debated leading figures in

4104-719: The Arab World, attended the funeral ceremony. He was laid to rest in the Rihani Family Mausoleum in Freike. Thirteen years after his death, in 1953, his brother Albert established the Ameen Rihani Museum in Freike to honor his legacy. Rihani is the founding father of Arab American literature . His early English writings mark the beginning of a school of literature that is Arab in its concern, culture and characteristic, English in language, and American in spirit and platform. He

4218-556: The Arab origins of the socialist movements, New Volumes of Ar-Rihaniyyaat , philosophic and social essays in Arabic. In 1916 Ameen married Bertha Case, an American artist, who was part of the Matisse , Picasso , Cézanne and Derain group in Paris, and the Midi, and joined them in exhibiting her work at the Salon de Mai. Bertha visited Lebanon in 1953 (thirteen years after Ameen's death), staying with

4332-589: The Emperor Pedro II of Brazil , Anton Bruckner , Camille Saint-Saëns and Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky . Wagner was far from satisfied with the Festival; Cosima recorded that months later his attitude towards the productions was "Never again, never again!" Moreover, the festival finished with a deficit of about 150,000 marks. The expenses of Bayreuth and of Wahnfried meant that Wagner still sought further sources of income by conducting or taking on commissions such as

4446-634: The French newspaper Le Figaro , which called the music "the dream of a lunatic". The disillusioned included Wagner's (then) friend Friedrich Nietzsche , who, having published his eulogistic essay "Richard Wagner in Bayreuth" before the festival as part of his Untimely Meditations , was bitterly disappointed by what he saw as Wagner's pandering to increasingly exclusivist German nationalism; his breach with Wagner began at this time. The festival firmly established Wagner as an artist of European, and indeed world, importance: attendees included Kaiser Wilhelm I ,

4560-592: The Leipzig church registers. She and her family moved to Geyer's residence in Dresden . Until he was fourteen, Wagner was known as Wilhelm Richard Geyer. He almost certainly thought that Geyer was his biological father. Geyer's love of the theatre came to be shared by his stepson, and Wagner took part in his performances. In his autobiography Mein Leben Wagner recalled once playing the part of an angel. In late 1820, Wagner

4674-627: The Orientalist movement by giving the world, for the first time, an objective and analytical description of Arabia from an Arab point of view. These are Maker of Modern Arabia (1928), Around the Coasts of Arabia (1930), and Arabian Peak and Desert (1931). This Arab Trilogy was considered by the publishers in the United States and Europe as best sellers at the time. The author wrote accounts of his travels to Arabia, in Arabic first, and were published under

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4788-597: The Science of America. According to several scholars, The Book of Khalid is the foundation of a new literary trend towards wisdom and prophecy that seeks to reconcile matter and soul, reason and faith, together with the Orient and the Occident in an attempt to explicate the unity of religions and represent the unity of the universe. His books on Arabia, written originally in Arabic and in English, represent an alternative perspective to

4902-540: The Syrian Protestant College (later The American University of Beirut ) and in a few other institutions in Lebanon and the Arab World , as well as in the cities of Aleppo , Cairo , Damascus , Jerusalem , and others. He also worked, along with other national leaders, for the liberation of his country from Turkish rule. In 1910 he published Ar-Rihaniyyaat , the book that established him as a forward thinker and

5016-485: The architect Gottfried Semper . Wagner's involvement in left-wing politics abruptly ended his welcome in Dresden. Wagner was active among socialist German nationalists there, regularly receiving such guests as the conductor and radical editor August Röckel and the Russian anarchist Mikhail Bakunin . He was also influenced by the ideas of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon and Ludwig Feuerbach . Widespread discontent came to

5130-629: The arts throughout the 20th century; his influence spread beyond composition into conducting, philosophy, literature, the visual arts and theatre. Richard Wagner was born on 22 May 1813 to an ethnic German family in Leipzig , then part of the Confederation of the Rhine . His family lived at No 3, the Brühl ( The House of the Red and White Lions ) in Leipzig's Jewish quarter . He was baptised at St. Thomas Church . He

5244-437: The boy was taken away from school to become the chief clerk, interpreter and bookkeeper of the business. During this time, Ameen made the acquaintance of American and European writers. He eventually became familiar with the writings of Shakespeare , Hugo , Darwin , Huxley , Spencer , Whitman , Tolstoy , Voltaire , Thoreau , Emerson and Byron , to name a few. Ameen had a natural talent in eloquent speaking, and in 1895,

5358-406: The contradictions within a philosophy ... that called for individual liberty and freedom while at the same time permitting slavery ... So too do Rihani’s writings on the questions of whether democratic principles are evenly projected onto both societies – American and Middle Eastern – where he lived and worked, continue to challenge our most cherished assumptions about ourselves”. Geoffrey P. Nash, on

5472-487: The couple had amassed such large debts that they fled Riga on the run from creditors. Debts plagued Wagner for most of his life. Initially the pair took a stormy sea passage to London, from which Wagner drew the inspiration for his opera Der fliegende Holländer ( The Flying Dutchman ), with a plot based on a sketch by Heinrich Heine . The Wagners settled in Paris in September 1839 and stayed there until 1842. Wagner made

5586-549: The court, who were suspicious of his influence on the King. In December 1865, Ludwig was finally forced to ask the composer to leave Munich. He apparently also toyed with the idea of abdicating to follow his hero into exile, but Wagner quickly dissuaded him. Ludwig installed Wagner at the Villa Tribschen , beside Switzerland's Lake Lucerne . Die Meistersinger was completed at Tribschen in 1867, and premiered in Munich on 21 June

5700-433: The development of classical music; his Tristan und Isolde is sometimes described as marking the start of modern music . As he matured, he softened his ideological stance against traditional operatic forms (ie. arias, ensembles and choruses ), reintroducing them into his last few stage works, including Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg ( The Mastersingers of Nuremberg ) and Parsifal . To properly present his vision of

5814-518: The essays of this work such as: Who Am I, Religious Tolerance, From Brooklyn Bridge, The Great City, The Spirit of Our Time, The Spirit of Language, In the Spring of Despair, The Valley of Freike, On Solitude, Ethics, The Value of Life, Conducts of Life, Optimism, The Scattered Truth, Trilateral Wisdom, The Most Exalted Prophet, The State of the Future ... This book consecrate Rihani as a controversial writer paving

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5928-478: The family home, " Wahnfried ", into which Wagner, with Cosima and the children, moved from their temporary accommodation on 18 April 1874. The theatre was completed in 1875, and the festival was scheduled for the following year. Commenting on the struggle to finish the building, Wagner remarked to Cosima: "Each stone is red with my blood and yours." For the design of the Festspielhaus, Wagner appropriated some of

6042-464: The family of Rihani's brother, Albert, in Freike. On July 29, 1970, Bertha died in New York at the age of 91. She had requested that her body be cremated and that her ashes be sent to Freike to be buried next to her husband's. Bertha's niece, Sally Storch also became a professional artist. Ameen and his wife Bertha visited Pope Benedict XV in 1917. The Pope was heartedly interested in ending World War I and in establishing an equitable peace between

6156-435: The festival was deferred. To raise funds for the construction, " Wagner societies " were formed in several cities, and Wagner began touring Germany conducting concerts. By the spring of 1873, only a third of the required funds had been raised; further pleas to Ludwig were initially ignored, but early in 1874, with the project on the verge of collapse, the King relented and provided a loan. The full building programme included

6270-664: The fighting armies. During that same year, Ameen met with Theodore Roosevelt , former President of the United States concerning the Palestinian case. In 1919 Rihani was asked to represent Arab interests at the Hague Peace Conference . In 1921 he served as the only Near Eastern member of the Reduction of Armaments Conference in Washington, D.C. During those years he joined another number of literary circles in New York, among which are

6384-474: The first evening of the complete Ring cycle; the 1876 Bayreuth Festival therefore saw the premiere of the complete cycle, performed as a sequence as the composer had intended. The 1876 Festival consisted of three full Ring cycles (under the baton of Hans Richter ). At the end, critical reactions ranged between that of the Norwegian composer Edvard Grieg , who thought the work "divinely composed", and that of

6498-583: The first half of the 16-hour, four-opera cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen ( The Ring of the Nibelung , also known simply as The Ring ). Wagner's compositions, particularly those of his later period, are notable for their complex textures , rich harmonies and orchestration , and the elaborate use of leitmotifs —musical phrases associated with individual characters, places, ideas, or plot elements. His advances in musical language, such as extreme chromaticism and quickly shifting tonal centres , greatly influenced

6612-444: The following year. At Ludwig's insistence, "special previews" of the first two works of the Ring , Das Rheingold and Die Walküre , were performed at Munich in 1869 and 1870, but Wagner retained his dream, first expressed in "A Communication to My Friends", to present the first complete cycle at a special festival with a new, dedicated, opera house . Minna died of a heart attack on 25 January 1866 in Dresden. Wagner did not attend

6726-478: The forerunner of Omar Khayyam . In 1899 he returned to New York, having decided to translate some of the quatrains of Al-Ma’arri into English. The first version of the translation was published in 1903. He began writing in English, becoming, according to Lebanese historian Samir Kassir , "the first Arab to publish in English without at the same time renouncing his own language." During this period, he joined several literary and artistic societies in New York, such as

6840-416: The funeral. Following Minna's death Cosima wrote to Hans von Bülow several times asking him to grant her a divorce, but Bülow refused to concede this. He consented only after she had two more children with Wagner: another daughter, named Eva, after the heroine of Meistersinger , and a son Siegfried , named after the hero of the Ring . The divorce was finally sanctioned, after delays in the legal process, by

6954-558: The greatest priority on the spread of nationalist and pro-unity feeling among the masses, and argued that rulers would have to follow. During that time, he also published another four books in Arabic, and delivered numerous speeches in Lebanon, the Arab world, the East and West Coasts of the United States, and in Canada ranging in topics from social reform to politics, Pan-Arabism, East and West cohesion, poetry and philosophy. Rihani also participated in

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7068-419: The hero of the novel, descends from Baalbek, from the roots of the Cedars in Lebanon and immigrates all the way to New York where he faces all the contradictions of his Oriental soft background and the harshness of the Occidental severe reality. He dreams of the virtual Great City, thinks of the ideal Empire, and looks for the Superman who combines within himself the spirituality of the East, the art of Europe, and

7182-428: The ideas of his former colleague, Gottfried Semper, which he had previously solicited for a proposed new opera house in Munich. Wagner was responsible for several theatrical innovations at Bayreuth; these include darkening the auditorium during performances, and placing the orchestra in a pit out of view of the audience. The Festspielhaus finally opened on 13 August 1876 with Das Rheingold , at last taking its place as

7296-524: The importance of the orchestra is equal to that of the singers. The orchestra's dramatic role in the later operas includes the use of leitmotifs , musical phrases that can be interpreted as announcing specific characters, locales, and plot elements; their complex interweaving and evolution illuminate the progression of the drama. These operas are still, despite Wagner's reservations, referred to by many writers as "music dramas". Wagner's earliest attempts at opera were often uncompleted. Abandoned works include

7410-523: The impression it produced on me," and claimed that the "profoundly human and ecstatic performance of this incomparable artist" kindled in him an "almost demonic fire". In 1831, Wagner enrolled at the Leipzig University , where he became a member of the Saxon student fraternity . He took composition lessons with the Thomaskantor Theodor Weinlig . Weinlig was so impressed with Wagner's musical ability that he refused any payment for his lessons. He arranged for his pupil's Piano Sonata in B-flat major (which

7524-479: The journal Bayreuther Blätter , published by his supporter Hans von Wolzogen . Wagner's sudden interest in Christianity at this period, which infuses Parsifal , was contemporary with his increasing alignment with German nationalism , and required on his part, and the part of his associates, "the rewriting of some recent Wagnerian history", so as to represent, for example, the Ring as a work reflecting Christian ideals. Many of these later articles, including "What

7638-399: The last hundred years, although the overture to Rienzi is an occasional concert-hall piece. Die Feen , Das Liebesverbot , and Rienzi were performed at both Leipzig and Bayreuth in 2013 to mark the composer's bicentenary. Ameen Rihani Ameen Rihani ( Amīn Fāris Anṭūn ar-Rīḥānī ; Arabic : أمين الريحاني / ALA-LC : Amīn ar-Rīḥānī ; November 24, 1876 – September 13, 1940)

7752-405: The last of his middle-period operas, before the Dresden uprising, and now wrote desperately to his friend Franz Liszt to have it staged in his absence. Liszt conducted the premiere in Weimar in August 1850. Nevertheless, Wagner was in grim personal straits, isolated from the German musical world and without any regular income. In 1850, Julie, the wife of his friend Karl Ritter, began to pay him

7866-417: The last time: they parted irrevocably, though Wagner continued to give financial support to her while she lived in Dresden until her death in 1866. In Biebrich, Wagner, at last, began work on Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg , his only mature comedy. Wagner wrote a first draft of the libretto in 1845, and he had resolved to develop it during a visit he had made to Venice with the Wesendoncks in 1860, where he

7980-478: The masses in order to achieve fame and financial success, rather than creating genuine works of art. In " Opera and Drama " (1851), Wagner described the aesthetics of music drama that he was using to create the Ring cycle. Before leaving Dresden, Wagner had drafted a scenario that eventually became Der Ring des Nibelungen . He initially wrote the libretto for a single opera, Siegfried's Tod ( Siegfried's Death ), in 1848. After arriving in Zürich, he expanded

8094-428: The maturation of his personal identity. Though he was quick to develop an intellectually critical attitude toward all forms of intolerance rooted in traditional cultures, Rihani did not stop with the celebration of free thinking and the espousal of forms of national unity that renounce religious confessionalism”. Terri DeYoung compares Rihani with Walt Whitman and highlights the fact that: “Walt Whitman attempted to expose

8208-516: The most important event of his life. His personal circumstances certainly made him an easy convert to what he understood to be Schopenhauer's philosophy, sometimes categorised as " philosophical pessimism ". He remained an adherent of Schopenhauer for the rest of his life. One of Schopenhauer's doctrines was that music held a supreme role in the arts as a direct expression of the world's essence, namely, blind, impulsive will. This doctrine contradicted Wagner's view, expressed in "Opera and Drama", that

8322-418: The music in opera had to be subservient to the drama. Wagner scholars have argued that Schopenhauer's influence caused Wagner to assign a more commanding role to music in his later operas, including the latter half of the Ring cycle, which he had yet to compose. Aspects of Schopenhauerian doctrine found their way into Wagner's subsequent libretti. A second source of inspiration was Wagner's infatuation with

8436-478: The operas he had previously written through Lohengrin. Partly in an attempt to explain his change of views, Wagner published in 1851 the autobiographical " A Communication to My Friends ". This included his first public announcement of what was to become the Ring cycle: I shall never write an Opera more. As I have no wish to invent an arbitrary title for my works, I will call them Dramas ... I propose to produce my myth in three complete dramas, preceded by

8550-603: The pit unseen during act 3, took the baton from conductor Hermann Levi , and led the performance to its conclusion. After the festival, the Wagner family journeyed to Venice for the winter. Wagner died of a heart attack at the age of 69 on 13 February 1883 at Ca' Vendramin Calergi , a 16th-century palazzo on the Grand Canal . The legend that the attack was prompted by an argument with Cosima over Wagner's supposedly amorous interest in

8664-664: The poet-writer Mathilde Wesendonck , the wife of the silk merchant Otto Wesendonck. Wagner met the Wesendoncks, who were both great admirers of his music, in Zürich in 1852. From May 1853 onwards Wesendonck made several loans to Wagner to finance his household expenses in Zürich, and in 1857 placed a cottage on his estate at Wagner's disposal, which became known as the Asyl ("asylum" or "place of rest"). During this period, Wagner's growing passion for his patron's wife inspired him to put aside work on

8778-412: The present. Neo-romanticism as well as Romanticism is considered in opposition to naturalism—indeed, so far as music is concerned, naturalism is regarded as alien and even hostile ( Dahlhaus 1979 , 100). In the period following German unification in 1871, naturalism rejected Romantic literature as a misleading, idealistic distortion of reality. Naturalism in turn came to be regarded as incapable of filling

8892-504: The release of The Book of Khalid and the president of the New York Pleiades Club crowned him with a laurel garland. During the period between 1910 and 1922 Rihani became remarkably involved in the literary life while continuing to pursue productive political engagements. On the literary level, he continued writing and publishing in English and Arabic. Among the books that he published during that period were: The Lily of A-Ghor ,

9006-441: The second act); but the opportunity was also exploited by those who wanted to use the occasion as a veiled political protest against the pro-Austrian policies of Napoleon III . It was during this visit that Wagner met the French poet Charles Baudelaire , who wrote an appreciative brochure, " Richard Wagner et Tannhäuser à Paris ". The opera was withdrawn after the third performance and Wagner left Paris soon after. He had sought

9120-716: The singer Carrie Pringle , who had been a Flower-maiden in Parsifal at Bayreuth, is without credible evidence. After a funerary gondola bore Wagner's remains over the Grand Canal, his body was taken to Germany where it was buried in the garden of the Villa Wahnfried in Bayreuth. Wagner's musical output is listed by the Wagner-Werk-Verzeichnis (WWV) as comprising 113 works, including fragments and projects. The first complete scholarly edition of his musical works in print

9234-423: The story with Der junge Siegfried ( Young Siegfried ), which explored the hero's background. He completed the text of the cycle by writing the libretti for Die Walküre ( The Valkyrie ) and Das Rheingold ( The Rhine Gold ) and revising the other libretti to conform to his new concept, completing them in 1852. The concept of opera expressed in "Opera and Drama" and in other essays effectively renounced all

9348-614: The strong support of Giacomo Meyerbeer , it was accepted for performance by the Dresden Court Theatre ( Hofoper ) in the Kingdom of Saxony , and in 1842 Wagner moved to Dresden. His relief at returning to Germany was recorded in his " Autobiographic Sketch " of 1842, where he wrote that, en route from Paris, "For the first time I saw the Rhine —with hot tears in my eyes, I, poor artist, swore eternal fidelity to my German fatherland." Rienzi

9462-412: The task of writing the libretto (the text and lyrics) to others, Wagner wrote his own libretti, which he referred to as "poems". From 1849 onwards, he urged a new concept of opera often referred to as "music drama" (although he later rejected this term), in which all musical, poetic and dramatic elements were to be fused together—the Gesamtkunstwerk . Wagner developed a compositional style in which

9576-595: The teenager got carried away by stage fever and joined a touring stock company headed by Henry Jewet (who later had his theatre in Boston). During the summer of the same year, the troupe became stranded in Kansas City, Missouri and so the prodigal son returned to his father. However, he returned not to rejoin the business, but to insist that his father give him a regular education for a professional career. They agreed that he should study law. To that end, he attended night school for

9690-694: The term "neo-romanticism" is applied to a loosely affiliated school of landscape painting that emerged around 1930 and continued until the early 1950s. It was first labeled in March 1942 by the critic Raymond Mortimer in the New Statesman . These painters looked back to 19th-century artists such as William Blake and Samuel Palmer , but were also influenced by French cubist and post-cubist artists such as Pablo Picasso , André Masson , and Pavel Tchelitchew ( Clark and Clarke 2001 harvnb error: no target: CITEREFClark_and_Clarke2001 ( help ) ; Hopkins 2001 ). This movement

9804-695: The theatre in Würzburg . In the same year, at the age of 20, Wagner composed his first complete opera, Die Feen ( The Fairies ). This work, which imitated the style of Weber, went unproduced until half a century later, when it was premiered in Munich shortly after the composer's death in 1883. Having returned to Leipzig in 1834, Wagner held a brief appointment as musical director at the opera house in Magdeburg during which he wrote Das Liebesverbot ( The Ban on Love ), based on Shakespeare's Measure for Measure . This

9918-572: The theatre. The two married in Tragheim Church on 24 November 1836. In May 1837, Minna left Wagner for another man, and this was only the first débâcle of a tempestuous marriage. In June 1837, Wagner moved to Riga (then in the Russian Empire ), where he became music director of the local opera; having in this capacity engaged Minna's sister Amalie (also a singer) for the theatre, he presently resumed relations with Minna during 1838. By 1839,

10032-465: The theatre. The Wagners moved to the town the following year, and the foundation stone for the Bayreuth Festspielhaus ("Festival Theatre") was laid. Wagner initially announced the first Bayreuth Festival, at which for the first time the Ring cycle was presented complete, for 1873, but since Ludwig had declined to finance the project, the start of building was delayed and the proposed date for

10146-608: The third Ring drama, which he now called simply Siegfried , probably in September 1856, but by June 1857 he had completed only the first two acts. He decided to put the work aside to concentrate on a new idea: Tristan und Isolde , based on the Arthurian love story Tristan and Iseult . One source of inspiration for Tristan und Isolde was the philosophy of Arthur Schopenhauer , notably his The World as Will and Representation , to which Wagner had been introduced in 1854 by his poet friend Georg Herwegh . Wagner later called this

10260-499: The three trips he made to Arabia. These accounts were a considerable critical and public success. London publishers released a circular on Rihani's travel books as having been best sellers. He is considered by some scholars as a major figure in the intellectual development of Arab nationalism. In his writings on national issues, he emphasized the importance of a secular state and a secular education pointing that there must be no minorities or majorities, but only equal citizens. Rihani placed

10374-426: The throne of Bavaria at the age of 18. The young king, an ardent admirer of Wagner's operas, had the composer brought to Munich. The King, who was homosexual, expressed in his correspondence a passionate personal adoration for the composer, and Wagner in his responses had no scruples about feigning reciprocal feelings. Ludwig settled Wagner's considerable debts and proposed to stage Tristan , Die Meistersinger ,

10488-506: The titles of Muluk-ul Arab (Kings of the Arabs), Tareekh Najd Al-Hadeeth (History of Modern Najd), Qalb-ul Iraq (The Heart of Iraq) and other works on Arabia that were considered to be a remarkably critical and public success. Scholars, at the dawn of the twenty-first century, recognize the role of Rihani in the discourse of civilizations: Nathan C. Funk argues that “Rihani’s approach to intercultural reconciliation emerged gradually, reflecting

10602-700: The way for modernity in Arabic literature and contemporary Arab thought. Rihani's first major novel (in English), The Book of Khalid (1911), was considered a pioneering literary work that paved the way for Arab-American literature. It combined reality and fiction, East and West, spiritualism and materialism, the Arabs and the Americans, philosophy and literature, in a style of language where Arabic metaphors and English language structures go together in an attempt to create an abstract line where both languages can almost touch. Khalid,

10716-540: The wider world". Ameen Rihani died at age 64 on September 13, 1940, at 1:00 pm, in his hometown of Freike, Lebanon. The cause of his death was a bicycle accident which resulted in infectious injuries from multiple fractures of the skull. The news of his death was broadcast to many parts of the world. It caused great emotion not only in Lebanon but throughout the Arab world. Representatives of Arab kings and rulers and of foreign diplomatic missions, together with leading poets, writers, and other intellectuals from Lebanon and

10830-521: The works, Wagner had his own opera house built to his specifications: the Bayreuth Festspielhaus , which featured many innovative design elements intended to immerse the audience in the drama. The premieres of The Ring and Parsifal took place there, and his most important stage works are performed at the annual Bayreuth Festival . The early success of the festival was secured by the efforts of his wife, Cosima Wagner , and has since been maintained by their descendants , attracting audiences from around

10944-452: The world. Wagner's unorthodox operas, essays, and personal dealings engendered considerable controversy during his lifetime, and continue to do so. Declared a "genius" by some and a "disease" by others, his music is widely performed, but his views on religion, politics, and social life are debated—most notably on the extent to which his antisemitism finds expression in his stage and prose works. The effect of his ideas can be traced in many of

11058-538: Was a Lebanese-American writer, intellectual and political activist. He was also a major figure in the mahjar literary movement developed by Arab emigrants in North America, and an early theorist of Arab nationalism . He became an American citizen in 1901. Ameen Rihani was born on November 24, 1876, in Freike, in the Mount Lebanon Mutasarrifate , Rihani was one of six children and the oldest son of

11172-461: Was a German composer, theatre director, essayist, and conductor who is chiefly known for his operas (or, as some of his mature works were later known, " music dramas "). Unlike most opera composers, Wagner wrote both the libretto and the music for each of his stage works. Initially establishing his reputation as a composer of works in the romantic vein of Carl Maria von Weber and Giacomo Meyerbeer , Wagner revolutionised opera through his concept of

11286-707: Was also much troubled by problems of financing Parsifal , and by the prospect of the work being performed by other theatres than Bayreuth. He was once again assisted by the liberality of King Ludwig, but was still forced by his personal financial situation in 1877 to sell the rights of several of his unpublished works (including the Siegfried Idyll ) to the publisher Schott . Wagner wrote several articles in his later years, often on political topics, and often reactionary in tone, repudiating some of his earlier, more liberal, views. These include "Religion and Art" (1880) and "Heroism and Christianity" (1881), which were printed in

11400-614: Was commenced in 1970 under the aegis of the Bavarian Academy of Fine Arts and the Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur of Mainz , and is presently under the editorship of Egon Voss . It will consist of 21 volumes (57 books) of music and 10 volumes (13 books) of relevant documents and texts. As at October 2017, three volumes remain to be published. The publisher is Schott Music . Wagner's operatic works are his primary artistic legacy. Unlike most opera composers, who generally left

11514-513: Was consequently dedicated to him) to be published as Wagner's Op. 1. A year later, Wagner composed his Symphony in C major , a Beethovenesque work performed in Prague in 1832 and at the Leipzig Gewandhaus in 1833. He then began to work on an opera, Die Hochzeit ( The Wedding ), which he never completed. In 1833, Wagner's brother Albert managed to obtain for him a position as choirmaster at

11628-481: Was determined to set it to music and persuaded his family to allow him music lessons. By 1827, the family had returned to Leipzig. Wagner's first lessons in harmony were taken during 1828–1831 with Christian Gottlieb Müller. In January 1828 he first heard Beethoven 's 7th Symphony and then, in March, the same composer's 9th Symphony , both at the Gewandhaus . Beethoven became a major inspiration, and Wagner wrote

11742-529: Was enrolled at Pastor Wetzel's school at Possendorf, near Dresden, where he received some piano instruction from his Latin teacher. He struggled to play a proper scale at the keyboard and preferred playing theatre overtures by ear . Following Geyer's death in 1821, Richard was sent to the Kreuzschule , the boarding school of the Dresdner Kreuzchor , at the expense of Geyer's brother. At the age of nine he

11856-514: Was falling into a deepening depression . Wagner fell victim to ill health, according to Ernest Newman "largely a matter of overwrought nerves", which made it difficult for him to continue writing. Wagner's primary published output during his first years in Zürich was a set of essays. In " The Artwork of the Future " (1849), he described a vision of opera as Gesamtkunstwerk (total work of art), in which music, song, dance, poetry, visual arts and stagecraft were unified. " Judaism in Music " (1850)

11970-563: Was hugely impressed by the Gothic elements of Carl Maria von Weber 's opera Der Freischütz , which he saw Weber conduct. At this period Wagner entertained ambitions as a playwright. His first creative effort, listed in the Wagner-Werk-Verzeichnis (the standard listing of Wagner's works) as WWV 1, was a tragedy called Leubald . Begun when he was in school in 1826, the play was strongly influenced by Shakespeare and Goethe . Wagner

12084-462: Was inspired by Titian 's painting The Assumption of the Virgin . Throughout this period (1861–1864) Wagner sought to have Tristan und Isolde produced in Vienna. Despite many rehearsals, the opera remained unperformed, and gained a reputation as being "impossible" to sing, which added to Wagner's financial problems. Wagner's fortunes took a dramatic upturn in 1864, when King Ludwig II succeeded to

12198-551: Was motivated in part as a response to the threat of invasion during World War II. Artists particularly associated with the initiation of this movement included Paul Nash , John Piper , Henry Moore , Ivon Hitchens , and especially Graham Sutherland . A younger generation included John Minton , Michael Ayrton , John Craxton , Keith Vaughan , Robert Colquhoun , and Robert MacBryde ( Button 1996 ). The aesthetic philosophy of Arthur Schopenhauer and Friedrich Nietzsche has contributed greatly to neo-romantic thinking. Within

12312-412: Was proposed as an alternative label for the group of German composers identified with the short-lived Neue Einfachheit movement in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Along with other phrases such as "new tonality", this term has been criticised for lack of precision because of the diversity among these composers, whose leading member is Wolfgang Rihm ( Hentschel 2006 , 111). In British art history,

12426-426: Was staged at Magdeburg in 1836 but closed before the second performance; this, together with the financial collapse of the theatre company employing him, left the composer in bankruptcy. Wagner had fallen for one of the leading ladies at Magdeburg, the actress Christine Wilhelmine "Minna" Planer , and after the disaster of Das Liebesverbot he followed her to Königsberg , where she helped him to get an engagement at

12540-497: Was staged to considerable acclaim on 20 October. Wagner lived in Dresden for the next six years, eventually being appointed the Royal Saxon Court Conductor. During this period, he staged there Der fliegende Holländer (2 January 1843) and Tannhäuser (19 October 1845), the first two of his three middle-period operas. Wagner also mixed with artistic circles in Dresden, including the composer Ferdinand Hiller and

12654-498: Was the first of Wagner's writings to feature antisemitic views. In this polemic Wagner asserted—often with vulgar, abusive language—that Jews lived as "outsiders" amid European societies and were disconnected from the national spirit ( Volksgeist ) of these countries, thus capable of producing only shallow and artificial imitations of European art music, despite having achieved technical proficiency in its study. According to Wagner, Jews such as Meyerbeer commercialised music catered to

12768-434: Was the ninth child of Carl Friedrich Wagner, a clerk in the Leipzig police service, and his wife, Johanna Rosine (née Pätz), the daughter of a baker. Wagner's father Carl died of typhoid fever six months after Richard's birth. Afterwards, his mother Johanna lived with Carl's friend, the actor and playwright Ludwig Geyer . In August 1814 Johanna and Geyer probably married, although no documentation of this has been found in

12882-426: Was the only traveler at that time, European or Arab, to have covered that whole territory in one trip. He acquired an invaluable and first-hand account of the character, vision and belief of each of these rulers. He developed a friendship with Ibn Saud , ruler of the desert kingdom that would soon become the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia . Between 1924 and 1932 he wrote and published six books in English and Arabic related to

12996-520: Was withdrawn after its first performance. Rienzi (1842) was Wagner's first opera to be successfully staged. The compositional style of these early works was conventional—the relatively more sophisticated Rienzi showing the clear influence of Grand Opera à la Spontini and Meyerbeer—and did not exhibit the innovations that would mark Wagner's place in musical history. Later in life, Wagner said that he did not consider these works to be part of his oeuvre , and they have been performed only rarely in

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