The Bayreuth Festival is a music festival held annually in Bayreuth, Germany, at which performances of stage works by the 19th-century German composer Richard Wagner are presented. Wagner himself conceived and promoted the idea of a special festival to showcase his own works, in particular his monumental cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen and Parsifal.
Festspielhaus in Bayreuth, the festival's main venue, in 2006
Bayreuth Festspielhaus in 1882
Felix Mottl conducted Tristan und Isolde at Bayreuth in 1886
Patronage certificate for funding the Bayreuth festival, issued 22. May 1922
The Symphony No. 9 in D minor, Op. 125, is a choral symphony, the final complete symphony by Ludwig van Beethoven, composed between 1822 and 1824. It was first performed in Vienna on 7 May 1824. The symphony is regarded by many critics and musicologists as a masterpiece of Western classical music and one of the supreme achievements in the history of music. One of the best-known works in common practice music, it stands as one of the most frequently performed symphonies in the world.
Theater am Kärntnertor in 1830
Portrait of Beethoven in 1824, the year his Ninth Symphony was premiered. He was almost completely deaf by the time of its composition.
Caroline Unger, who sang the contralto part at the first performance and is credited with turning Beethoven to face the applauding audience
Portrait of Friedrich Schiller by Ludovike Simanowiz (1794)