《Wagner》.doc

Wagner had two independent sources of inspiration for Tristan und Isolde. The first came to him in 1854, when his poet friend Georg Herwegh introduced him to the works of the philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer. Wagner would later call this the most important event of his life. His personal circumstances certainly made him an easy convert to what he understood to be Schopenhauers philosophy, a deeply pessimistic view of the human condition. He would remain an adherent of Schopenhauer for the rest of his life, even after his fortunes improved. One of Schopenhauers doctrines was that music held a supreme role amongst the arts. He claimed that music is the direct expression of the worlds essence, which is blind, impulsive will. Wagner quickly embraced this claim, which must have resonated strongly despite its direct contradiction with his own arguments, in Opera and Drama, that music in opera had to be subservient to the cause of drama. Wagner scholars have since argued that this Schopenhauerian influence caused Wagner to assign a more commanding role to music in his later operas, including the latter half of the Ring cycle, which he had yet to compose. Many aspects of Schopenhauerian doctrine undoubtedly found their way into Wagners subsequent libretti. For example, the self-renouncing cobbler-poet Hans Sachs in Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, generally considered Wagners most sympathetic character, is a quintessentially Schopenhauerian creation (despite being based on a real person). Schopenhauer asserted that goodness and salvation result from renunciation of the world and turning against and denying ones own will. Wagners second source of inspiration was the poet-writer Mathilde Wesendonck, the wife of the silk merchant Otto Wesendonck. Wagner met the Wesendoncks in Zürich in 1852. Otto, a fan of Wagners music, placed a cottage on his estate at Wagners disposal. By 1857, Wagner had become infatuated with Mathilde. Cosima Wagner, 1877Though Mathilde seems to have retu