Richard wagner compositions1/30/2024 ![]() Prior to 1850 (when he was 37) there is no record of Wagner expressing any particular antisemitic sentiment. Despite these conjectures on the part of Wagner and Nietzsche, there is no evidence that Geyer was Jewish, and the question of Wagner's paternity is unlikely to be settled without DNA evidence. It may have been this closeness that led Nietzsche to claim in his 1888 book Der Fall Wagner ( The Case of Wagner) that Wagner's father was Geyer, and to make the pun that "Ein Geyer ist beinahe schon ein Adler" (A vulture is almost an eagle) -Geyer also being the German word for "vulture" and Adler being both a very common Jewish surname and the German word for "eagle". The philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche was one of Wagner's closest acolytes, and proof-read Wagner's autobiography Mein Leben (My Life). At the same time Cosima noted a resemblance between Wagner's son Siegfried and Geyer. According to Cosima's diaries (26 December 1868) Wagner "did not believe" that Ludwig Geyer was his real father. Wagner in his later years discovered letters from Geyer to his mother which led him to suspect that Geyer was, in fact, his biological father, and furthermore speculated that Geyer was Jewish. ![]() Johanna and Geyer married in August 1814, and for the first 14 years of his life, Wagner was known as Wilhelm Richard Geyer. Wagner's father died of typhus six months after Richard's birth, by which time Wagner's mother was living with the actor and playwright Ludwig Geyer in the Brühl, at that time the Jewish quarter of Leipzig. Richard Wagner was born on May 22, 1813, the ninth child of Carl Friedrich Wagner, a clerk in the Leipzig police service, and Johanna Rosine Wagner. The suggestion is that Wagner descends from the orthodox Jew (left) who is holding a shofar, while Wagner wields a baton. Zajacskowski in the Viennese satirical magazine, Der Floh, c. A belief also exists that his fatal heart attack followed an argument with his wife Cosima over the singer Carrie Pringle, with whom some claim he had an amorous relationship.Ĭaricature, entitled Darwinian Evolution, by T. It is suggested that he was the son of Ludwig Geyer, rather than his legal father Carl Friedrich Wagner, and some of his biographers have proposed that Wagner himself believed that Geyer was Jewish. There is also controversy over both the beginning and the end of Wagner's life – his paternity and his death. Historical perception of Wagner has been tainted with this association ever since, and there is debate over how Wagner's writings and operas might have influenced the creation of Nazi Germany. Wagner was promoted during the Nazi era as one of Adolf Hitler's favourite composers. ![]() Whether Wagner's operas contain adverse caricatures of Jews or not is a controversial matter among scholars. Several of his writings have achieved some notoriety, in particular, his essay Das Judenthum in der Musik ( Jewishness in Music), a critical view on the influence of Jews in German culture and society at that time. Wagner was a prolific writer who published essays and pamphlets on a wide range of subjects throughout his life. Most of these perceptions arise from Wagner's published opinions on a number of topics. I sometimes think there are two Wagners in our culture, almost unrecognizably different from one another: the Wagner possessed by those who know his work, and the Wagner imagined by those who know him only by name and reputation. The writer and Wagner scholar Bryan Magee has written: Even today he is associated in the minds of many with Nazism and his operas are often thought to extol the virtues of German nationalism. The German composer Richard Wagner was a controversial figure during his lifetime, and has continued to be so after his death.
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