Pierre August Renoir (1841-1919), who loved music, was a great admirer of Richard Wagner (1813-1883). As one of the first Wagnerites in France, Renoir jumped at the opportunity to meet his hero when he was in Italy in 1882. Two

We do know that Richard Wagner died on 13 February 1883 after suffering his final, fatal heart attack. However, there is still much debate as to what triggered that fatal attack. The leading English-language dictionary asserts, “the attack followed an

We associate Richard Wagner with the four great operas of his Ring Cycle, but we should also look at his earlier works to see where his musical sources were. One interesting work is the Faust Overture he wrote while in

The sea was Richard Wagner’s inspiration for his 1843 opera Der fliegende Hollander (The Flying Dutchman). In July to August 1839, Wagner travelled from Riga to London, crossing the Baltic Sea and the North Sea on what proved to be

In 1870, Richard Wagner (1813-1883) married his second wife, Cosima Liszt. His first wife, Minna, had died in 1866 but he’d had a relationship with Cosima, the illegitimate daughter of Franz Liszt and Marie d’Agoult, since 1863 when she was

We were visiting the Richmond Museum of Fine Arts the other week and noticed two wonderful pieces of particular musical interest. In the Museum’s extensive holdings of silver items, we found two pieces commemorating operas by Richard Wagner. A sterling

Richard Wagner (1813-1883), not for the first or last time in his life, had to flee his creditors in 1839. His employment in Riga had left him and his wife Minna heavily in debt, and police officials had even impounded

Birthday presents come in all forms, shapes and sizes. When Cosima Wagner awoke on 25 December 1870 to celebrate her 33rd birthday, a group of 17 musicians had assembled on the stairs leading to her bedroom. With Richard Wagner conducting,