2024 the best composer ever review

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Simon Callow, the celebrated author of Orson Welles, delivers a dazzling, swift, and accessible biography of the musical titan Richard Wagner and his profoundly problematic legacy--a fresh take for seasoned acolytes and the perfect introduction for new fans.

Richard Wagner's music dramas have never been more popular or more divisive. His ten masterpieces, created against the backdrop of a continent in severe political and cultural upheaval, constitute an unmatched body of work. A man who spent most of his life in abject poverty, inspiring both critical derision and hysterical hero-worship, Wagner was a walking contradiction: belligerent, flirtatious, disciplined, capricious, demanding, visionary, and poisonously anti-Semitic. Acclaimed biographer Simon Callow evokes the intellectual and artistic climate in which Wagner lived and takes us through his most iconic works, from his pivotal successes in The Flying Dutchman and Lohengrin, to the musical paradigm shift contained in Tristan and Isolde, to the apogee of his achievements in The Ring of the Nibelung and Parsifal, which debuted at Bayreuth shortly before his death. Being Wagner brings to life this towering figure, creator of the most sublime and most controversial body of work ever known.

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Vintage; Reprint edition (February 6, 2018)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 256 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0525436189
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0525436188
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 9 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.2 x 0.7 x 8 inches
Reviewer: JEDrury
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Superb !
Review: Simon Callow, writer, director, and actor, most notable, as “Gareth” in “Four Weddings and a Funeral,” pens a highly readable, informative and entertaining biography of Richard Wagner, the 19th century German composer of the Tannhäuser, the Flying Dutchman, Lohengrin and of course, the Ring of Nibelung (to Grieg, “art comparable in innovation only to Michelangelo.”).His Wagner is a maniacal, debt ridden, force of nature passionately committed to staging his imagination of Germany’s cultural roots as seen through his artistry who in the process reinvents opera in homage to the Beethoven-ian greatness of its classical music past. His admiration for Wagner and his contributions recognizes the composer’s horrid anti Semitism, the complexities of his “Jew hate.”Callow choses lightness over a tonal heaviness, his descriptions soar and entertain while avoiding expressive shallowness. What Wagner wrote “can not be confined. It remains restless, unsettling, destructive, sublime and dynamic as it ever was. . . Music was changed utterly by him.”

Reviewer: Siegmund
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Wagner, Inside Out
Review: Don't look here for an in-depth analysis of "The Ring," or for analyses of any of Wagner's works, for that matter. This book is all about Wagner, the man. Callow, himself an actor, has an uncanny ability to get inside the Master's skin, to give an inside-out picture of what it was like Being Wagner. Callow adds details to already familiar accounts of this most storied life such as the time Wagner ate too much ice cream in Italy, got sick from it, and took that famous nap in which he dreamed he was drowning, out of which the E flat major of the "Rhinegold” prelude was born. And then, there is the detail about the extremely painful open sores on his legs when he was composing the first part of “The Ring.” Wagner's life is very familiar to us but Callow's telling of it shows just how it is more dramatic than most novels in its twists and turns and roller-coaster ups and downs. What novel could make us believe that a deus-ex-machina king steps in to save the protagonist just when he is at his lowest ebb? That it actually happened, most of us would find as a stretch,outside of a fairy tale. And , for an ironic twist to the story, Wagner got the news of King Ludwig's summons to his court on the same day Meyerbeer died.(Wagner perceived Meyerbeer as his enemy.) With his”enemy” dead and a king head over heels for him, one would think “happily ever after,” but no, this is Wagner, for whom,Daland like, turbulence was the norm. Callow relates much of that turbulence with fascinating details. These details and Callow's narrative gifts make even more interesting this amazing story of a man going from penury to rich silk and satin undergarments, from obscurity to royal homage, from rejection to apotheosis, and from being a firebrand revolutionary on the barricades to Buddhist transcendence. The reader lives through the unbelievable arc of Wagner's creative life from his being a political and creative outcast to the only composer-- ever-- to own an opera house designed specifically by him for his , and only his, compositions, an opera house to which, over the years,thousands would make pilgrimage. The book is highly readable. Great for a read on an airplane, night time reading, or for a serious escape to the study with a glass of brandy. It is to be enjoyed as if it were a thrilling novel. I have read it several times. If I pick it up to check a passage against my memory, I am hooked and have to read the entire thing all over again. I have bought two more copies to pass along to friends. I held back for a long time on buying it at all because I had read that Callow spends a lot of time presenting the anti-Semitism of Wagner. He does seem to never let an opportunity pass to slip that in, but it is not front and center as the "author's message." The message is the man, and the anti-Semitism is part of the man of infinite contradictions, a man of unequaled genius, accompanied by unequaled drive, plagued by physical ailments, and yes, a sense of humor and at times, a childlike joy. He presents Wagner in such a dramatic fashion that when I turned the page for the final chapter, I was profoundly struck by the sketch of Wagner's face in death, a face with an agonized expression, still at war with the world, who had died as Callow says,”of being Wagner.” I highly recommend this as a beginner's first book on Wagner or for seasoned Wagnerians looking for a fresh perspective. The hardcover is a handsome little volume that fits nicely in the hand.

Reviewer: RDS
Rating: 4.0 out of 5 stars
Title: WAGNER: A Vile Human but a Hallowed Visionary
Review: Callow gives an engaging and probing account that, while lauding Wagner’s unquestionable and unique genius, points out his abrasive, repulsive nature bolstered by an innate and grossly bombastic ego that surprisingly brewed within a small sickly man inflicted with Schopenhaueristic pessimism.Hence, Callow is not shallow (pun intended) in broad terms and gives a concise chronological account of this tiny Teutonic titan who festered with anti-Semitism all the while receiving the benevolent advocacy of several Jews, Giacomo Meyerbeer being among them.My four-star rating is due to a critical point, namely, Callow rightfully mentions how a bio about Wagner can be made without mentioning Friedrich Nietzsche, yet a bio about Nietzsche can’t be made without mentioning Wagner. However, it is impossible to write a bio about Wagner without mentioning the extreme transformative intervention of Franz Liszt into Wagner’s life.While Callow did briefly mention Liszt in a few segments, he knowingly ignored or somehow, quite inexplicably, blindly missed the intense artistic relationship between these two titans. Most critical is how Wagner’s lauded Tristan chord was in fact stolen almost note-for-note from Liszt, a musical breakthrough of significant historical importance, yet an honor that in this day and age should no longer be granted to Wagner, with the firm evidence of Liszt’s earlier works and the accounts by those at the time who knew the truth, yet whose voices remained overshadowed or mute due primarily to Liszt’s magnanimous nature of never getting ruffled when others stole his bold innovations.Even Tchaikovsky would directly quote a passage in Liszt’s symphonic poem Hamlet in his own Hamlet. However, that quote was meant as a compliment, a nod to the man who inspired him to write his own Hamlet. Meanwhile, Wagner stole Liszt’s chord progression and had the temerity to irritably scold those who noticed the plagiarism, telling them to keep quiet. That’s a major difference. All artists study the works of others in order to build upon them to create their own unique masterworks but to steal note-for-note and then claim it as your own is pure plagiarism steeped in arrogance.It is also critical to note how Wagner’s mature music-dramas were deeply indebted to Liszt, having studied Liszt’s symphonic poems and his groundbreaking Faust and Dante Symphonies before he began composing his later masterpieces, which never could have reached the sublime heights they did without the innovative Lisztian foundations and architecture that gave his fantastical imagination flight. No book about Wagner can, or should, ignore these vital facts, nor the monumental influence of Franz Liszt. See the "Franz Liszt Site" online.Nevertheless, the sweeping account of Wagner’s rise to a godlike figure, over the course of a very tumultuous life, littered with roadblocks, dalliances with women, political uprisings, his fugitive status, and perpetual scrounging for money to finally achieve his life’s goal is not only admirable, despite loathing his many weaknesses in character, but a milestone in Western art. He created a new form of opera (Music-Drama) along with a special theater to display his new work, which infused opera with intense emotional music that was off the charts powerful and profoundly influential. Despite his ugly, provocative personality, Richard Wagner was far more versatile, revolutionary and visionary than even today’s giant George Lucas. For Wagner wrote his stage-play, composed all the innovative music, had a special theater built to perform it, and directed it. Simply monumental, regardless of those who try to demean his work because of his repulsive personality or the extreme excesses of his Romantic music-drama, which is the equivalent of The Lord of the Rings, Star Wars and Game of Thrones all in one, four-part RING masterpiece, one created over a hundred years before our modern film creators even began composing their storyboards.

Reviewer: karl schöllhorn
Rating: 1.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: Auf Seite 13 heißt es: "Louis XVIII, the last of the Bourbons, fellin 1830". 1830 wurde Charles X gestürzt u vertrieben, der Nachfolger- u Bruder- von Louis XVIII, Seite 1: The newly creatd kingdom ofSaxony- Anhalt", meines Wissens gab es nur ein Königreich Sachsen, Sachsen-Anhalt war nach 1945 zunächst ein Land in der DDR bis 1952 u ist heute ein Land der BRD, wenn der Rest von ähnlicher Güte ist.....

Reviewer: barry millman
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: An enjoyable read; a biography which gives a clear picture of Wagner's life, triumphs, faults and problems in the context of his working life. The author obviously appreciates Wagner's music and contributions to the development of the modern theatre, while not overlooking his personality flaws. Illustrated by humorous cartoons from Wagner's lifetime. Highly recommended for anyone with a serious interest in Wagner and his music dramas.

Reviewer: M. S. Srivastava
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: Fairly light hearted but well written and packed with anecdotes, many of which were completely new to me. It is a genuine attempt to understand what made the hugely talented and in so many ways charismatic figure that was Richard Wagner tick, but not ignoring the far less likeable aspects of his personality. I have a whole shelf of lengthy biographies of Wagner, some recent some more ancien, but as I will be going to listen to the whole Ring des Nibelungen in Leipzig in June, I wanted to refresh my memory and I have really enjoyed this little book.

Reviewer: KM
Rating: 4.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: Very readable, nice light tone while still taking the subject-matter seriously. Seems to be relying a bit too heavily on Wagner's autobiography (I do not think Wagner is a reliable narrator).

Reviewer: 2010 Figurskating Championships
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: Can't say I've finished this yet, but despite studying Wagner at uni I've learned many things about his personal life that I previously never new. Insightful and easily read book, the only down side is that there's no accompanying musical disk for those who've never heard the music (especially his early stuff like the sonatas and symphonies) to get their teeth into.