• Name: Richard Wagner
• Birthday: 05/22/1813
• Birth Place: Leipzig, Germany
• Died: 02/13/1883
• Place of Death: Venice, Italy
• Country: Germany
• Period: Romantic
• Genre: Classical

Title	Release
Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg	1987
(270) Das Rheingold (The Rhine Gold), opera, WWV 86a	1958
(545) Der fliegende Holländer (The Flying Dutchman), opera, WWV 63
(3) Der Ring des Nibelungen, opera tetralogy	1968
(643) Die Götterdämmerung (Twilight of the Gods), opera, WWV 86d	1983
(875) Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, opera, WWV 96
(1113) Die Walküre (The Valkyrie), opera, WWV 86b	1994
(1277) Lohengrin, opera, WWV 75
(33) Overture to Der fliegende Holländer (The Flying Dutchman), for orchestra
(38) Prelude to Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, for orchestra	1958
(5) Prelude to Lohengrin, for orchestra
(262) Rienzi, der Letzte der Tribunen, opera, WWV 49	1974
(201) Siegfried Idyll, for small orchestra in E major, WWV 103	1956
(345) Siegfried, opera, WWV 86c
(1051) Tannhäuser, opera, WWV 70
(910) Tristan und Isolde, opera, WWV 90
(2) Albumblatt [für Cosima Wagner], for string quartet, WWV deest	2005
(59) A Faust Overture, for orchestra in D minor, WWV 59
(2) Adagio for clarinet & string quintet (spurious)
(3) Adieux de Marie Stuart ("Adieu, charmant pays de France"), song for voice & piano, WWV 61	2000
(6) Albumblatt (Ankunft bei schwarzen Schwänen), for piano in A flat major, WWV 95	1993
(10) Albumblatt (In das Album Fürstin Metternich), for piano in C major, WWV 94	1912
(3) Albumblatt für Ernst Bendikt Kietz, for piano in E major (Song Without Words), WWV 64
(8) Albumblatt für Frau Betty Schott, for piano in E flat major, WWV 108
(5) American Centennial March, for orchestra in G major, WWV 110	1983
An Webers Grabe ("Hebt an den Sang"), for male chorus, WWV 72	1993
(11) Attente ("Monte, écureuil, monte au grand chêne"), song for voice & piano, WWV 55	1993
(3) Columbus Overture for orchestra in E flat major, WWV 37a	2002
(2) Das Liebesmahl der Apostel ("Gegrüsst seid, Brüder"), Biblical scene for male chorus & orchestra, WWV 69	1975
(21) Das Liebesverbot, opera (or Die Novize von Palermo), WWV 38
(23) Der Engel ("In der Kinkheit frühen Tagen"), song for voice & piano (or orchestra) (Wesendonk Lieder), WWV 91/1	1997
(6) Der Tannenbaum ("Der Tannenbaum steht schweigend, einsam") song for voice & piano, WWV 50	1993
Descendons gaiment la courtille, for chorus, WWV 65	1993
(12) Die Feen, opera, WWV 32
(6) Dors, mon enfant ("Entre mes bras, enfant plein de charmes"), song for voice & piano, WWV 53	1993
(5) Elegy for piano in A flat major	1996
(2) Extase ("J'étais seul près des flots, par une nuit d'étoiles"), song for voice & piano, WWV 54	2000
Fanfaren für Signaltrompeten (doubtful)
(2) Fantasia for piano in F sharp minor, WWV 22 (Op. 3)
(8) Faust lieder (7), for voice & piano, WWV 15 (Op. 5)	1993
Festgesang ("Der Tag erscheint") for men's chorus (& brass), WWV 68	1993
(2) Geburtsangrüß an Cosima, lied for voice & piano (no catalog number)
Gruß seiner Treuen an Friedrich August den Geliebten ("Im treuen Sachsenland"), for male chorus & brass, WWV 71	2000
(7) Huldigungsmarsch, for military band in E flat major, WWV 97	1927
(23) Im Treibhaus ("Hochgewölbe Blätterkronen"), song for voice & piano (or orchestra) (Wesendonck Lieder), WWV 91/3	1991
(11) Kaisermarsch ("Heil! Heil! dem Kaiser"), for male chorus & orchestra, WWV 104	1983
(3) König Enzio, overture for orchestra in E minor, WWV 24a	2000
(2) La tombe dit à la rose, song for voice & piano (fragment), WWV 56	2000
(9) Les deux grenadiers ("Longtemps captifs chez le Russe"), song for voice & piano, WWV 60	1993
(9) Mignonne ("Mignonne, allons voir si la rose"), song for voice & piano, WWV 57	1993
Neujahrs-Kantate, for chorus & orchestra, WWV 36	1993

Richard Wagner was one of the most revolutionary figures in the history of music, a composer who made pivotal contributions to the development of harmony and musical drama that reverberate even today. Indeed, though Wagner occasionally produced successful music written on a relatively modest scale, opera -- the bigger, the better -- was clearly his milieu, and his aesthetic is perhaps the most grandiose that Western music has ever known. Early in his career, Wagner learned both the elements and the practical, political realities of his craft by writing a handful of operas which were unenthusiastically, even angrily, received. Beginning with Rienzi (1838-40) and The Flying Dutchman (1841), however, he enjoyed a string of successes that propelled him to immortality and changed the face of music. His monumental Ring cycle of four operas -- Das Rheingold (1853-54), Die Walküre (1854-56), Siegfried (1856-71) and Götterdämmerung (1869-74) -- remains the most ambitious and influential contribution by any composer to the opera literature. Tristan and Isolde (1857-59) is perhaps the most representative example of Wagner's musical style, which is characterized by a high degree of chromaticism, a restless, searching tonal instability, lush harmonies, and the association of specific musical elements (known as leitmotifs, the flexible manipulation of which is one of the glories of Wagner's music) with certain characters and plot points. Wagner wrote text as well as music for all his operas, which he preferred to call "music dramas."

Wagner's life matched his music for sheer drama. Born in Leipzig on May 22, 1813, he began in the early 1830s to write prolifically on music and the arts in general; over his whole career, his music would to some degree serve to demonstrate his aesthetic theories. He often worked as a conductor in his early years; a conducting engagement took him to Riga, Latvia, in 1837, but he fled the country in the middle of the night two years later to elude creditors. Wagner as a young man had some sympathy with the revolutionary movements of the middle nineteenth century (and even the Ring cycle contains a distinct anti-materialist and vaguely socialist drift); in the Dresden uprisings of 1849 he apparently took up arms, and he had to leave Germany when the police restored order. Settling in Zurich, Switzerland, he wrote little for some years but evolved the intellectual framework for his towering mature masterpieces. Wagner returned to Germany in 1864 under the protection and patronage of King Ludwig II of Bavaria; it was in Bayreuth, near Munich, that he undertook the construction of an opera house (completed in 1876) built to his personal specifications and suited to the massive fusion of music, staging, text, and scene design that his later operas entailed. Bayreuth became something of a shrine for the fanatical Wagnerites who carried the torch after his death; it remains the goal of many a pilgrimage today. His attitude toward Jews was deeply ambivalent (he believed, mistakenly, that his stepfather was Jewish), but some of his writings contain anti-Semitic elements that have aroused considerable controversy among opera lovers, especially in view of Adolf Hitler's apparent predilection for the composer's music. ~ AMG, All Music Guide