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Richard Wagner: German Opera

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4. Richard Wagner (1813 – 1883)
Richard Wagner was an extremely prolific composer of German opera, and he was one of the most significant figures of the time regarding nineteenth-century culture. Many of his ideas had a profound impact on various other artforms, especially his belief in the combination of all artforms. His most important compositions are operas set for the stage and for which he wrote his own libretti. After taking German Romantic opera, or Romantische Oper, to a higher level, he reiterated the nature of opera as a drama within the music that also includes other artforms. In his mature works, Wagner created a new chromatic idiom as well as means of portraying meanings through motifs, called leitmotifs, which impacted and influenced …show more content…
Johannes Brahms (1833 – 1897)
Johannes Brahms became a renowned composer at the same time as the set repertoire of musical classics began to dominate concerts. By the time Brahms was twenty, more than half of the music performed at concerts was by already-dead composers, and the time he was forty, that number rose to be the majority. Brahms very much understood the meaning of composition for audiences who favoured the Classical greats – he believed that he had to compose works that were like those Classical pieces, but also appealing and unique enough to bring something new to the table. (Burkholder, Grout and Palisca, 2014)’
Brahms worked at a slow pace and was very critical of himself as he thought that his reputation relied on the quality of each work he composed. His personal style consisted of a blend of earlier music such as Beethoven and even some Baroque works, and current folk and classical idioms. Brahms managed to utilise all of the different musical languages around him, including church music and gypsy music, and he integrated these elements into his music in order to create his own expressive idiom. He had a gift for writing beautiful melodies and for portraying emotion directly and simply, which is why his music appealed to listeners immediately, specifically those listeners who were able to appreciate the lyricism and sincerity in the music. (Burkholder, Grout and Palisca,

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