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Richard Wagner was a German composer best known for his operas, primarily the monumental four-opera cycle "Der Ring des Nibelungen". He was born Wilhelm Richard Wagner on May 22, 1813, in Leipzig, Germany. He was the ninth child in the family of Carl Wagner, a police clerk. Richard was only six months old when his father died, and he was brought up by his mother Johanna and stepfather Ludwig Geyer, an actor and playwright. Young Wagner studied piano from the age of 7 and soon developed ability to play by ear and improvise. At age 15 he wrote piano transcriptions of Ludwig van Beethoven's "9th Symphony" and orchestral overtures. He studied at the University of Leipzig, and also took composition and conducting lessons with the cantor of St. Thomas in Leipzig.
Wagner's early operas did not meet with success, leaving him in serious financial difficulties. From 1836-1839 he was a music director in Riga Opera, where his wife, Minna Planer, was a singer, and her extramarital escapades were the talk of the town. The Wagners amassed such significant debts that they had to escape from creditors and fled Riga. They spent 1840 and 1841 in London and Paris, where Richard worked as an arranger for other composers.
Giacomo Meyerbeer promoted Wagner's third opera, "Rienzi", to performance by the Dresden Court Theatre, where the opera was staged to considerable acclaim. In 1842 the Wagners moved to Dresden and lived there for six years. Eventually Richard was appointed the Royal Saxon Court Conductor. At that time he completed and staged "Der fliegende Hollander" (aka "The Flying Dutchman") and "Tannhauser".
Wagner was exposed to many conflicting political influences, ranging from Marxism and liberalism on the left to German nationalism on the right to the anarchism of Mikhail Bakunin. After the revolution of 1848-49, Wagner fled from Germany to Paris, then to Zurich, and found himself penniless, unemployed and depressed (he had also suffered from a severe skin infection for many years). At that time Wagner was unable to compose or perform music, and he expressed himself in writing essays: "The Art-Work of the Future", describing "Gesamtkunstwerk," or "total artwork" uniting opera, ballet, visual arts and stagecraft.
Wagner's four "Ring" operas gradually evolved, and he completed the libretto by 1852. Another year of suffering went by, until he began composing "Das Rheingold" (aka "The Rhine Gold") in November 1853, following it with "Die Walkure" (aka "The Valkyrie") in 1854. In 1856 he began work on "Siegfried", but put the unfinished opera aside and focused on his new idea: "Tristan und Isolde" (aka "Tristan and Isolde"), which was composed between 1857 and 1859. In 1861 Germany ended the political ban on Wagner, and in 1862 he ended his troubled marriage to Minna.
"Tristan and Isolde" was initially accepted for production in Vienna. The opera had over 70 rehearsals between 1861 and 1864, but remained unperformed and gained a reputation for being unplayable. The young Bavarian King Ludwig II, an admirer of Wagner's operas since his childhood, had settled the composer's debts and financed his opera productions. Finally "Tristan and Isolde" was produced in Munich, and premiered under the baton of Hans von Bulow in June 1865. It was the first Wagner premiere in 15 years.
Cosima von Bulow, the wife of the conductor, Hans von Bulow, and the eldest daughter of pianist/composer Franz Liszt, had an indiscreet affair with Wagner, and their illegitimate daughter, Isolde, was born in 1865. The affair scandalized Munich, and Wagner fell into disfavor among members of the court who were jealous of his friendship with the king. Ludwig was pressured to ask Wagner to leave Munich. However, from 1866 to 1872 the king placed Wagner and his family at Tribshen villa on Lake Luzern, Switzerland. There Richard married Cosime in August 1870. Inspired composer created one of his most beloved works, the "Siegfried Idyll" for 15 players, written as a gift to Cosima, and premiered on Christmas day, 1870.
In 1872 Wagner moved to Bayreuth with a plan that his "Ring" cycle to be performed in a new, specially designed opera house. King Ludwig supported the composer with another large grant in 1874, and the Wagners bought Villa Wahnfried and made permanent home in Bayreuth. In August 1876 the new opera "Festspielhaus" opened with the premiere of "The Ring" and has been the site of the Bayreuth Festival ever since.
Richard Wagner died of a heart attack on February 13, 1883, while wintering in Venice. He was laid to rest in the garden of his Villa Wahnfried in Bayreuth. The Wagner Museum in Lucerne, Switzerland, is now a museum of period musical instruments and art collection of the Wagner family. One room is dedicated to the history of the Wagner Festivals in Lucerne. The Wagner Museum allows visitors to take photos of the documents about the Wagner family's help to the Jewish musicians and intellectuals who fled the Nazi regime in the 1930s.
Documents reveal that the Wagner family were assisting Jewish musicians and intellectuals who fled the Nazi regime in finding employment in Switzerland and other lands, such as the USA and Palestine. Documents, photographs and letters illustrate the bold activity of Arturo Toscanini with Vladimir Horowitz and the Wagner family members in getting funds from the government of Benito Mussolini and using those funds to accommodate Jewish musicians and intellectuals under the umbrella of the annual Wagner Festival in Lucerne. The Wagner Festival Symphony Orchestra employed many Jewish musicians who later joined the Israel Philarmonic Orchestra (then known as the "Palestine Orchestra").- Music Department
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Giuseppe Verdi was born Giuseppe Fortunino Francesco Verdi on October 10, 1813, in Le Roncole di Busseto, Parma, Italy. His parents were landowners and innkeepers. Young Verdi received his first organ lessons at the age of 7. He studied composition privately with Ferdinando Provesi in Busseto. At age 20 he moved to Milan to continue his studies, but the Conservatory of Music rejected him. Verdi took private lessons and associated with Milan's cultural milieu in his pursuit of a musical career. He was patronized by Antonio Barezzi, a merchant, whose daughter, Margherita, was Verdi's student and later became his wife.
His first opera, Oberto (1839), was a successful production by Milan's Theatro La Scala. While Verdi continued working on his second opera, his wife and two children died. The second opera failed, and he suffered a depression and vowed to quit musical career. La Scala impresario, Merelli, persuaded him to write a third opera. Nabucco (1842) made Verdi famous. He followed the Bel Canto style of Gaetano Donizetti and Vincenzo Bellini. Verdi's best operas were based on plays by Victor Hugo, such as 'Ernani' (1844) and 'Rigoletto' (1851). In 1853 Verdi 's masterpiece 'La Traviata' was produced in Venice. It was based on 'The Lady of the Camelias', a play by Alexandre Dumas, fils. At that time Verdi became familiar with the music of Russian composer Mikhail Glinka who was popularized in Europe by Franz Liszt. The music of Mikhail Glinka had certain influence on Verdi's later operas.
In 1861 Verdi wrote 'La forza del destino' commissioned by the Imperial Theatre in St. Petersburg, Russia, upon the recommendations by Aleksandr Borodin. It was performed with great success in 1862, and became part of a standard operatic repertoire ever since. His grand-opera 'Aida' (1871) was premiered in Cairo as part of the celebrations of the opening of the Suez Canal, and became an instant success. In his later operas Verdi turned from the style of Bel Canto to more expressive music and orchestration, like in 'Otello' (1887), based on the eponymous play by Shakespeare. Verdi's last and musically most brilliant, rich and expressive opera, 'Falstaff' (1893), was based on the Shakespeare's play "The Merry Wives of Windsor" in the adaptation of Victor Hugo.
Verdi's musical success coincided with the political events of Italian unification during the Austrian occupation. The 'Chorus of the Hebrew Slaves' from his opera 'Nabucco' (1842), became a popular song among supporters of Italian unification. Many of his opera performances were used by the supporters of Victor Emmanuel to shout "Viva Verdi" as a code name for a secret unification message. The name Verdi was used as acronym for "Vittorio Emanuele Re D'Italia" - Victor Emmanuel, King of Italy. Such a code enabled clandestine partisans of Victor Emmanuel, then the King of Sardinia, to gain more supporters in Milan which eventually led to the unification of Italy. Verdi was aware that his popular operas and his name was used as a political tool. Austrian censorship was powerless.
In 1861 Victor Emmanuel became the King of Italy in Turin. From 1861-1865 Giuseppe Verdi was elected representative of Busseto in the newly formed Italian parliament. After Garibaldi's military campaign the capital was moved to Florence, then to Rome, and Verdi returned from politics to music. He lived in Milan during the last years of his life. He was revered and honoured all over the world, and was much visited by his admirers. He died on January 27, 1901, in Milan, and was laid to rest at the Casa di Riposo, a retirement home for elderly musicians that was established by Verdi himself.
Verdi's music was used in hundreds of film scores. His operas has been the staples of operatic repertoire. His canzonas "La donna è mobile" from opera 'Rigoletto' (1851) and "Libiamo ne'lieti calici" (Drinking song) from 'La Traviata' (1853) has been popular concert numbers in performances by the three tenors: Luciano Pavarotti, Plácido Domingo and José Carreras.- Søren Kierkegaard, a Danish philosopher who imposed restrictions on his own love and emotions and declared the idea of subjectivity as truth, is now recognized as the founder of Existentialism, an influential author in psychology, and an important figure in Postmodernism.
He was born Søren Aabye Kierkegaard on May 5, 1813, into a wealthy family in Copenhagen, Denmark. He was the youngest of seven children. His father, named Michael Pedersen Kierkegaard, was married to his 3rd cousin Ane Sorensdatter Lund, and was a rigid religious man who suffered from depression and guilt, which he imposed on his children. From the young age Kierkegaard was disabled and suffered from complications after his fall from a tree when he was a boy. He was also strongly influenced by his father's depression and stubborn belief in a curse that all his children were doomed to die by the age of 33.
His philosophy and writing was also influenced by Regine Olsen, the love of his life and the muse for his writings. He and Regine met in 1837, while they were students at University, and they became engaged in 1840, but he harbored some undisclosed secret of dark and personal nature. A year later he chose to break off the engagement rather than to reveal his secret to Regine. She married another man and refused to see Kierkegaard ever again. He sank into psychoanalysis of the ethical and emotional aspects of breaking off in his book 'Repetition' (1843) which he published under the pseudonym Constantin Constantinus. At that time he was suffering from melancholy, probably a form of depression coming from his own trauma and disability. In his writings Kierkegaard used the word 'marriage' as a trope for the universal demands made by social mores.
Kierkegaard's works deal with problems of choice in many aspects, ranging from emotions and feelings of an individual, to religious, philosophical, and political aspects of human society. Kierkegaard offered no solutions but rather a variety of views on individual, social and political conundrums and unresolvable complexities, ranging from an "Attack on" approach to an observationist position. His masterpiece and arguably the greatest work, 'Either/Or', was written during his stay in Berlin in 1842, then was revised and completed in Copenhagen in the fall of the same year. In it Kierkegaard plays with his three incarnations, philosopher named "A", Judge Williams, author of rebuttals to "A", and editor named Victor Eremita. It was published in 1843 and found little understanding among the contemporaries. His other important works are 'The Concept of Irony' (1841), 'Fear and Trembling' (1843), and 'Works of Love' (1847), among others. In his later works Kierkegaard analyzed the detrimental effect of organized religion on individuals in Denmark caused by rigidity of established state church. His analysis of 'fear', 'sin', 'guilt', and other tools of control over minds, as well as his thoughts on the decay of the Danish State Church and failures of applied religion lead to his statement that "the human race has outgrown Christianity" which ignited attacks on him from many angered critics.
Kierkegaard published his works under various pseudonyms. He used several pseudonyms to create an imitation of a discussion between several pseudo-authors, all of those in fact being one man, Kierkegaard. For that reason and also because of his complex personality and intricate thought and reasoning, he made it difficult to distinguish between what he truly believed and what he was making up for a mere argument. He died in a hospital on November 11, 1855, of complications from his fall from a tree in his childhood, and was laid to rest in the Assistens Cemetery in Copenhagen, Denmark. His works were little known outside Denmark until professional translations were made in the 1920s. His works has been extremely influential ever since. His arguments against objectivity and emphasis on skepticism, especially concerning social morals and norms, laid groundwork for the 20th century Existentialism and Postmodernism.
Along with Friedrich Nietzsche, he is regarded as the father of Existentialism and existential psychology. Kierkegaard's influence may be found in many art movements, such as Dada, Futurism, and other movements in modern art. He influenced Martin Heidegger, Jean-Paul Sartre, Martin Buber, Albert Camus, Simone de Beauvoir, Franz Kafka and John Updike among many other thinkers and writers. - Georg Büchner was born on 17 October 1813 in Goddelau, Riedstadt, Hesse, Germany. He was a writer, known for Woyzeck (1979), Danton (1921) and Wozzeck (1947). He died on 19 February 1837 in Zurich, Switzerland.
- He grew up in poor circumstances and was denied higher education and university studies. Hebbel acquired his education autodidactically through constant reading while he worked as an errand boy and clerk for a church playmaster. His first poems were published in regional newspapers. In 1835 he went to Hamburg to prepare for studies. There he met Elise Lensing, his future lover, with whom he had two children. She and the writer Amalia Schoppe made it possible for him to stay in Hamburg. This period also marked the beginning of his diaries, in which he reflected on art, philosophy and his own works, and they also provide information about his life. They are among the most interesting remarks in 19th century literature. He stopped studying law in Heidelberg in 1836.
Hebbel went to Munich because he thought there would be better opportunities for his writing there. During this time he studied the great tragedies of Aeschylus, William Shakespeare and Friedrich Schiller. After an unsuccessful stay, he returned to Hamburg in 1839. There he worked as a reviewer and contributor to the "Telegraphen für Deutschland", a paper published by Karl Gotzkow. In 1840 Hebbel completed work on the tragedy "Judith", which established his reputation as a dramatic writer. In his polemic "My Word on Drama" (1843) he published his views on art and drama. In the same year he went on a trip to Paris, which he financed with a travel grant granted by the Danish king. There he met Heinrich Heine and the radical democrat Arnold Ruge. Further trips to Rome and Naples followed. In 1848 he finished an edition of poems that he dedicated to Ludwig Uhland.
His philosophical thoughts are reflected in the lyrical works, without developing them into pure abstract thought poetry. They are connected with reflections, personal and allegorical interpretations. From 1845 Hebbel lived in Vienna, where he also met his future wife, Christine Enghaus. They married in 1846. At the time of the revolution in 1848, the writer was already one of the well-known personalities in Vienna. As a zealous journalist, he championed the constitutional monarchy on a democratic basis. The marriage drama "Herod and Marianne" (1850) was also written during this time. In 1855 the drama "Agnes Bernauer" was published, which depicts the conflict between the individual right to freedom and love and the comprehensive state power. Here and in Hebbel's other dramas it becomes clear that the author addresses the concept of a lasting moral world order and uses less socio-historical change processes as a means of representation.
Hebbel consistently advocated independence for art. In the design of his dramatic works he followed the traditional structure. "Gyges and his Ring" was written in 1856. Hebbel was honored with the Schiller Prize in 1863 for the "Nibelungen" trilogy (1862). The national material and the author were particularly captured by the National Socialists in the Third Reich. This reception was damaging to the author. But criticism also came from colleagues, such as Gottfried Keller and other contemporaries. The accusations against Hebbel's material design were "artificial and complicated motivation" and "historical arbitrariness". On the other hand, there is the uniqueness of the "Nibelungen" design, which is based on the interplay of archaic size and a realism of individual psychological coloring.
In general, the mutual connection and interpenetration of the individual and the general is a basic literary tendency of Christian Friedrich Hebbel. The playwright gave the literary genre of tragedy a new dimension with "Maria Magdalena" (1844) and the conflict in the lower middle class world. His other works include "Genoveva" (1843), "The Diamond" (1847), "A Tragedy in Sicily" (1851), "Tales and Novellas" (1855), "Mother and Child" (1859) or "Demetrius" (1864).
Christian Friedrich Hebbel died on December 13, 1863 in Vienna. - Auguste Maquet was born on 13 September 1813 in Paris, France. Auguste was a writer, known for Three Musketeers (1932), Monte Cristo (1929) and La maison du baigneur (1914). Auguste died on 8 January 1888 in Paris, France.
- David Livingstone was born on 19 March 1813 in Blantyre, South Lanarkshire, Scotland, UK. David was a writer, known for Queen Victoria's Empire (2001) and Secrets of the Dead (2000). David was married to Mary Moffat. David died on 1 May 1873 in Ilala, Barotseland [now Zambia].
- Pietari Hannikainen was born on 24 August 1813 in Sääminki, Finland. Pietari was a writer, known for Silmänkääntäjä - Eli Jussi Oluvisen matka Hölmölään (1965), Silmänkääntäjä (1962) and Silmänkääntäjä (1972). Pietari died on 27 September 1899 in Parikkala, Finland.
- Charles Timothy Brooks was born on 20 June 1813 in Salem, Massachusetts, USA. He was a writer, known for Max und Moritz - Eine Bubengeschichte in sieben Streichen (2020). He died on 14 June 1883 in Newport, Rhode Island, USA.
- Jørgen Moe was born on 22 April 1813 in Hole, Province Buskerud, Norway. He was a writer, known for Anansi Storytime (2016), Jackanory (1965) and Reve-enka (1962). He was married to Johanne Fredrikke Sofie Sørensen. He died on 27 March 1882 in Kristiansand, Norway.
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- Composer
- Music Department
Semyon Artemovsky was born on 16 February 1813 in Horodyshche, Ukraine. He was a writer and composer, known for Zaporozhets za Dunayem (1939), Zaporozhets za Dunayem (1953) and Zaporozhets za Dunayem (1937). He died on 17 April 1873 in Moscow, Russia.- Henry S. Washburn was born on 10 June 1813 in Providence, Rhode Island, USA. Henry S. was married to Maria Carlisle Loring. Henry S. died in 1903 in Boston, Massachusetts, USA.
- Otto Ludwig was born on 12 February 1813 in Eisfeld, Saxe-Hildburghausen [now Thuringia, Germany]. He was a writer, known for Zwischen Tod und Leben (1919), Between Heaven and Earth (1934) and Brüder (1923). He was married to Emilie Winkler. He died on 25 February 1865 in Dresden, Kingdom of Saxony [now Saxony, Germany].
- John C. Fremont was born on 21 January 1813 in Savannah, Georgia, USA. He died on 13 July 1890 in Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA.
- Hermann Kletke was born on 14 March 1813 in Breslau, Silesia, Germany [now Wroclaw, Dolnoslaskie, Poland]. He was a writer, known for Unser Sandmännchen (1959). He died in 1886.
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Epes Sargent was born on 27 September 1813 in Gloucester, Massachusetts, USA. Epes was married to Elizabeth W. Weld. Epes died on 30 December 1880 in Boston, Massachusetts, USA.- Writer
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Karel Sabina was born on 29 December 1813 in Prague, Bohemia, Austrian Empire [now Czech Republic]. Karel was a writer, known for Prodaná nevesta (1922), Prodaná nevesta (1913) and Prodaná nevesta (1976). Karel died on 9 November 1877 in Prague, Bohemia, Austria-Hungary [now Czech Republic].- József Eötvös was born on 3 September 1813 in Buda, Hungary. He was a writer, known for A karthausi (1916), Viola, az alföldi haramia (1922) and Néma kolostor (1941). He was married to Ágnes Katalin Annát Rosty. He died on 2 February 1871 in Pest, Hungary.