This text is licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA License. This text was originally published on Wikipedia and was developed by the Wikipedia community.
name | Klaus Schulze |
---|---|
background | non_vocal_instrumentalist |
born | August 04, 1947 |
origin | Berlin, Germany |
genre | Electronic musicNew Age musicSpace musicTrance musicKrautrock/Kosmische MusikBerlin School |
occupation | Musician, Producer |
years active | 1969–present |
label | OhrBrain/PolyGram RecordsVirgin RecordsMetronomeManikin RecordsIsland RecordsICInteamZYX RecordsWEARainhorseSynthetic SymphonyFAX +49-69/450464 |
associated acts | Tangerine DreamAsh Ra TempelCosmic Jokers |
website | Official Site |
notable instruments | }} |
Since this point, Schulze's career has been most prolific, and he can now claim more than 40 original albums to his name since ''Irrlicht''. Highlights of these include 1975's ''Timewind'', 1976's ''Moondawn'' (his first album to feature the Moog modular synthesizer), 1979's ''Dune'', and 1995's double-album ''In Blue'' (which featured one long track called Return To The Tempel with electric guitar contributions from his friend Manuel Göttsching of Ash Ra Tempel). In 1976, he was drafted by Japanese percussionist and composer Stomu Yamashta to join his short-lived "supergroup" Go, also featuring Steve Winwood, Michael Shrieve and Al Di Meola. They released two studio albums (''Go'' in 1976 and ''Go Too'' in 1977) and one live album ("Live from Paris" recorded in 1976 and released in '77) which went on to become a cult favourite.
Throughout the 1970s he followed closely in the footsteps of Tangerine Dream, albeit with far lighter sequencer lines and a more reflective, dreamy edge, not unlike the ambient music of his contemporary Brian Eno. It is to be noted that some of his lighter albums are appreciated by New Age music fans, despite the fact that Schulze has always denied connections to this genre.
Klaus Schulze had a more organic sound than other electronic artists of the time. Often he would throw in decidedly non-electronic sounds such as acoustic guitar and a male operatic voice in ''Blackdance'', or a cello in ''Dune'' and ''Trancefer''. Schulze developed a Minimoog technique that sounds uncannily like an electric guitar, which is quite impressive in concert. Schulze often takes German events as a starting point for his compositions, a notable example being on his 1978 album ''"X"'' (the title signifying it was his tenth album), subtitled "Six Musical Biographies", a reference to such notables as Ludwig II of Bavaria, Friedrich Nietzsche, Georg Trakl and Wilhelm Friedemann Bach. His use of the pseudonym ''Richard Wahnfried'' is indicative of his interest in Richard Wagner, a clear influence on some albums like the aforementioned ''Timewind''.
This newer style can also be found in Schulze's next release ''Audentity''. Both "Cellistica" and "Spielglocken" are composed in a similar, sequencer based, style as ''Trancefer'', but this is certainly not the case of all of ''Audentity'''s tracks, indeed "Sebastian in Traum" hints towards the Operatic style to be found in some of Schulze's much later work. The predominance of sequencing can also be found in the follow-up live album ''Dziękuję Poland Live '83'', although it should be noted that many of its tracks are re-workings of those to be found on ''Audentity''. Schulze's next studio-based album ''Angst'' (soundtrack to the namesake 1983 film) moved away from the harshness of sharp, heavily sequenced style of the 3 previous albums and, once again, had the more "organic feel" of earlier recordings.
Another highlight of this era was ''En=Trance'' with the dreamy cut "FM Delight". The album ''Miditerranean Pads'' marked the beginning of very complex percussion arrangements that continued into the next two decades.
In 1989, German band Alphaville released their album ''The Breathtaking Blue'', on which Klaus Schulze was both a contributing musician (partially) and the album's producer.
''Richard Wahnfried'', then simply ''Wahnfried'' after 1993, is the long-time and only real alias for Klaus Schulze – originally a pseudonym, later an official side project name. Seven albums were released under this name between 1979 and 1997.
The main characteristics of the Wahnfried albums (as opposed to Schulze's regular works) are:
The pseudonym's etymology stems from Schulze's love for Richard Wagner:
In his 1975 album ''Timewind'' (four years before the first alias use), Schulze had already named a track "Wahnfried 1883" (in reference to Wagner's death and burial in his Wahnfried's garden in 1883). The other track on ''Timewind'' is called "Bayreuth Return". After 1993, the albums are simply credited to "Wahnfried", and namedrop Schulze ("featuring Klaus Schulze", "Produced by Klaus Schulze").
"Wahnfried" is the only known alias of Schulze (albeit on the 1998 ''Tribute to Klaus Schulze'' album, among 10 other artists, Schulze contributed one track barely hidden behind the "Schulzendorfer Groove Orchester" pseudonym).
! Year | ! Title | ! Reissued |
1972 | 2006 | |
1973 | 2007 | |
1974 | ''Blackdance'' | 2007 |
1975 | ''Picture Music'' | 2005 |
1975 | ''Timewind'' | 2006 |
1976 | ''Moondawn'' | 2005 |
1977 | ''Body Love'' (soundtrack) | 2005 |
1977 | 2005 | |
1977 | ''Body Love Vol. 2'' | 2007 |
1978 | 2005 | |
1979 | 2005 | |
1980 | ''...Live...'' | 2007 |
1980 | 2005 | |
1981 | ''Trancefer'' | 2006 |
1983 | ''Audentity'' | 2005 |
1983 | 2006 | |
1984 | 2005 | |
1985 | ''Inter*Face'' | 2006 |
1986 | 2005 | |
1988 | ''En=Trance'' | 2005 |
1990 | ''Miditerranean Pads'' | 2005 |
1990 | ''The Dresden Performance'' (live) | |
1991 | ''Beyond Recall'' | |
1992 | ''Royal Festival Hall Vol. 1'' (live) | |
1992 | ''Royal Festival Hall Vol. 2'' (live) | |
1993 | ''The Dome Event'' (live) | |
1994 | ''Le Moulin de Daudet'' (soundtrack) | 2005 |
1994 | ''Goes Classic'' | |
1994 | ''Totentag'' | |
1994 | ''Das Wagner Desaster Live'' (live) | 2005 |
1995 | 2005 | |
1996 | ''Are You Sequenced?'' (live) | 2006 |
1997 | ''Dosburg Online'' (live) | 2006 |
2001 | ''Live @ KlangArt'' (live) | 2008 |
2005 | ''Moonlake'' | |
2007 | ''Kontinuum'' | |
2008 | ||
2008 | ||
2009 | ''Dziękuję Bardzo'' (live, with Lisa Gerrard) | |
2010 | ''Big in Japan: Live in Tokyo 2010'' (live) |
! Year | ! Title | ! Reissued |
1979 | ''Time Actor'' | |
1981 | ''Tonwelle'' | |
1984 | ||
1986 | ''Miditation'' | |
1994 | ''Trancelation'' | |
1996 | ''Trance Appeal'' | 2007 |
1997 | ''Drums 'n' Balls (The Gancha Dub)'' | 2006 |
Year !! Title !! Discs !! Copies | |||
1993 | ''Silver Edition'' | 10 | |
1995 | ''Historic Edition''| | 10 | 2000 |
1997 | ''Jubilee Edition''| | 25 | 1000 |
2000 | ''The Ultimate Edition''| | 50 | |
2000 | ''Contemporary Works I''| | 10 | |
2002 | ''Contemporary Works II''| | 5 | 2002 |
! Year | ! Title | ! From |
2005 | ''Vanity of Sounds'' | ''Contemporary Works I'' (2000) |
2006 | ''The Crime of Suspense'' | ''Contemporary Works I'' (2000) |
2006 | ''Ballett 1'' | ''Contemporary Works I'' (2000) |
2006 | ''Ballett 2'' | ''Contemporary Works I'' (2000) |
2007 | ''Ballett 3'' | ''Contemporary Works I'' (2000) |
2007 | ''Ballett 4'' | ''Contemporary Works I'' (2000) |
2008 | ''Virtual Outback'' | ''Contemporary Works II'' (2002) |
2009 | ''The Ultimate Edition'' (2000) | |
2009 | ''The Ultimate Edition'' (2000) | |
2009 | ''The Ultimate Edition'' (2000) | |
2009 | ''The Ultimate Edition'' (2000) | |
2010 | ''The Ultimate Edition'' (2000) | |
2010 | ''The Ultimate Edition'' (2000) | |
2010 | ''The Ultimate Edition'' (2000) | |
2010 | ''The Ultimate Edition'' (2000) | |
2011 | ''The Ultimate Edition'' (2000) | |
2011 | ''The Ultimate Edition'' (2000) |
Year !! Title !! Pink Floyd Title | ||
1994 | ''The Dark Side of the Moog: Wish You Were There'' | Wish You Were Here (Pink Floyd song)>Wish You Were Here" |
1994 | ||
1995 | ||
1996 | ''The Dark Side of the Moog IV: Three Pipers at the Gates of Dawn'' | |
1996 | ''The Dark Side of the Moog V: Psychedelic Brunch'' | |
1997 | ||
1998 | ||
1999 | ''The Dark Side of the Moog VIII: Careful With the AKS, Peter'' | |
2002 | ''The Dark Side of the Moog: The Evolution of the Dark Side of the Moog'' | |
2002 | ||
2005 | ''The Dark Side of the Moog X: Astro Know Me Domina'' | |
2008 | ''The Dark Side of the Moog XI: The Heart of Our Nearest Star'' |
''The Evolution of the Dark Side of the Moog'' is a compilation album, containing excerpts from the first 8 volumes. The series was announced as officially concluded with volume 10 when on 21 March 2005 at 14:52 CET, Pete Namlook sold the Big Moog synthesizer that was the symbol of the series. However, a volume 11 appeared on Namlook's website on 15 April 2008.
Year !! Title !! Collaborator | ||
1970 | ''Electronic Meditation'' | Tangerine Dream |
1971 | Ash Ra Tempel (album)>Ash Ra Tempel'' | |
1973 | Tarot (Walter Wegmüller album)>Tarot'' | |
1973 | ''Join Inn'' | |
1973 | ''Lord Krishna von Goloka'' | |
1974 | The Cosmic Jokers (album)>The Cosmic Jokers'' | |
1974 | ''Planeten Sit-In'' | |
1974 | ''Galactic Supermarket'' | |
1974 | ''Sci Fi Party'' | |
1974 | ''Gilles Zeitschiff'' | |
1974 | ''Planet of Man'' | |
1976 | ''Go (Go album)Go'' || Go | |
1976 | Go Live from Paris'' > | |
1977 | Go Too'' > | |
1979 | French Skyline'' > | |
1984 | Aphrica'' > | |
1984 | Drive Inn (album)>Drive Inn'' | |
1984 | ''Transfer Station Blue'' | |
1987 | Babel (album)>Babel'' | |
2000 | Friendship (Ash Ra Tempel album)>Friendship'' | |
2000 | ''Gin Rosé at the Royal Festival Hall'' | |
2009 | ''Come Quietly'' |
Category:New Age musicians Category:German trance musicians Category:German electronic musicians Category:Tangerine Dream members Category:1947 births Category:Virgin Records artists Category:Living people Category:Krautrock
ar:كلاوس شولتزه ca:Klaus Schulze de:Klaus Schulze es:Klaus Schulze fa:کلاوس شولتز fr:Klaus Schulze gl:Klaus Schulze it:Klaus Schulze ka:კლაუს შულცე nl:Klaus Schulze ja:クラウス・シュルツェ pl:Klaus Schulze pt:Klaus Schulze ro:Klaus Schulze ru:Шульце, Клаус fi:Klaus Schulze sv:Klaus Schulze uk:Клаус ШульцеThis text is licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA License. This text was originally published on Wikipedia and was developed by the Wikipedia community.
Karl Heinrich Marx (5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, sociologist, economic historian, journalist, and revolutionary socialist who developed the socio-political theory of Marxism. His ideas have since played a significant role in the development of social science and the socialist political movement. He published various books during his lifetime, with the most notable being ''The Communist Manifesto'' (1848) and ''Capital'' (1867–1894), many of which were co-written with his friend, the fellow German revolutionary socialist Friedrich Engels.
Born into a wealthy middle class family in Trier, Prussia, Marx went on to study at both the University of Bonn and the University of Berlin, where he became interested in the philosophical ideas of the Young Hegelians. In 1836, he became engaged to Jenny von Westphalen, marrying her in 1843. Following the completion of his studies, he became a journalist in Cologne, writing for a radical newspaper, the ''Rheinische Zeitung'', where he began to use Hegelian concepts of dialectical materialism to influence his ideas on socialism. Moving to Paris in 1843, he began writing for other radical newspapers, the ''Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher'' and ''Vorwärts!'', as well as writing a series of books, several of which were co-written with Engels. Exiled to Brussels in Belgium in 1845, he became a leading figure of the Communist League, before moving back to Cologne, where he founded his own newspaper, the ''Neue Rheinische Zeitung''. Exiled once more, in 1849 he moved to London together with his wife Jenny and their children. In London, where the family was reduced to poverty, Marx continued writing and formulating his theories about the nature of society and how he believed it could be improved, as well as campaigning for socialism and becoming a significant figure in the International Workingmen's Association.
Marx's theories about society, economics and politics, which are collectively known as Marxism, hold that all societies progress through the dialectic of class struggle. He was heavily critical of the current socio-economic form of society, capitalism, which he called the "dictatorship of the bourgeoisie", believing it to be run by the wealthy middle and upper classes purely for their own benefit, and predicted that, like previous socioeconomic systems, it would inevitably produce internal tensions which would lead to its self-destruction and replacement by a new system, socialism. Under socialism, he argued that society would be governed by the working class in what he called the "dictatorship of the proletariat", the "workers state" or "workers' democracy". He believed that socialism would, in its turn, eventually be replaced by a stateless, classless society called pure communism. Along with believing in the inevitability of socialism and communism, Marx actively fought for the former's implementation, arguing that both social theorists and underprivileged people should carry out organised revolutionary action to topple capitalism and bring about socio-economic change.
While Marx remained a relatively unknown figure in his own lifetime, his ideas and the ideology of Marxism began to exert a major influence on socialist movements shortly after his death. Revolutionary socialist governments following Marxist concepts took power in a variety of countries in the 20th century, leading to the formation of such socialist states as the Soviet Union in 1922 and the People's Republic of China in 1949, whilst various theoretical variants, such as Leninism, Stalinism, Trotskyism and Maoism, were developed. Marx is typically cited, with Émile Durkheim and Max Weber, as one of the three principal architects of modern social science. Marx has been described as one of the most influential figures in human history, and in a 1999 BBC poll was voted the "thinker of the millennium" by people from around the world.
Karl Heinrich Marx was born on 5 May 1818 at 664 Brückergasse in Trier, a town located in the Kingdom of Prussia's Province of the Lower Rhine. His ancestry was Jewish, with his paternal line having supplied the rabbis of Trier since 1723, a role that had been taken up by his own grandfather, Merier Halevi Marx; Merier's son and Karl's father would be the first in the line to receive a secular education. His maternal grandfather was a Dutch rabbi. Karl's father, Hirschel Marx, was middle-class and relatively prosperous, owning a number of Moselle vineyards; he converted from Judaism to the Protestant Christian denomination of Lutheranism prior to his son's birth, taking on the German forename of Heinrich over Hirschel. In 1815, he began working as an attorney and in 1819 moved his family from a five-room rented apartment into a ten-room property near the Porta Nigra. A man of the Enlightenment, Heinrich Marx was interested in the ideas of the philosophers Immanuel Kant and Voltaire, and took part in agitations for a constitution and reforms in Prussia, which was then governed by an absolute monarchy. Karl's mother, born Henrietta Pressburg, was a Dutch Jew who, unlike her husband, was only semi-literate. She claimed to suffer from "excessive mother love", devoting much time to her family, and insisting on cleanliness within her home. She was from a prosperous business family. Her family later founded the company Philips Electronics: she was great-aunt to Anton and Gerard Philips, and great-great-aunt to Frits Philips.
Little is known about Karl Marx's childhood. He was privately educated until 1830, when he entered Trier High School, which was then run by the headmaster Hugo Wyttenbach, a friend of his father. Wyttenbach had employed many liberal humanists as teachers, something which angered the government, and so the police raided the school in 1832, discovering what they labelled seditious literature espousing political liberalism being distributed amongst the students. In 1835, Karl, then aged seventeen, began attending the University of Bonn, where he wished to study philosophy and literature, but his father insisted on law as a more practical field of study. He was able to avoid military service when he turned eighteen because he suffered from a weak chest. Being fond of alcoholic beverages, at Bonn he joined the Trier Tavern Club drinking society (''Landsmannschaft der Treveraner'') and at one point served as its co-president. Marx was more interested in drinking and socialising than studying law, and due to his poor grades, his father forced him to transfer to the far more serious and academically oriented University of Berlin, where his legal studies became less significant than excursions into philosophy and history.
Marx became interested in, but critical of, the work of the German philosopher G.W.F Hegel (1770–1831), whose ideas were widely debated amongst European philosophical circles at the time. Marx wrote about falling ill "from intense vexation at having to make an idol of a view I detested." He became involved with a group of radical thinkers known as the Young Hegelians, who gathered around Ludwig Feuerbach and Bruno Bauer. Like Marx, the Young Hegelians were critical of Hegel's metaphysical assumptions, but still adopted his dialectical method in order to criticise established society, politics and religion. Marx befriended Bauer, and in July 1841 the two scandalised their class in Bonn by getting drunk, laughing in church, and galloping through the streets on donkeys. During that period, Marx concentrated on his criticism of Hegel and certain other Young Hegelians.
Marx also wrote for his own enjoyment, writing both non-fiction and fiction. In 1837, he completed a short novel, ''Scorpion and Felix''; a drama, ''Oulanem''; and some poems; none of which were published. He soon gave up writing fiction for other pursuits, including learning English and Italian.
He was deeply engaged in writing his doctoral thesis, ''The Difference Between the Democritean and Epicurean Philosophy of Nature'', which he finished in 1841. The essay has been described as "a daring and original piece of work in which he set out to show that theology must yield to the superior wisdom of philosophy", and as such was controversial, particularly among the conservative professors at the University of Berlin. Marx decided to submit it instead to the more liberal University of Jena, whose faculty awarded him his PhD based on it.
From considering an academic career, Marx turned to journalism. He moved to the city of Cologne in 1842, where he began writing for the radical newspaper ''Rheinische Zeitung'', where he expressed his increasingly socialist views on politics. He criticised the governments of Europe and their policies, but also liberals and other members of the socialist movement whose ideas he thought were ineffective or outright anti-socialist. The paper eventually attracted the attention of the Prussian government censors, who checked every issue for potentially seditious material before it could be printed. Marx said, "Our newspaper has to be presented to the police to be sniffed at, and if the police nose smells anything un-Christian or un-Prussian, the newspaper is not allowed to appear." After the paper published an article strongly criticising the monarchy in Russia, the Russian Tsar Nicholas I, an ally of the Prussian monarchy, requested that the ''Rheinische Zeitung'' be banned. The Prussian government shut down the paper in 1843. Marx wrote for the Young Hegelian journal, the ''Deutsche Jahrbücher'', in which he criticised the censorship instructions issued by Prussian King Friedrich Wilhelm IV. His article was censored and the newspaper closed down by the authorities shortly after.
In 1843, Marx published ''On the Jewish Question'', in which he distinguished between political and human emancipation. He also examined the role of religious practice in society. That same year he published ''Contribution to Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right'', in which he dealt more substantively with religion, describing it as "the opiate of the people". He completed both works shortly before leaving Cologne.
It was in Paris that, on 28 August 1844, Marx met German socialist Friedrich Engels at the Café de la Régence after becoming interested in the ideas that the latter had expressed in articles written for the ''Rheinische Zeitung'' and the ''Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher''. Although they had briefly met each other at the offices of the ''Rheinische Zeitung'' in 1842, it was here in Paris that they began their friendship that would last for the rest of their lives. Engels showed Marx his recently published book, ''The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844'', which convinced Marx that the working class would be the agent and instrument of the final revolution in history. Engels and Marx soon set about writing a criticism of the philosophical ideas of Marx's former friend, the Young Hegelian Bruno Bauer, which would be published in 1845 as ''The Holy Family''. Although critical of Bauer, Marx was increasingly influenced by the ideas of the other Young Hegelians Max Stirner and Ludwig Feuerbach, but eventually also abandoned Feuerbachian materialism as well.
In 1844 Marx wrote ''The Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts'', a work which covered numerous topics, and went into detail to explain Marx's concept of alienated labour. A year later Marx would write ''Theses on Feuerbach'', best known for the statement that "the philosophers have only interpreted the world, the point is to change it". This work contains Marx's criticism of materialism (for being contemplative), idealism (for reducing practice to theory) and overall, criticising philosophy for putting abstract reality above the physical world. It thus introduced the first glimpse at Marx's historical materialism, an argument that the world is changed not by ideas but by actual, physical, material activity and practice.
After the collapse of the ''Deutsch-Französische Jahrbücher'', Marx, still living on the Rue Vaneau, began writing for what was then the only uncensored German-language radical newspaper in Europe, ''Vorwärts!''. Based in Paris, the paper had been established and was run by many activists connected to the revolutionary socialist League of the Just, which would come to be better known as the Communist League within a few years. In ''Vorwärts!'', Marx continued to refine his views on socialism based upon the Hegelian and Feurbachian ideas of dialectical materialism, whilst at the same time criticising various liberals and other socialists operating in Europe at the time. However in 1845, after receiving a request from the Prussian king, the French government agreed to shut down ''Vorwärts!'', and furthermore, Marx himself was expelled from France by the interior minister François Guizot.
Unable either to stay in France or move to Germany, Marx decided to emigrate to Brussels in Belgium, but had to pledge not to publish anything on the subject of contemporary politics in order to enter. In Brussels, he associated with other exiled socialists from across Europe, including Moses Hess, Karl Heinzen and Joseph Weydemeyer, and soon Engels moved to the city in order to join them. In 1845 Marx and Engels visited the leaders of the Chartists, a socialist movement in Britain, using the trip as an opportunity to study in various libraries in London and Manchester. In collaboration with Engels he also set about writing a book which is often seen as his best treatment of the concept of historical materialism, ''The German Ideology''; the work, like many others, would not see publication in Marx's lifetime, only being published in 1932. He followed this with ''The Poverty of Philosophy'' (1847), a response to the French anarcho-socialist Pierre-Joseph Proudhon's ''The Philosophy of Poverty'' and a critique of French socialist thought in general.
These books laid the foundation for Marx and Engels's most famous work, a political pamphlet that has since come to be commonly known as ''The Communist Manifesto''. First published on 21 February 1848, it laid out the beliefs of the Communist League, a group who had come increasingly under the influence of Marx and Engels, who argued that the League must make their aims and intentions clear to the general public rather than hiding them as they had formerly been doing. The opening lines of the pamphlet set forth the principal basis of Marxism, that "The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles." It goes on to look at the antagonisms that Marx claimed were arising between the clashes of interest between the bourgeoisie (the wealthy middle class) and the proletariat (the industrial working class). Proceeding on from this, the ''Manifesto'' presents the argument for why the Communist League, as opposed to other socialist and liberal political parties and groups at the time, was truly acting in the interests of the proletariat to overthrow capitalist society and replace it with socialism.
Later that year, Europe experienced a series of protests, rebellions, and often violent upheavals, the Revolutions of 1848. In France, a revolution led to the overthrow of the monarchy and the establishment of the French Second Republic. Marx was supportive of such activity, and having recently received a substantial inheritance from his father of either 6000 or 5000 francs, allegedly used a third of it to arm Belgian workers who were planning revolutionary action. Although the veracity of these allegations is disputed, the Belgian Ministry of Justice accused him of it, subsequently arresting him, and he was forced to flee back to France, where, with a new republican government in power, he believed that he would be safe.
Whilst editor of the paper, Marx and the other revolutionary socialists were regularly harassed by the police, and Marx was brought to trial on several occasions, facing various allegations including insulting the Chief Public Prosecutor, an alleged press misdemeanor and inciting armed rebellion through tax boycotting, although each time he was acquitted. Meanwhile, the democratic parliament in Prussia collapsed, and the king, Frederick William IV, introduced a new cabinet of his reactionary supporters, who implemented counter-revolutionary measures to expunge leftist and other revolutionary elements from the country. As a part of this, the ''Neue Rheinische Zeitung'' was soon suppressed and Marx was ordered to leave the country on 16 May. Marx returned to Paris, which was then under the grip of both a reactionary counter-revolution and a cholera epidemic, and was soon expelled by the city authorities who considered him a political threat. With his wife Jenny expecting their fourth child, and not able to move back to Germany or Belgium, in August 1849 he sought refuge in London.
From December 1851 to March 1852 Marx wrote ''The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon'', a work on the French Revolution of 1848, in which he expanded upon his concepts of historical materialism, class struggle and the dictatorship of the proletariat, advancing the argument that victorious proletariat has to smash the bourgeois state.
The 1850s and 1860s also marks the line between what some scholars see as idealistic, Hegelian young Marx from the more scientifically-minded mature Marx writings of the later period. This distinction is usually associated with the structural Marxism school. Nor do all scholars agree that it indeed exists.
In 1864 Marx became involved in the International Workingmen's Association (also known as ''First International''). He became a leader of its General Council, to whose General Council he was elected at its inception in 1864. In that organisation Marx was involved in the struggle against the anarchist wing centred around Mikhail Bakunin (1814–1876). Although Marx won this contest, the transfer of the seat of the General Council from London to New York in 1872, which Marx supported, led to the decline of the International. The most important political event during the existence of the International was the ''Paris Commune of 1871'' when the citizens of Paris rebelled against their government and held the city for two months. On the bloody suppression of this rebellion, Marx wrote one of his most famous pamphlets, ''The Civil War in France'', a defense of the Commune.
Given the repeated failures and frustrations of workers' revolutions and movements, Marx also sought to understand capitalism, and spent a great deal of time in the reading room of the British Museum studying and reflecting on the works of political economists and on economic data. By 1857 he had accumulated over 800 pages of notes and short essays on capital, landed property, wage labour, the state, foreign trade and the world market; this work did not appear in print until 1941, under the title ''Grundrisse''. In 1859, Marx published ''Contribution to the Critique of Political Economy'', his first serious economic work. In the early 1860s he worked on composing three large volumes, the ''Theories of Surplus Value'', which discussed the theoreticians of political economy, particularly Adam Smith and David Ricardo. This work is often seen as the fourth book of ''Capital'', and constitutes one of the first comprehensive treatises on the history of economic thought. In 1867 the first volume of ''Capital'' was published, a work which analyzed the capitalist process of production. Here, Marx elaborated his labour theory of value and his conception of surplus value and exploitation which he argued would ultimately lead to a falling rate of profit and the collapse of industrial capitalism. Volumes II and III remained mere manuscripts upon which Marx continued to work for the rest of his life and were published posthumously by Engels.
During the last decade of his life, Marx's health declined and he became incapable of the sustained effort that had characterised his previous work. He did manage to comment substantially on contemporary politics, particularly in Germany and Russia. His ''Critique of the Gotha Programme'' opposed the tendency of his followers Wilhelm Liebknecht and August Bebel to compromise with the state socialism of Ferdinand Lassalle in the interests of a united socialist party. This work is also notable for another famous Marx's quote: "From each according to his ability, to each according to his need."
In a letter to Vera Zasulich dated 8 March 1881, Marx even contemplated the possibility of Russia's bypassing the capitalist stage of development and building communism on the basis of the common ownership of land characteristic of the village ''mir''. While admitting that Russia's rural "commune is the fulcrum of social regeneration in Russia", Marx also warned that in order for the mir to operate as a means for moving straight to the socialist stage without a preceding capitalist stage, it "would first be necessary to eliminate the deleterious influences which are assailing it (the rural commune) from all sides." Given the elimination of these pernicious influences, Marx allowed, that "normal conditions of spontaneous development" of the rural commune could exist. However, in the same letter to Vera Zaulich, Marx points out that "at the core of the capitalist system ... lies the complete separation of the producer from the means of production."
Several of his closest friends spoke at his funeral, including Wilhelm Liebknecht and Friedrich Engels. Engels's speech included the passage: }} Marx's daughter Eleanor and Charles Longuet and Paul Lafargue, Marx's two French socialist sons-in-law, were also in attendance. Liebknecht, a founder and leader of the German Social-Democratic Party, gave a speech in German, and Longuet, a prominent figure in the French working-class movement, made a short statement in French. Two telegrams from workers' parties in France and Spain were also read out. Together with Engels's speech, this constituted the entire programme of the funeral. Non-relatives attending the funeral included three communist associates of Marx: Friedrich Lessner, imprisoned for three years after the Cologne communist trial of 1852; G. Lochner, whom Engels described as "an old member of the Communist League" and Carl Schorlemmer, a professor of chemistry in Manchester, a member of the Royal Society, and a communist activist involved in the 1848 Baden revolution. Another attendee of the funeral was Ray Lankester, a British zoologist who would later become a prominent academic.
Marx's tombstone bears the carved message: "WORKERS OF ALL LANDS UNITE", the final line of ''The Communist Manifesto,'' and from the 11th ''Thesis on Feuerbach'' (edited by Engels): "The philosophers have only interpreted the world in various ways—the point however is to change it". The Communist Party of Great Britain had the monumental tombstone built in 1954 with a portrait bust by Laurence Bradshaw; Marx's original tomb had had only humble adornment. In 1970 there was an unsuccessful attempt to destroy the monument using a homemade bomb.
The later Marxist historian Eric Hobsbawm remarked that "One cannot say Marx died a failure" because, although he had not achieved a large following of disciples in Britain, his writings had already begun to make an impact on the leftist movements in Germany and Russia. Within 25 years of his death, the continental European socialist parties that acknowledged Marx's influence on their politics were each gaining between 15 and 47% in those countries with representative democratic elections.
Marx's thought demonstrates influences from many thinkers, including but not limited to: Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel's philosophy; The classical political economy (economics) of Adam Smith and David Ricardo; French socialist thought, in particular the thought of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Henri de Saint-Simon and Charles Fourier; Earlier German philosophical materialism, particularly that of Ludwig Feuerbach; The working class analysis by Friedrich Engels.
Marx's view of history, which came to be called historical materialism (controversially adapted as the philosophy of dialectical materialism by Engels and Lenin) certainly shows the influence of Hegel's claim that one should view reality (and history) dialectically. However, Hegel had thought in idealist terms, putting ideas in the forefront, whereas Marx sought to rewrite dialectics in materialist terms, arguing for the primacy of matter over idea. Where Hegel saw the "spirit" as driving history, Marx saw this as an unnecessary mystification, obscuring the reality of humanity and its physical actions shaping the world. He wrote that Hegelianism stood the movement of reality on its head, and that one needed to set it upon its feet.
Though inspired by French socialist and sociological thought, Marx criticised utopian socialists, arguing that their favoured small scale socialistic communities would be bound to marginalisation and poverty, and that only a large scale change in the economic system can bring about real change.
The other important contribution to Marx's revision of Hegelianism came from Engels's book, ''The Condition of the Working Class in England in 1844'', which led Marx to conceive of the historical dialectic in terms of class conflict and to see the modern working class as the most progressive force for revolution.
Marx believed that he could study history and society scientifically and discern tendencies of history and the resulting outcome of social conflicts. Some followers of Marx concluded, therefore, that a communist revolution would inevitably occur. However, Marx famously asserted in the eleventh of his ''Theses on Feuerbach'' that "philosophers have only interpreted the world, in various ways; the point however is to change it", and he clearly dedicated himself to trying to alter the world.
Commodity fetishism provides an example of what Engels called "false consciousness", which relates closely to the understanding of ideology. By "ideology", Marx and Engels meant ideas that reflect the interests of a particular class at a particular time in history, but which contemporaries see as universal and eternal. Marx and Engels's point was not only that such beliefs are at best half-truths; they serve an important political function. Put another way, the control that one class exercises over the means of production includes not only the production of food or manufactured goods; it includes the production of ideas as well (this provides one possible explanation for why members of a subordinate class may hold ideas contrary to their own interests). An example of this sort of analysis is Marx's understanding of religion, summed up in a passage from the preface to his 1843 ''Contribution to the Critique of Hegel's Philosophy of Right'':
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Whereas his Gymnasium senior thesis argued that religion had as its primary social aim the promotion of solidarity, here Marx sees the social function of religion in terms of highlighting/preserving political and economic status quo and inequality.
The organisation of society depends on means of production. Literally those things, like land, natural resources, and technology, necessary for the production of material goods and the relations of production, in other words, the social relationships people enter into as they acquire and use the means of production. Together these compose the mode of production, and Marx distinguished historical eras in terms of distinct modes of production. Marx differentiated between base and superstructure, with the base (or substructure) referring to the economic system, and superstructure, to the cultural and political system. Marx regarded this mismatch between (economic) base and (social) superstructure as a major source of social disruption and conflict.
Despite Marx's stress on critique of capitalism and discussion of the new communist society that should replace it, his explicit critique of capitalism is guarded, as he saw it as an improved society compared to the past ones (slavery and feudal). Marx also never clearly discusses issues of morality and justice, although scholars agree that his work contained implicit discussion of those concepts.
Marx's view of capitalism was two sided. On one hand, Marx, in the 19th century's deepest critique of the dehumanising aspects of this system, noted that defining features of capitalism include alienation, exploitation and reoccurring, cyclical depressions leading to mass unemployment; on the other hand capitalism is also characterised by "revolutionizing, industrializing and universalizing qualities of development, growth and progressivity" (by which Marx meant industrialisation, urbanisation, technological progress, increased productivity and growth, rationality and scientific revolution), that are responsible for progress. Marx considered the capitalist class to be one of the most revolutionary in history, because it constantly improved the means of production, more so than any other class in history, and was responsible for the overthrow of feudalism and its transition to capitalism. Capitalism can stimulate considerable growth because the capitalist can, and has an incentive to, reinvest profits in new technologies and capital equipment.
According to Marx capitalists take advantage of the difference between the labour market and the market for whatever commodity the capitalist can produce. Marx observed that in practically every successful industry input unit-costs are lower than output unit-prices. Marx called the difference "surplus value" and argued that this surplus value had its source in surplus labour, the difference between what it costs to keep workers alive and what they can produce. Marx's dual view of capitalism can be seen in his description of the capitalists: he refers to them as to vampires sucking worker's blood, but at the same time, he notes that drawing profit is "by no means an injustice" and that capitalists simply cannot go against the system. The true problem lies with the "cancerous cell" of capital, understood not as property or equipment, but the relations between workers and owners – the economic system in general.
At the same time, Marx stressed that capitalism was unstable, and prone to periodic crises. He suggested that over time, capitalists would invest more and more in new technologies, and less and less in labour. Since Marx believed that surplus value appropriated from labour is the source of profits, he concluded that the rate of profit would fall even as the economy grew. Marx believed that increasingly severe crises would punctuate this cycle of growth, collapse, and more growth. Moreover, he believed that in the long-term this process would necessarily enrich and empower the capitalist class and impoverish the proletariat. In section one of ''The Communist Manifesto'' Marx describes feudalism, capitalism, and the role internal social contradictions play in the historical process:
Marx believed that those structural contradictions within capitalism necessitate its end, giving way to socialism, or a post-capitalistic, communist society:
Thanks to various processes overseen by capitalism, such as urbanisation, the working class, the proletariat, should grow in numbers and develop a class consciousness, in time realising that they have to change the system. Marx believed that if the proletariat were to seize the means of production, they would encourage social relations that would benefit everyone equally, abolishing exploiting class, and introduce a system of production less vulnerable to cyclical crises. Marx argued that capitalism will end through the organised actions of an international working class:
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In this new society the self-alienation would end, and humans would be free to act without being bound by the labour market. It would be a democratic society, enfranchising the entire population. In such a utopian world there would also be little if any need for a state, which goal was to enforce the alienation. He theorised that between capitalism and the establishment of a socialist/communist system, a dictatorship of the proletariat—a period where the working class holds political power and forcibly socialises the means of production—would exist. As he wrote in his "Critique of the Gotha Program", "between capitalist and communist society there lies the period of the revolutionary transformation of the one into the other. Corresponding to this is also a political transition period in which the state can be nothing but the revolutionary dictatorship of the proletariat." While he allowed for the possibility of peaceful transition in some countries with strong democratic institutional structures (such as Britain, the US and the Netherlands), he suggested that in other countries with strong centralised state-oriented traditions, like France and Germany, the "lever of our revolution must be force."
Marx frequently used pseudonyms, often when renting a house or flat, apparently to make it harder for the authorities to track him down. Whilst in Paris, he used that of 'Monsieur Ramboz', whilst in London he signed off his letters as 'A. Williams'. His friends referred to him as 'Moor', due to his dark complexion and black curly hair, something which they believed made him resemble the historical Moors of North Africa, whilst he encouraged his children to call him 'Old Nick' and 'Charley'. He also bestowed nicknames and pseudonyms on his friends and family as well, referring to Friedrich Engels as 'General', his housekeeper Helene Demuth as 'Lenchen' or 'Nym', whilst one of his daughters, Jennychen, was referred to as 'Qui Qui, Emperor of China' and another, Laura, was known as 'Kakadou' or 'the Hottentot'.
Marx has widely been thought of as one of the most influential thinkers in history, who has had a significant influence on both world politics and intellectual thought. Marx's biographer Francis Wheen considered the "history of the twentieth century" to be "Marx's legacy", whilst Australian philosopher Peter Singer believed that Marx's impact could be compared with that of the founders of the two major world religions, Jesus Christ and Muhammad. Singer noted that "Marx's ideas brought about modern sociology, transformed the study of history, and profoundly affected philosophy, literature and the arts." Marx's ideas led to him becoming "the darling of both European and American intellectuals up until the 1960s", and have influenced a wide variety of disciplines, including archaeology, anthropology, media studies, political science, theater, history, sociological theory, cultural studies, education, economics, geography, literary criticism, aesthetics, critical psychology, and philosophy.
In July 2005, 27.9% of listeners in a BBC Radio 4 series ''In Our Time'' poll selected Marx as their favorite thinker.
The reasons for Marx's widespread influence revolve around his ethical message; a "morally empowering language of critique" against the dominant capitalist society. No other body of work was so relevant to the modern times, and at the same time, so outspoken about the need for change. In the political realm, Marx's ideas led to the establishment of governments using Marxist thought to replace capitalism with communism or socialism (or augment it with market socialism) across much of the world, whilst his intellectual thought has heavily influenced the academic study of the humanities and the arts.
Followers of Marx have drawn on his work to propose grand, cohesive theoretical outlooks dubbed "Marxism". This body of works has had significant influence on the both political and scientific scenes. Nevertheless, Marxists have frequently debated amongst themselves over how to interpret Marx's writings and how to apply his concepts to their contemporary events and conditions. The legacy of Marx's thought has become bitterly contested between numerous tendencies which each see themselves as Marx's most accurate interpreters, including (but not limited to) Leninism, Stalinism, Trotskyism, Maoism, Luxemburgism, and libertarian Marxism. In academic Marxism, various currents have developed as well, often under influence of other views, resulting in structuralist Marxism, historical Marxism, phenomenological Marxism and Hegelian Marxism.
Moreover, one should distinguish between "Marxism" and "what Marx believed"; for example, shortly before he died in 1883, Marx wrote a letter to the French workers' leader Jules Guesde, and to his own son-in-law Paul Lafargue, accusing them of "revolutionary phrase-mongering" and of lack of faith in the working class. After the French party split into a reformist and revolutionary party, some accused Guesde (leader of the latter) of taking orders from Marx; Marx remarked to Lafargue, "if that is Marxism, then I am not a Marxist" (in a letter to Engels, Marx later accused Guesde of being a "Bakuninist").
While Marxist thought may be used to empower marginalised and dispossessed people, it has also been used to prop up governments who have utilised violence to remove those seen as impeding the revolution. In some instances, his ultimate goals have been used as justification for the end justifies the means logic. Moreover, contrary to his goal, his ideas have been used to promote dogmatism and intolerance. Polish historian Andrzej Walicki noted that Marx's and Engels's theory was the "theory of freedom", but a theory that, at the height of its influence, was used to legitimise the totalitarian socialist state of the Soviet Union. This abuse of Marx's thought is perhaps most clearly exemplified in Stalinist Marxism, described by critics as the "most widespread and successful form of mass indoctrination... a masterly achievement in transforming Marxism into the official ideology of a consistently totalitarian state." The controversy is further fueled as some left-wing theorists have tried to shield Marxism from any connection to the Soviet regime. Lastly, the undue focus on the Marxist thought in the former Eastern Bloc, often forbidding social science arguments from outside the Marxist perspective, led to a backlash against Marxism after the revolutions of 1989. In one example, references to Marx drastically decreased in Polish sociology after the fall of the revolutionary socialist governments, and two major research institutions which advocated the Marxist approach to sociology were closed.
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Initially establishing his reputation as a composer of works such as ''The Flying Dutchman'' and ''Tannhäuser'' which were in the romantic traditions of Weber and Meyerbeer, Wagner transformed operatic thought through his concept of the ''Gesamtkunstwerk'' ("total work of art"). This would achieve the synthesis of all the poetic, visual, musical and dramatic arts, and was announced in a series of essays between 1849 and 1852. Wagner realised this concept most fully in the first half of the monumental four-opera cycle ''Der Ring des Nibelungen''. However, his thoughts on the relative importance of music and drama were to change again and he reintroduced some traditional operatic forms into his last few stage works including ''Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg''.
Wagner pioneered advances in musical language, such as extreme chromaticism and quickly shifting tonal centres, which greatly influenced the development of European classical music. His ''Tristan und Isolde'' is sometimes described as marking the start of modern music. Wagner's influence spread beyond music into philosophy, literature, the visual arts and theatre. He had his own opera house built, the Bayreuth Festspielhaus, which contained many novel design features. It was here that the ''Ring'' and ''Parsifal'' received their premieres and where his most important stage works continue to be performed today in an annual festival run by his descendants. Wagner's views on conducting were also highly influential. His extensive writings on music, drama and politics have all attracted extensive comment in recent decades, especially where they have antisemitic content.
Wagner achieved all of this despite a life characterised, until his last decades, by political exile, turbulent love affairs, poverty and repeated flight from his creditors. His pugnacious personality and often outspoken views on music, politics and society made him a controversial figure during his life, which he remains to this day. The impact of his ideas can be traced in many of the arts throughout the twentieth century.
Geyer's love of the theatre was shared by his stepson, and Wagner took part in his performances. In his autobiography, Wagner recalled once playing the part of an angel. The boy Wagner was also hugely impressed by the Gothic elements of Weber's ''Der Freischütz''. In late 1820, Wagner was enrolled at Pastor Wetzel's school at Possendorf, near Dresden, where he received some piano instruction from his Latin teacher. He could not manage a proper scale but preferred playing theatre overtures by ear. Geyer died in 1821, when Richard was eight. Subsequently, Wagner was sent to the Kreuz Grammar School in Dresden, paid for by Geyer's brother. The young Wagner entertained ambitions as a playwright, his first creative effort (listed as 'WWV 1') being a tragedy, ''Leubald'', begun at school in 1826, which was strongly influenced by Shakespeare and Goethe. Wagner was determined to set it to music; he persuaded his family to allow him music lessons.
By 1827, the family had moved back to Leipzig. Wagner's first lessons in harmony were taken in 1828–1831 with Christian Gottlieb Müller. In January 1828 he first heard Beethoven's 7th Symphony and then, in March, Beethoven's 9th Symphony performed in the Gewandhaus. Beethoven became his inspiration, and Wagner wrote a piano transcription of the 9th Symphony. He was also greatly impressed by a performance of the Requiem of Mozart. From this period date Wagner's early piano sonatas and his first attempts at orchestral overtures.
In 1829 he saw the dramatic soprano Wilhelmine Schröder-Devrient on stage, and she became his ideal of the fusion of drama and music in opera. In his autobiography, Wagner wrote, "If I look back on my life as a whole, I can find no event that produced so profound an impression upon me." Wagner claimed to have seen Schröder-Devrient in the title role of ''Fidelio''; however, it seems more likely that he saw her performance as Romeo in Bellini's ''I Capuleti e i Montecchi.''
He enrolled at the University of Leipzig in 1831 where he became a member of the Studentenverbindung Corps Saxonia Leipzig. He also took composition lessons with the cantor of Saint Thomas Church, Christian Theodor Weinlig. Weinlig was so impressed with Wagner's musical ability that he refused any payment for his lessons, and arranged for Wagner's piano sonata in B flat (which was consequently dedicated to him) to be published as the composer'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 older brother Karl Albert managed to obtain Richard a position as choir master in Würzburg. In the same year, at the age of 20, Wagner composed his first complete opera, ''Die Feen'' (''The Fairies''). This opera, which clearly imitated the style of Carl Maria von Weber, would go unproduced until half a century later, when it was premiered in Munich shortly after the composer's death in 1883.
Meanwhile, 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 was staged at Magdeburg in 1836, but closed before the second performance, leaving the composer (not for the last time) in serious financial difficulties. In 1834 Wagner had fallen for the actress Christine Wilhelmine "Minna" Planer. After the disaster of ''Das Liebesverbot'' he followed her to Königsberg where she helped him to get an engagement at the theatre. The two married in Königsberg on 24 November 1836. In June 1837 Wagner moved to the city of Riga, then in the Russian Empire, where he became music director of the local opera. Minna had recently left Wagner for another man but Richard took her back; this was but the first debacle of a troubled marriage that would end in misery three decades later.
By 1839, the couple had amassed such large debts that they fled Riga to escape from creditors (debt would plague Wagner for most of his life). During their flight, they and their Newfoundland dog, ''Robber'', took a stormy sea passage to London, from which Wagner drew the inspiration for ''The Flying Dutchman'' (with a story based on a sketch by Heinrich Heine). The Wagners spent 1839 to 1842 in Paris, where Richard made a scant living writing articles and arranging operas by other composers, largely on behalf of the Schlesinger publishing house. However, he also completed his third and fourth operas ''Rienzi'' and ''The Flying Dutchman'' during this stay. His relief on leaving Paris for Dresden was recorded in his "Autobiographic Sketch" of 1842 "For the first time I saw the Rhine with hot tears in my eyes, I, poor artist, swore eternal fidelity to my German fatherland."
The Wagners' stay at Dresden was brought to an end by Richard's involvement in leftist politics. A nationalist movement was gaining force in the states of the German Confederation, calling for constitutional freedoms and the unification of Germany as one nation state. Richard Wagner played an enthusiastic role in the socialist wing of this movement, regularly receiving guests who included the radical editor August Röckel, and the Russian anarchist Mikhail Bakunin. He was also influenced by the ideas of Proudhon. Widespread discontent in Dresden came to a head in April 1849, when King Frederick Augustus II of Saxony rejected a new constitution. The May Uprising broke out, in which Wagner played a minor supporting role. The incipient revolution was quickly crushed by an allied force of Saxon and Prussian troops, and warrants were issued for the arrest of the revolutionaries. Wagner had to flee, first visiting Paris and then settling in Zurich.
Wagner spent the next twelve years in exile. He had completed ''Lohengrin'', 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, who proved to be a true friend, eventually conducted the premiere in Weimar in August 1850.
Nevertheless, Wagner found himself in grim personal straits, isolated from the German musical world and without any income to speak of. Before leaving Dresden, he had drafted a scenario that would eventually become the four opera cycle ''Der Ring des Nibelungen''. He initially wrote the libretto for a single opera, ''Siegfrieds Tod'' (''Siegfried's Death'') in 1848. After arriving in Zurich he expanded the story to include an opera ''Der junge Siegfried'' (''Young Siegfried'') exploring the hero's background. He completed the text of the cycle by writing the libretti for ''Die Walküre'' and ''Das Rheingold'' and revising the other libretti to agree with his new concept, completing them in 1852. Meanwhile, his wife Minna, who had disliked the operas he had written after ''Rienzi'', was falling into a deepening depression and then Wagner himself 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 Zurich was a set of notable essays: "The Art-Work of the Future" (1849), in which he described a vision of opera as ''Gesamtkunstwerk'', or "total work of art", in which the various arts such as music, song, dance, poetry, visual arts, and stagecraft were unified; "Judaism in Music" (1850), a tract directed against Jewish composers; and "Opera and Drama" (1851), which described the aesthetics of drama which he was using to create the ''Ring'' operas.
Wagner began composing ''Das Rheingold'' in November 1853, following it immediately with ''Die Walküre'' in 1854. He then began work on the third opera, now called ''Siegfried'', in 1856 but finished only the first two acts before deciding to put the work aside to concentrate on a new idea: ''Tristan und Isolde''.
Wagner had two independent sources of inspiration for ''Tristan und Isolde''. The first came to him in 1854, when his poet friend Georg Herwegh introduced him to the works of the philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer. Wagner would later call this 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, a deeply pessimistic view of the human condition. He would remain an adherent of Schopenhauer for the rest of his life, even after his fortunes improved.
One of Schopenhauer's doctrines was that music held a supreme role amongst the arts. He claimed that music is the direct expression of the world's essence, which is blind, impulsive will. Wagner quickly embraced this claim, which must have resonated strongly despite its contradiction of his previous view, expressed in ''Opera and Drama,'' that the music in opera had to be subservient to the drama. Wagner scholars have since argued that this Schopenhauerian 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. Many aspects of Schopenhauerian doctrine undoubtedly found their way into Wagner's subsequent libretti. For example, the self-renouncing cobbler-poet Hans Sachs in ''Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg'', generally considered Wagner's most sympathetic character, although based loosely on a historical person, is a quintessentially Schopenhauerian creation.
Wagner's second source of inspiration was the poet-writer Mathilde Wesendonck, the wife of the silk merchant Otto Wesendonck. Wagner met the Wesendoncks in Zurich in 1852. Otto, a fan of Wagner's music, placed a cottage on his estate at Wagner's disposal. During the course of the next five years, the composer was eventually to become infatuated with his patron's wife. Though Mathilde seems to have returned some of his affections, she had no intention of jeopardizing her marriage. Nevertheless, the affair inspired Wagner to put aside his work on the ''Ring'' cycle (which would not be resumed for the next twelve years) and began work on ''Tristan'', based on the Arthurian love story ''Tristan and Iseult''. 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'' '.
The uneasy affair collapsed in 1858, when Minna intercepted a letter from Wagner to Mathilde. After the resulting confrontation, Wagner left Zurich alone, bound for Venice, where he sojourned in the Palazzo Giustinian. The following year, he once again moved to Paris to oversee production of a new revision of ''Tannhäuser'', staged thanks to the efforts of Princess Pauline von Metternich. The premiere of the Paris ''Tannhäuser'' in 1861 was an utter fiasco, due to disturbances caused by members of the Jockey Club. Further performances were cancelled, and Wagner hurriedly left the city.
The political ban which had been placed on Wagner in Germany after he had fled Dresden was lifted in 1861. The composer settled in Biebrich in Prussia, where he began work on ''Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg'', the idea for which had come during a visit he had made to Venice with the Wesendoncks. Despite the failure of ''Tannhäuser'' in Paris, the possibility that ''Der Ring des Nibelungen'' would never be finished, and Wagner's unhappy personal life at the time of writing it, this opera is his only mature comedy.
Between 1861 and 1864 Wagner tried to have ''Tristan und Isolde'' produced in Vienna. Despite numerous rehearsals the opera remained unperformed, and gained a reputation as being "impossible", which further added to Wagner's financial woes. In 1862, Wagner finally parted with Minna, though he (or at least his creditors) continued to support her financially until her death in 1866. He claimed to be unable to travel to her funeral due to an "inflamed finger".
After grave difficulties in rehearsal, ''Tristan und Isolde'' premiered at the National Theatre in Munich on 10 June 1865, the first Wagner premiere in almost 15 years. (The premiere had been scheduled for 15 May, but had been 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 a daughter, named Isolde, the child not of von 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 disapproved of his daughter seeing Wagner, though the two men were friends. The indiscreet affair scandalized Munich, and to make matters worse, Wagner fell into disfavour among members of 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 in order 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 premièred in Munich on 21 June the following year. In October, Cosima finally convinced Hans von Bülow to grant her a divorce, but this did not materialize until after she had two more children with Wagner; another daughter, named Eva, after the heroine of ''Meistersinger'', and a son Siegfried, named for the hero of the ''Ring''. Minna Wagner had died the previous year and so Richard and Cosima were now able to marry. The wedding took place on 25 August 1870. On Christmas Day of that year, Wagner arranged a surprise performance of the ''Siegfried Idyll'' for Cosima's birthday. The marriage to Cosima lasted to the end of Wagner's life.
Wagner, settled into his newfound domesticity, turned his energies toward completing the ''Ring'' cycle. At Ludwig's insistence, "special previews" of the first two works of the cycle, ''Das Rheingold'' and ''Die Walküre'', were performed at Munich in 1869 and 1870, but Wagner wanted the complete cycle to be performed in a new, specially designed opera house.
In 1871, he decided on the small town of Bayreuth as the location of his new opera house. The Wagners moved there the following year, and the foundation stone for the Bayreuth Festspielhaus ("Festival Theatre") was laid. In order to raise funds for the construction, "Wagner Societies" were formed in several cities, and Wagner himself began touring Germany conducting concerts. However, sufficient funds were raised only after King Ludwig stepped in with another large grant in 1874. Later that year, the Wagners moved into their permanent home at Bayreuth, a villa that Richard dubbed ''Wahnfried'' ("Peace/freedom from delusion/madness", in German). The expenses of Bayreuth and of Wahnfried however meant that Wagner still sought other sources of income by conducting or taking on commissions like the ''Centennial March'' for America.
The Festspielhaus finally opened on 13 August 1876 with ''Das Rheingold'', now taking its place as the first evening of the premiere of the complete ''Ring'' cycle, and has continued to be the site of the Bayreuth Festival ever since; the Festival has been overseen since 1973 by the Richard-Wagner-Stiftung (Richard Wagner Foundation), the members of which include a number of Wagner's descendants.
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. During this period he also wrote a series of essays, including some reactionary writings on religion and art which recanted his earlier views. Many of these—including "Religion and Art" (1880) and "Hero-dom and Christendom" (1881)—appeared in the journal ''Bayreuther Blätter'', founded in 1880 by Wagner and Hans von Wolzogen for Wagnerite visitors to Bayreuth.
Wagner completed ''Parsifal'' in January 1882, and a second Bayreuth Festival was held for the new opera which was premiered on 26 May. Wagner was by this time extremely ill, having suffered through a series of increasingly severe angina attacks. During the sixteenth and final performance of ''Parsifal'' on 29 August, he secretly entered the pit during Act III, 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 sixty-nine on 13 February 1883 at Ca' Vendramin Calergi, a 16th century palazzo on the Grand Canal. Franz Liszt's two pieces for pianoforte solo entitled ''La lugubre gondola'' evoke the passing of a black-shrouded funerary gondola bearing Richard Wagner's remains over the Grand Canal. Wagner was buried in the garden of the Villa Wahnfried in Bayreuth.
Wagner's operatic works are his primary artistic legacy.
Unlike other opera composers, who generally left the task of writing the libretto (the text and lyrics) to others, Wagner wrote his own libretti, which he referred to as "poems". Further, Wagner developed a compositional style in which the orchestra's role is equal to that of the singers. The orchestra's dramatic role, in the later operas, includes the use of leitmotivs, musical themes that can be interpreted as announcing specific characters, locales, and plot elements; their complex interweaving and evolution illuminates the progression of the drama. Ultimately he urged a new concept of opera often referred to as "music drama", (although he did not use or sanction this term himself) in which all musical poetic and dramatic elements were to be fused together—the ''Gesamtkunstwerk''.
Wagner's operas are typically characterized as belonging to three chronological periods.
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 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''. The object of this production I shall consider thoroughly attained, if I and my artistic comrades, the actual performers, shall within these four evenings succeed in ''artistically conveying my purpose to the true Emotional'' (not the Critical) ''Understanding'' of spectators who shall have gathered together expressly to learn it. [...]
Wagner later reconciled himself to the works of this period, though he reworked both ''Dutchman'' and ''Tannhäuser'' on several occasions. The three operas are the earliest works included into the Bayreuth canon, the list of mature operas which Cosima put on at the Bayreuth Festival after Wagner's death in accordance with his wishes. They continue to be regularly performed today and have been frequently recorded. They show increasing mastery in stagecraft, orchestration and atmosphere.
The first two components of the ''Ring cycle'' were ''Das Rheingold'' (''The Rhinegold'') (completed 1854) and ''Die Walküre'' (''The Valkyrie'') (completed 1856). In ''Das Rheingold'', with its "relentlessly talky "realism" [and] the absence of lyrical "numbers" ", Wagner came very close to the pure musical ideals of his 184951 essays. ''Die Walküre'', with Siegmund's almost full-blown aria (''Winterstürme'') in the first act, and the quasi-choral appearance of the Valkyries themselves, shows more 'operatic' traits, but has been assessed as "the music drama that most satisfactorily embodies the theoretical principles of "Oper und Drama". A thoroughgoing synthesis of poetry and music is achieved without any notable sacrifice in musical expression".
''Tristan und Isolde'' uses a story line deriving from the poem ''Tristan und Isolt'' by the 13th century poet Gottfried von Strassburg. Wagner noted that "its allpervading tragedy [...] impressed me so deeply that I felt convinced it should stand out in bold relief, regardless of minor details." This impact, together with his discovery of the philosophy of Schopenhauer in October 1854, led Wagner to find himself in a "serious mood created by Schopenhauer, which was trying to find ecstatic expression. It was some such mood that inspired the conception of a Tristan und Isolde." Wagner half-parodied the powerful erotic atmosphere of the opera in a letter to Mathilde Wesendonck:
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.The work was first performed in Munich on 10 June 1865, conducted by Hans von Bülow.
Tristan is often granted a special place in musical history. It has been described as "fifty years ahead of its time" because of its chromaticism, long-held discords, unusual orchestral colouring and harmony, and use of polyphony. Wagner himself felt that his musico-dramatical theories were most perfectly realised in this work with its use of "the art of transition" between dramatic elements and the balance achieved between vocal and orchestral lines.
''Die Meistersinger'' was originally conceived by Wagner in 1845 as a sort of comic pendant to ''Tannhäuser''. It was first performed in Munich, again under the baton of Bülow, on 21 June 1868, its accessibility making it an immediate success. It is "a rich, perceptive music drama widely admired for its warm humanity"; but because of its strong German nationalist overtones, it is also held up by some as an example of Wagner's reactionary politics and antisemitism.
:And now, O Nibelungen Spectator, pluck up; for all allegories come to an end somewhere[...] The rest of what you are going to see is opera, and nothing but opera. Before many bars have been played, Siegfried and the wakened Brynhild, newly become tenor and soprano, will sing a concerted cadenza; plunge on from that to a magnificent love duet[...]The work which follows, entitled Night Falls On The Gods [Shaw's translation of ''Götterdämmerung''], is a thorough grand opera.
However, the differences are also because of Wagner's development as a composer during the period in which he composed ''Tristan'', ''Meistersinger'' and also the Paris version of ''Tannhäuser''. From Act III of Siegfried onwards, the ''Ring'' becomes chromatic, and both harmonically more complex and more developmental in its treatment of leitmotifs. Having taken 26 years from the first draft of a libretto in 1848 until the completion of ''Götterdämmerung'' in 1874, the ''Ring'' represents in all about 15 hours of performance, the only undertaking of such size to be regularly represented on the world's stages.
Apart from his operas, Wagner composed relatively few pieces of music. These include a single symphony (written at the age of 19), a Faust Overture (the only completed part of an intended symphony on the subject), and some overtures, choral and piano pieces. His most commonly performed work not drawn from an opera is the ''Siegfried Idyll'', a piece for chamber orchestra written for the birthday of his second wife, Cosima. The ''Idyll'' draws on several motifs from the ''Ring'' cycle, though it is not part of the ''Ring''. Also performed are the ''Wesendonck Lieder'' for voice and piano, properly known as ''Five Songs for a Female Voice'', which were composed for Mathilde Wesendonck while Wagner was working on ''Tristan''. An oddity is the ''American Centennial March'' of 1876, commissioned by the city of Philadelphia (on the recommendation of conductor Theodore Thomas, who was subsequently very disappointed with the work when it arrived) for the opening of the Centennial Exposition, for which Wagner was paid $5,000.
The rarely performed ''Das Liebesmahl der Apostel'' (''The Love Feast of the Apostles'') is a piece for male choruses and orchestra, composed in 1843. Wagner, who had been elected at the beginning of the year to the committee of a cultural association in the city of Dresden, received a commission to evoke the theme of Pentecost. The premiere took place at the Dresdner Frauenkirche on 6 July 1843, and was performed by around a hundred musicians and almost 1,200 singers. The concert was very well received.
After completing ''Parsifal'', Wagner expressed an intention to turn to the writing of symphonies. However, no sketches for such works have survived, if indeed they were undertaken.
The overtures and orchestral passages from Wagner's middle and late-stage operas are commonly played as concert pieces. For most of these, Wagner wrote short passages to conclude the excerpt so that it does not end abruptly. Another familiar extract is the "Bridal Chorus" from ''Lohengrin'', frequently played as the bride's processional wedding march in English-speaking countries.
There have been several editions of Wagner's writings, including a centennial edition in German edited by Dieter Borchmeyer (which however omitted the essay "Das Judenthum in der Musik") The English translations of Wagner's prose in 8 volumes by W. Ashton Ellis, (189299), are still in print and commonly used, despite their deficiencies. A complete edition of Wagner's correspondence, (estimated to amount to between 10,000 and 12,000 surviving items), of which the first volume appeared in 1967, is still under way.
In his lifetime, and for some years after, Wagner inspired fanatical devotion. For a long period, many composers were inclined to align themselves with or against Wagner's music. Anton Bruckner and Hugo Wolf were indebted to him especially, as were César Franck, Henri Duparc, Ernest Chausson, Jules Massenet, Alexander von Zemlinsky, Hans Pfitzner and dozens of others. Gustav Mahler said, "There was only Beethoven and Richard [Wagner] and after them, nobody". The twentieth century harmonic revolutions of Claude Debussy and Arnold Schoenberg (tonal and atonal modernism, respectively) have often been traced back to ''Tristan'' and ''Parsifal''. The Italian form of operatic realism known as verismo owed much to Wagnerian reconstruction of musical form.
Wagner made a major contribution to the principles and practice of conducting. His essay "About Conducting" (1869) advanced the earlier work of Hector Berlioz and proposed that conducting was a means by which a musical work could be re-interpreted, rather than simply a mechanism for achieving orchestral unison. He exemplified this approach in his own conducting, which was significantly more flexible than the disciplined approach of Mendelssohn; in his view this also justified practices which would today be frowned upon, such as the rewriting of scores. Wilhelm Furtwängler felt that Wagner and von Bülow, through their interpretative approach, inspired a whole new generation of conductors (including Furtwängler himself).
[Wagner's] protean abundance meant that he could inspire the use of literary motif in many a novel employing interior monologue; [...] the Symbolists saw him as a mystic hierophant; the Decadents found many a frisson in his work.Friedrich Nietzsche was part of Wagner's inner circle during the early 1870s, and his first published work ''The Birth of Tragedy'' proposed Wagner's music as the Dionysian rebirth of European culture in opposition to Apollonian rationalist decadence. Nietzsche broke with Wagner following the first Bayreuth Festival, believing that Wagner's final phase represented a pandering to Christian pieties and a surrender to the new German Reich. Nietzsche expressed his displeasure with the later Wagner in "The Case of Wagner" and "Nietzsche contra Wagner".
Charles Baudelaire, Stéphane Mallarmé and Paul Verlaine worshipped Wagner. Edouard Dujardin, whose influential novel ''Les lauriers sont coupés'' is in the form of an interior monologue inspired by Wagnerian music, founded a journal dedicated to Wagner, ''La Revue Wagnérienne'', to which J. K. Huysmans and Téodor de Wyzewa contributed.
In the twentieth century, W. H. Auden once called Wagner "perhaps the greatest genius that ever lived", while Thomas Mann and Marcel Proust were heavily influenced by him and discussed Wagner in their novels. He is discussed in some of the works of James Joyce. Wagnerian themes inhabit T. S. Eliot's ''The Waste Land'', which contains lines from ''Tristan und Isolde'' and ''Götterdämmerung'' and Verlaine's poem on ''Parsifal''. Many of the Wagner's concepts, including his speculation about dreams, predated their investigation by Sigmund Freud. In a long list of other major cultural figures influenced by Wagner, Bryan Magee includes D. H. Lawrence, Aubrey Beardsley, Romain Rolland, Gérard de Nerval, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Rainer Maria Rilke and numerous others.
Wagner's followers (known as Wagnerians or Wagnerites) have formed many Societies dedicated to the life, works, and operas of Wagner. Societies include: The Toronto Wagner Society, the Wagner Society of New York, the Wagner Society of the United Kingdom, The Wagner Society of New Zealand, The Wagner Society of Northern California, etc.
Wagner has also been the subject of many biographical films. (See article List of films about Richard Wagner).
Wagner's operas, writings, his politics, beliefs and unorthodox lifestyle made him a controversial figure during his lifetime. Following Wagner's death, the debate about his ideas and their interpretation, particularly in Germany during the 20th century, continued to make him politically and socially controversial in a way that other great composers are not. Much heat is generated by Wagner's comments on Jews, which continue to influence the way that his works are regarded, and by the essays he wrote on the nature of race from 1850 onwards, and their putative influence on the antisemitism of Adolf Hitler.
Wagner's writings on race and his antisemitism reflected some trends of thought in Germany during the 19th century.
Under a pseudonym in the ''Neue Zeitschrift für Musik'', Wagner published the essay "Das Judenthum in der Musik" in 1850 (originally translated as "Judaism in Music", by which name it is still known, but better rendered as "Jewishness in Music.") The essay attacked Jewish contemporaries (and rivals) Felix Mendelssohn and Giacomo Meyerbeer, and accused Jews of being a harmful and alien element in German culture. Wagner stated the German people were repelled by Jews' alien appearance and behaviour: "with all our speaking and writing in favour of the Jews' emancipation, we always felt instinctively repelled by any actual, operative contact with them." He argued that because Jews had no connection to the German spirit, Jewish musicians were only capable of producing shallow and artificial music. They therefore composed music to achieve popularity and, thereby, financial success, as opposed to creating genuine works of art. Wagner republished the pamphlet under his own name in 1869, with an extended introduction, leading to several public protests at the first performances of ''Die Meistersinger''. He repeated similar views in later articles, such as "What is German?" (1878, but based on a draft written in the 1860s).
Some biographers have suggested that antisemitic stereotypes are also represented in Wagner's operas. The characters of Mime in the ''Ring'', Sixtus Beckmesser in ''Die Meistersinger,'' and Klingsor in ''Parsifal'' are sometimes claimed as Jewish representations, though they are not explicitly identified as such in the libretto. Moreover, in all of Wagner's many writings about his works, there is no mention of an intention to caricature Jews in his operas; nor does any such notion appear in the diaries written by Cosima Wagner, which record his views on a daily basis over a period of eight years.
Despite his very public views on Jews, throughout his life Wagner had Jewish friends, colleagues and supporters. In his autobiography, ''Mein Leben'', Wagner mentions many friendships with Jews, referring to that with Samuel Lehrs in Paris as "one of the most beautiful friendships of my life."
The topic of Wagner and the Jews is further complicated by allegations, which may have been credited by Wagner himself, that he himself was of Jewish ancestry, via his supposed father Geyer. In reality, Geyer was not of Jewish descent, nor were either of Wagner's official parents. References to Wagner's supposed 'Jewishness' were made frequently in cartoons of the composer in the 1870s and 1880s, and more explicitly by Friedrich Nietzsche in his essay "The Wagner Case", where he wrote "a Geyer (vulture) is almost an Adler (eagle)". (Both 'Geyer' and 'Adler' were common Jewish surnames.)
Some biographers have asserted that Wagner in his final years came to believe in the racialist philosophy of Arthur de Gobineau, and according to Robert Gutman, this is reflected in the opera ''Parsifal''. Other biographers such as Lucy Beckett believe that this is not true. Wagner showed no significant interest in Gobineau until 1880, when he read Gobineau's "An Essay on the Inequality of the Human Races". Wagner had completed the libretto for ''Parsifal'' by 1877, and the original drafts of the story date back to 1857. Wagner's writings of his last years indicate some interest in Gobineau's idea that Western society was doomed because of miscegenation between "superior" and "inferior" races.
[Wagner's] picture of Niblunghome [Shaw's anglicization of ''Nibelheim'', the empire of Alberich in the ''Ring Cycle''] under the reign of Alberic is a poetic vision of unregulated industrial capitalism as it was made known in Germany in the middle of the nineteenth century by Engels's ''Condition of the Laboring Classes in England''
Left-wing interpretations of Wagner also inform the writings of Theodor Adorno amongst other Wagner critics. Walter Benjamin gave Wagner as an example of "bourgeois false consciousness", alienating art from its social context.
The writer Robert Donington has produced a detailed, if controversial, Jungian interpretation of the ''Ring cycle''. Others have also applied psychoanalytical techniques to Wagner's life and works.
There is evidence that music of Wagner was used at the Dachau concentration camp in 1933/4 to 'reeducate' political prisoners by exposure to 'national music'. However there seems to be no evidence to support claims, sometimes made, that his music was played at Nazi death camps during the Second World War.
Because of the associations of Wagner with antisemitism and Nazism, the performance of his music in the State of Israel has been a source of controversy. Breaking with tradition Wagner will be played at the Bayreuth's Wagner festival. Israeli music director Roberto Paternostro decided to break this taboo and "to divide the man from his art."
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Among his first substantial compositions was a funeral Mass in honor of Pietro Coppola. In 1881 came the premiere of a three-act melodrama, ''Nella''; further operas followed, beginning with ''Sansone'' in 1882, ''Aleramo'' (based on the legend of Adelasia and Aleramo) in 1883, ''Fatalità '' in 1890, ''Malia'' (on a libretto of Luigi Capuana) in 1891, and ''Il Falconiere'' in 1899. At the same time his lyric poem ''Medio-Evo'' received favorable notice from Jules Massenet. He wrote music for the one-act play ''Vicolo delle belle'' by Saverio Fiducia, as well as for Antonino Russo Giusti's comedy ''U Spiridu'', which was shown in 1920 at the communal theater under the direction of Gaetano Emanuel Calì. He also wrote a number of religious and secular choral compositions at this time. Frontini also wrote numerous songs, melodies, serenatas and romances; the most popular of these were his ''Serenata araba'', ''Il piccolo montanaro'', and a ''Triumphal March''. In addition to his activities as a composer, he taught music and counterpoint at the Ospizio di Beneficenza.
One of Frontini's chief interests was popular music and song, and he compiled the first collection of Sicilian folk songs in Italy; fifty pieces from this collection were published by Casa Ricordi in 1882; a second collection, titled ''Natale siciliano'', was published in 1893 by De Marchi of Milan.
Frontini died in the city of his birth in 1939.
:''This article is based on a translation of the corresponding article in the Italian Wikipedia.''
Category:1860 births Category:1939 deaths Category:Italian composers Category:Opera composers Category:People from Catania it:Francesco Paolo FrontiniThis text is licensed under the Creative Commons CC-BY-SA License. This text was originally published on Wikipedia and was developed by the Wikipedia community.
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