Editing Richard Wagner (section)

== Influence and legacy ==

=== Influence on music ===
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Wagner's later musical style introduced new ideas in harmony, melodic process (leitmotif) and operatic structure. Notably from ''Tristan und Isolde'' onwards, he explored the limits of the traditional tonal system, which gave keys and chords their identity, pointing the way to [[atonality]] in the 20th century. Some music historians date the beginning of [[modern classical music]] to the first notes of ''Tristan'', which include the so-called [[Tristan chord]].{{sfn|Deathridge|2008|p=114}}{{sfn|Magee|2000|pp=208–209}}

[[File:Photo of Gustav Mahler by Moritz Nähr 01.jpg|thumb|left|upright=0.8|alt=Middle-aged man, seated, facing towards the left but head turned towards the right. He has a high forehead, rimless glasses and is wearing a dark, crumpled suit|Gustav Mahler in 1907]]
Wagner inspired great devotion. For a long period, many composers were inclined to align themselves with or against Wagner's music. [[Anton Bruckner]] and [[Hugo Wolf]] were greatly indebted to him, as were [[César Franck]], [[Henri Duparc (composer)|Henri Duparc]], [[Ernest Chausson]], [[Jules Massenet]], [[Richard Strauss]], [[Alexander von Zemlinsky]], [[Hans Pfitzner]] and many others.<ref>See articles on these composers in ''[[The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians]]''; {{harvnb|Grey|2008|pp=222–229}}; {{harvnb|Deathridge|2008|pp=231–232}}</ref> [[Gustav Mahler]] was devoted to Wagner and his music: he sought him out on his 1875 visit to Vienna at the age of 15,{{sfn|de La Grange|1973|pp=43–44}} and became a renowned Wagner conductor;{{sfn|Millington|2001a|p=371}} his compositions were seen by [[Richard Taruskin]] as extending Wagner's "maximalization" of "the temporal and the sonorous" in music to the world of the symphony.{{sfn|Taruskin|2009|pp=5–8}} The harmonic revolutions of [[Claude Debussy]] and [[Arnold Schoenberg]] (both of whose ''oeuvres'' contain examples of tonal and [[atonality|atonal]] modernism) have often been traced back to ''Tristan'' and ''Parsifal''.{{sfn|Magee|1988|p=54}}{{sfn|Grey|2008|pp=228–229}} The Italian form of operatic [[Realism (theatre)|realism]] known as [[verismo]] owed much to the Wagnerian concept of musical form.{{sfn|Grey|2008|p=226}}

Wagner made a major contribution to the principles and practice of conducting. His essay "About Conducting" (1869){{sfn|Wagner|1995a|pp=289–364}} advanced [[Hector Berlioz]]'s technique of conducting and claimed that conducting was a means by which a musical work could be re-interpreted, rather than simply a mechanism for achieving orchestral unison. He exemplified this approach in his own conducting, which was significantly more flexible than the disciplined approach of [[Felix Mendelssohn]]; in his view, this also justified practices that were later frowned upon, such as the rewriting of scores.{{sfn|Westrup|1980|p=645}}{{refn|See for example Wagner's proposals for the rescoring of Beethoven's ''[[Ninth Symphony (Beethoven)|Ninth Symphony]]'' in his essay on that work.{{sfn|Wagner|1995b|pp=231–253}}|group=n}} [[Wilhelm Furtwängler]] felt that Wagner and Bülow, through their interpretative approach, inspired a whole new generation of conductors (including Furtwängler himself).{{sfn|von Westernhagen|1980|p=113}}

Among those from the late 20th century and beyond claiming inspiration from Wagner's music are the German band [[Rammstein]];{{sfn|Reissman|2004}} [[Jim Steinman]], who wrote songs for [[Meat Loaf]], [[Bonnie Tyler]], [[Air Supply]], [[Celine Dion]] and others;<ref>{{Cite web |last=Sheffield |first=Rob |date=21 April 2021 |title=A Toast to Jim Steinman: The Songwriting Powder Keg Who Kept Giving Off Sparks |url=https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/jim-steinman-karaoke-total-eclipse-heart-song-1158584/ |access-date=15 May 2022 |website=Rolling Stone |language=en-US}}</ref> and the electronic composer [[Klaus Schulze]], whose 1975 album ''[[Timewind]]'' consists of two 30-minute tracks, "Bayreuth Return" and "Wahnfried 1883". [[Joey DeMaio]] of the band [[Manowar]] has described Wagner as "the father of [[heavy metal music|heavy metal]]".{{sfn|Joe|2010|loc=p. 23, n.45}} The Slovenian group [[Laibach (band)|Laibach]] created the 2009 suite ''VolksWagner'', using material from Wagner's operas.<ref>{{cite web |title=Volkswagner |publisher=Laibach |url=https://www.laibach.org/project/volkswagner/ |access-date=24 December 2012 }}</ref> [[Phil Spector]]'s [[Wall of Sound]] recording technique was, it has been claimed, heavily influenced by Wagner.{{sfn|Long|2008|p=114}}

=== Influence on literature, philosophy and the visual arts ===
[[File:Nietzsche1882.jpg|thumb|right|upright=0.8|Friedrich Nietzsche in 1882|alt=A moustachioed man in his late thirties looks to the left of the photo. His head rests on his far hand.]]
Wagner's influence on literature and philosophy is significant. Millington has commented:<blockquote>[Wagner's] protean abundance meant that he could inspire the use of literary motif in many a novel employing interior [[monologue]];&nbsp;... the [[symbolism (arts)|Symbolists]] saw him as a mystic hierophant; the [[Decadent movement|Decadents]] found many a frisson in his work.{{sfn|Millington|2001a|p=396}}</blockquote>[[Friedrich Nietzsche]] was a member of Wagner's inner circle during the early 1870s. Nietzsche's first published work, ''[[The Birth of Tragedy]]'', proposed Wagner's music as the [[Dionysian]] "rebirth" of European culture in opposition to [[Apollonian and Dionysian|Apollonian]] rationalist "decadence". Nietzsche broke with Wagner following the first Bayreuth Festival in 1876, believing that Wagner's final phase represented a pandering to Christian pieties and a surrender to the new [[German Empire|German Reich]].{{sfn|Magee|1988|p=52}} Nevertheless, in ''[[Thus Spoke Zarathustra]]'', Nietzsche alluded to Wagner as the "old sorcerer", a reference to the captivating power of Wagner's music.<ref>{{cite magazine |last=Penrose |first=James F. |date=September 2020 |title=The "old sorcerer" |url=https://newcriterion.com/issues/2020/9/the-old-sorcerer |magazine=[[The New Criterion]] |location=New York |publisher=Foundation for Cultural Review |volume=39 |issue=1 |page=63 |access-date=16 June 2023}}</ref> Nietzsche expressed his displeasure with the later Wagner in ''[[The Case of Wagner]]'' and ''[[Nietzsche contra Wagner]]''.{{sfn|Magee|1988|p=52}}

The poets [[Charles Baudelaire]], [[Stéphane Mallarmé]] and [[Paul Verlaine]] worshipped Wagner.{{sfn|Magee|1988|pp=49–50}} [[Édouard Dujardin]], whose influential novel ''[[Les Lauriers sont coupés]]'' is in the form of an interior monologue inspired by Wagnerian music, founded a journal dedicated to Wagner, ''[[La Revue wagnérienne]]'', to which [[J. K. Huysmans]] and [[Téodor de Wyzewa]] contributed.{{sfn|Grey|2008|pp=372–387}} In a list of major cultural figures influenced by Wagner, [[Bryan Magee]] includes [[D. H. Lawrence]], [[Aubrey Beardsley]], [[Romain Rolland]], [[Gérard de Nerval]], [[Pierre-Auguste Renoir]], [[Rainer Maria Rilke]] and several others.{{sfn|Magee|1988|pp=47–56}}

In the 20th century, [[W. H. Auden]] once called Wagner "perhaps the greatest genius that ever lived",<ref>Cited in {{harvnb|Magee|1988|p=48}}</ref> while [[Thomas Mann]]{{sfn|Magee|1988|p=52}} and [[Marcel Proust]]{{sfn|Painter|1983|p=163}} were heavily influenced by him and discussed Wagner in their novels. He is also discussed in some of the works of [[James Joyce]],{{sfn|Martin|1992|loc=''passim''}} as well as [[W. E. B. Du Bois]], who featured ''Lohengrin'' in ''[[The Souls of Black Folk]]''.{{sfn|Ross|2008|p=136}} Wagnerian themes inhabit [[T. S. Eliot]]'s ''[[The Waste Land]]'', which contains lines from ''Tristan und Isolde'' and ''Götterdämmerung''; and Verlaine's poem on ''Parsifal''.{{sfn|Magee|1988|p=47}}

Many of Wagner's concepts, including his speculation about dreams, predated their investigation by [[Sigmund Freud]].{{sfn|Horton|1999}} Wagner had publicly analysed the Oedipus myth before Freud was born in terms of its psychological significance, insisting that incestuous desires are natural and normal, and perceptively exhibiting the relationship between sexuality and anxiety.{{sfn|Magee|2000|p=85}} [[Georg Groddeck]] considered the ''Ring'' as the first manual of psychoanalysis.{{sfn|Picard|2010|p=759}}

=== Influence on cinema ===
{{see also|List of films using the music of Richard Wagner}}

Wagner's concept of the use of leitmotifs and the integrated musical expression which they can enable has influenced many 20th and 21st century [[film score]]s. The critic [[Theodor Adorno]] has noted that the Wagnerian leitmotif "leads directly to [[film music|cinema music]] where the sole function of the leitmotif is to announce heroes or situations so as to allow the audience to orient itself more easily".{{sfnp|Adorno|2009|pp=34–36}} Film scores citing Wagnerian themes include the ''[[Looney Tunes]]'' short ''[[What's Opera, Doc?]]'' and [[Francis Ford Coppola]]'s ''[[Apocalypse Now]]'', which both feature a version of the [[Ride of the Valkyries]];<ref>{{cite journal | last=Zenk | first=Christina | title=Die "Walküren" und kein Ende: Eine Systematisierung von Referenztypen in Filmen | journal=Archiv für Musikwissenschaft | volume=74 | issue=2 | year=2017 | issn=0003-9292 | jstor=26332326 | pages=78–102 | url=http://www.jstor.org/stable/26332326 | access-date=19 May 2023 | language=German}}</ref> [[Trevor Jones (composer)|Trevor Jones]]'s soundtrack to [[John Boorman]]'s film [[Excalibur (film)|''Excalibur'']];{{sfn|Grant|1999}} and the 2011 films ''[[A Dangerous Method]]'' (dir. [[David Cronenberg]]) and ''[[Melancholia (2011 film)|Melancholia]]'' (dir. [[Lars von Trier]]).<ref>{{cite web |last=Giovetti |first=Olivia |date=10 December 2011 |title=Silver Screen Wagner Vies for Oscar Gold |publisher=[[WQXR-FM]] |url=http://www.wqxr.org/story/174538-silver-screen-wagner-vies-oscar-gold/ |access-date=15 April 2012 }}</ref> [[Hans-Jürgen Syberberg]]'s 1977 film ''[[Hitler: A Film from Germany]]''{{'}}s visual style and set design are strongly inspired by ''Der Ring des Nibelungen'', musical excerpts from which are frequently used in the film's soundtrack.<ref>{{harvnb|Sontag|1980}}; {{harvnb|Kaes|1989|pp=44, 63}}</ref>

=== Opponents and supporters ===
{{further|War of the Romantics|New German School}}
[[File:Hanslick.jpg|thumb|left|upright=0.8|Eduard Hanslick|alt=A balding white man aged about 40 with a moustache]]
Not all reaction to Wagner was positive. For a time, German musical life divided into two factions, supporters of Wagner and supporters of [[Johannes Brahms]]; the latter, with the support of the powerful critic [[Eduard Hanslick]] (of whom Beckmesser in ''Meistersinger'' is in part a caricature), championed traditional forms and led the conservative front against Wagnerian innovations.{{sfn|Millington|2001a|p=26, 127}} They were supported by the conservative leanings of some German music schools, including the [[Music school|conservatories]] at [[University of Music and Theatre Leipzig|Leipzig]] under [[Ignaz Moscheles]] and at [[Hochschule für Musik und Tanz Köln|Cologne]] under the direction of Ferdinand Hiller.{{sfn|Sietz|Wiegandt|2001}} Another Wagner detractor was the French composer [[Charles-Valentin Alkan]], who wrote to Hiller after attending Wagner's Paris concert on 25 January 1860, at which Wagner conducted the overtures to ''Der fliegende Holländer'' and ''Tannhäuser'', the preludes to ''Lohengrin'' and ''Tristan und Isolde'', and six other extracts from ''Tannhäuser'' and ''Lohengrin'': "I had imagined that I was going to meet music of an innovative kind but was astonished to find a pale imitation of Berlioz&nbsp;... I do not like all the music of Berlioz while appreciating his marvellous understanding of certain instrumental effects&nbsp;... but here he was imitated and caricatured&nbsp;... Wagner is not a musician, he is a disease."<ref>{{harvnb|François-Sappey|1991|p=198}}. Letter from Alkan to Hiller 31 January 1860.</ref>

Even those who, like Debussy, opposed Wagner ("this old poisoner")<ref>Cited in {{harvnb|Lockspeiser|1978|p=179}}. Letter from Claude Debussy to [[Pierre Louÿs]], 17 January 1896</ref> could not deny his influence. Indeed, Debussy was one of many composers, including Tchaikovsky, who felt the need to break with Wagner precisely because his influence was so unmistakable and overwhelming. "Golliwogg's Cakewalk" from Debussy's ''[[Children's Corner]]'' piano suite contains a deliberately tongue-in-cheek quotation from the opening bars of ''Tristan''.{{sfn|Ross|2008|p=101}} Others who proved resistant to Wagner's operas included [[Gioachino Rossini]], who said "Wagner has wonderful moments, and dreadful quarters of an hour."<ref>Cited in {{harvnb|Michotte|1968|pp=135–136}}; conversation between Rossini and Emile Naumann, recorded in {{harvnb|Naumann|1876|loc=IV, p. 5}}</ref> In the 20th century Wagner's music was parodied by [[Paul Hindemith]]{{refn|See ''[[Ouvertüre zum "Fliegenden Holländer", wie sie eine schlechte Kurkapelle morgens um 7 am Brunnen vom Blatt spielt]]''|group=n}} and [[Hanns Eisler]], among others.{{sfn|Deathridge|2008|p=228}}

Wagner's followers (known as Wagnerians or Wagnerites)<ref>cf. {{harvnb|Shaw|1898}}</ref> have formed many societies dedicated to Wagner's life and work.<ref>{{cite web |title=Richard-Wagner-Verband-International |publisher=International Association of the Wagner Societies |url=http://www.richard-wagner-verband.de/english/index.html |access-date=1 February 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110605042325/http://www.richard-wagner-verband.de/english/index.html |archive-date=5 June 2011 |url-status=dead }}</ref>

=== Film and stage portrayals ===
{{Main|List of films about Richard Wagner}}

Wagner has been the subject of many biographical films. The earliest was a silent film made by [[Carl Froelich]] in 1913 and featured in the title role the composer [[Giuseppe Becce]], who also wrote the score for the film (as Wagner's music, still in copyright, was not available).{{sfn|Warshaw|2012|pp=77–78}} Other film portrayals of Wagner include: [[Alan Badel]] in ''[[Magic Fire]]'' (1955), [[Lyndon Brook]] in ''[[Song Without End]]'' (1960), [[Trevor Howard]] in ''[[Ludwig (film)|Ludwig]]'' (1972), [[Paul Nicholas]] in ''[[Lisztomania (film)|Lisztomania]]'' (1975), and [[Richard Burton]] in ''[[Wagner (film)|Wagner]]'' (1983).<ref>See entries for these films at the [https://www.imdb.com/ Internet Movie Database (IMDb)].</ref>

[[Jonathan Harvey (composer)|Jonathan Harvey]]'s opera ''[[Wagner Dream]]'' (2007) intertwines the events surrounding Wagner's death with the story of Wagner's uncompleted opera outline ''[[Die Sieger]] (The Victors)''.{{sfn|Faber Music News|2007|p=2}}

=== Bayreuth Festival ===
{{Main|Bayreuth Festival}}
Since Wagner's death, the Bayreuth Festival, which has become an annual event, has been successively directed by his widow, his son Siegfried, the latter's widow [[Winifred Wagner]], their two sons [[Wieland Wagner|Wieland]] and [[Wolfgang Wagner]], and, presently, two of the composer's great-granddaughters, [[Eva Wagner-Pasquier]] and [[Katharina Wagner]].<ref>[http://www.bayreuther-festspiele.de/fsdb_en/leitungen.htm Management record] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130128172032/http://www.bayreuther-festspiele.de/fsdb_en/leitungen.htm |date=28 January 2013 }} at Bayreuth Festival website, accessed 26 January 2013.</ref> Since 1973, the festival has been overseen by the [[Richard Wagner Foundation|Richard-Wagner-Stiftung]] (Richard Wagner Foundation), the members of which include some of Wagner's descendants.<ref>[http://www.bayreuther-festspiele.de/rechtsform_und_finanzierung/stiftungsurkunde_143.html Statutes of the Foundation (in German)] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101017093914/http://bayreuther-festspiele.de/rechtsform_und_finanzierung/stiftungsurkunde_143.html |date=17 October 2010 }} at Bayreuth Festival website, accessed 26 January 2013.</ref>