Richard Wagner was born to an ethnic German family in Leipzig, who lived at No 3, the Brühl ( The House of the Red and White Lions) in the Jewish quarter on. Wagner's birthplace, at 3, the Brühl, Leipzig 3.2 Influence on literature, philosophy and the visual arts.2.1.3.2 Tristan und Isolde and Die Meistersinger.The effect of his ideas can be traced in many of the arts throughout the 20th century his influence spread beyond composition into conducting, philosophy, literature, the visual arts and theatre. His controversial writings on music, drama and politics have attracted extensive comment – particularly, since the late 20th century, where they express antisemitic sentiments. Until his final years, Wagner's life was characterised by political exile, turbulent love affairs, poverty and repeated flight from his creditors. His thoughts on the relative contributions of music and drama in opera were to change again, and he reintroduced some traditional forms into his last few stage works, including Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg ( The Mastersingers of Nuremberg). The Ring and Parsifal were premiered here and his most important stage works continue to be performed at the annual Bayreuth Festival, run by his descendants. Wagner had his own opera house built, the Bayreuth Festspielhaus, which embodied many novel design features. His Tristan und Isolde is sometimes described as marking the start of modern music.
His advances in musical language, such as extreme chromaticism and quickly shifting tonal centres, greatly influenced the development of classical music. His compositions, particularly those of his later period, are notable for their complex textures, rich harmonies and orchestration, and the elaborate use of leitmotifs-musical phrases associated with individual characters, places, ideas, or plot elements. Wagner realised these ideas most fully in the first half of the four-opera cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen ( The Ring of the Nibelung).
He described this vision in a series of essays published between 18.
Initially establishing his reputation as a composer of works in the romantic vein of Carl Maria von Weber and Giacomo Meyerbeer, Wagner revolutionised opera through his concept of the Gesamtkunstwerk ("total work of art"), by which he sought to synthesise the poetic, visual, musical and dramatic arts, with music subsidiary to drama. Unlike most opera composers, Wagner wrote both the libretto and the music for each of his stage works. Wilhelm Richard Wagner ( / ˈ v ɑː ɡ n ər/ VAHG-nər German: ( listen) – 13 February 1883) was a German composer, theatre director, polemicist, and conductor who is chiefly known for his operas (or, as some of his mature works were later known, "music dramas").