The Life of Richard Wagner: Volume 1 (Cambridge Library Collection - Music)
Cambridge University Press, 4/15/2010
EAN 9781108007696, ISBN10: 1108007694
Paperback, 574 pages, 22.9 x 15.2 x 3.7 cm
Language: English
Originally published in English
Ernest Newman's four-volume Life of Wagner, originally published between 1933 and 1947, remains a classic work of biography. The culmination of forty years' research on the composer and his works (Newman's first Study of Wagner was first published in 1899), these books present a detailed portrait of perhaps the most influential, the most controversial and the most frequently reviled composer in the whole history of western music. Newman was aware that no biography can ever claim to be complete or completely accurate: 'The biographer can at no stage hope to have reached the final truth. All he can do is to make sure that whatever statement he may make, whatever conclusion he may come to, shall be based on the whole of the evidence available at the time of writing.' In this aim he triumphantly succeeds. Volume 1 covers the years 1813 to 1848.
Foreword
1. Paternity and ancestry
2. Geyer
3. The child
4. The Kreuzschüler
5. The Leipzig student
6. Würzburg
7. The last six months in Leipzig
8. The state of music in Germany
9. The economic and social status of the musician
10. Magdeburg
11. Minna
12. Königsberg and Riga
13. The voyage to London
14. The 'conquest of Paris'
15. The return to Dresden
16. The early years in Dresden
17. The middle years in Dresden
18. Friends and enemies
19. The storm brewing
20. Nearing the end in Dresden
Index.