Richard Wagner was a famous German composer and theatre director known for his brilliant operas. As a child he was very ambitious and wrote his first drama at the age of 11 and then developed his first composition at the age of 16. He performed his first symphony during his graduation. He then joined the ‘Magdeburg Theatre’ as a music director and came up with the lyrics and music for ‘Das Liebesverbot’. He moved to Riga to work on his first staged opera titled ‘Rienzi’ which turned out to be a failure and he had to escape to Paris to avoid his creditors. His was in a self-imposed-exile for 12 long years doing some petty jobs to survive. During this period he started off by writing a libretto for a single opera called ‘Siegfrieds Tod (Siegfried's Death)’ which was followed by a sequel ‘Der junge Siegfried’. His most appreciated work ‘Ring Cycle’ enhanced his reputation as a composer. His work had fascinated the king of Wagner who invited him to stage his famous works and even cleared all his debts to end his exile. We bring to you a collection of quotes and thoughts by Richard Wagner which have been curated from his work, compositions, writings, dramas and librettos. Presenting some of the notable quotations and sayings by Richard Wagner.
The long-term vision is to replace, repair and regenerate failing tissues and organs with the materials of tissues and organs. It's still 'out there,' but it's possible to put together a grant proposal now that doesn't sound completely crazy.
I believe in God, Mozart and Beethoven, and likewise their disciples and apostles; - I believe in the Holy Spirit and the truth of the one, indivisible Art; - I believe that this Art proceeds from God, and lives within the hearts of all illumined men; - I believe that he who once has bathed in the sublime delights of this high Art, is consecrate to Her for ever, and never can deny Her; - I believe that through Art all men are saved.
I hate this fast growing tendency to chain men to machines in big factories and deprive them of all joy in their efforts - the plan will lead to cheap men and cheap products.
When religion becomes artificial, art has a duty to rescue it. Art can show that the symbols which religions would have us believe literally true are actually figurative. Art can idealize those symbols, and so reveal the profound truths they contain.
I have long been convinced that my artistic ideal stands or falls with Germany. Only the Germany that we love and desire can help us achieve that ideal.
I am convinced that there are universal currents of Divine Thought vibrating the ether everywhere and that any who can feel these vibrations is inspired.
It is necessary for us to explain the involuntary repugnance we possess for the nature and personality of the Jews ... The Jews have never produced a true poet. Heinrich Heine reached the point where he duped himself into a poet, and was rewarded by his versified lies being set to music by our own composers. He was the conscience of Judaism, just as Judaism is the evil conscience of our modern civilization.
It should not be presumed that these people (the Jews), who are so separated from us by their religion, have any right to make our laws. But why blame the Jews? It is we who lack all feeling for our own identity, all sense of honour.
Richard Wagner
What a wonderful work Wagner has done for humanity in translating the toil of life into the readable script of music! For those who seek the tale of other worlds his magic is silent; but earth-travail under his wand becomes instinct with rhythmic song to an accompaniment of the elements, and the blare and crash of the bottomless pit itself.
The error in the art-genre of Opera consists herein: a Means of expression (Music) has been made the end, while the End of expression (the Drama) has been made a means.
Those who grasp the whole, will also comprehend all parts of that whole, even when immediate technical understanding is lacking, and recognize and marshal these.
One siupreme fact which I have discovered is that it is not willpower, but fantasy and imagination that ceates. Imagination is the creative force. Imagination creates reality.
Attack and defence, want and war, victory and defeat, lordship and thraldom, all sealed with the seal of blood: this from henceforth is the History of Man.
These revelations expressed through Art work upon the soul with a force carrying its own conviction and permeate our sentient life with a sense of truth which logic and mere reason are powerless to combat.
Even if I know I shall never change the masses, never transform anything permanent, all I ask is that the good things also have their place, their refuge.
Whether government finances its added spending by increasing taxes, by borrowing, or by inflating the currency, the added spending will be offset by reduced private spending. Furthermore, private spending is generally more efficient than the government spending that would replace it because people act more carefully when they spend their own money than when they spend other people's money.
What Music expresses is eternal, infinite, and ideal; she expresses not the passion, love, desire, of this or that individual in this or that condition, but Passion, Love, Desire itself, and in such infinitely varied phases as lie in her unique possession and are foreign and unknown to any other tongue...So...Here's to Victory, gained by our higher sense over the worthlessness of the vulgar! To Love, which crowns our courage...To the day, to the night!...And three cheers for Music...
The sounds proceeding from the instruments of symphonic music seem to be the very organs of the mysteries of creation; for they reveal, as it were, the primal stirrings of creation which brought order out of chaos long before the human heart was there to behold them.
True drama can be conceived only as resulting from the collective impulse of all the arts to communicate in the most immediate way with a collective public... Thus especially the art of tone, developed with such singular diversity in instrumental music, will realize in the collective artwork its richest potential -- will indeed incite the pantomimic art of dancing in turn to wholly new discoveries and inspire the breath of poetry no less to an undreamed-of fullness. For in its isolation music has formed itself an organ capable of the most immeasurable expression - the orchestra.
From its first faint glimmerings, History shews Man's constant progress as a beast of prey. As such he conquers every land, subdues the fruit-fed races, founds mighty realms by subjugating other subjugators, forms states and sets up civilisations, to enjoy his prey at rest.
 has been made the end, while the End of expression (the Drama) has been made a means. )
