1.
Germans
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Germans are a Germanic ethnic group native to Central Europe, who share a common German ancestry, culture and history. German is the mother tongue of a substantial majority of ethnic Germans. The English term Germans has historically referred to the German-speaking population of the Holy Roman Empire since the Late Middle Ages, before the collapse of communism and the reunification of Germany in 1990, Germans constituted the largest divided nation in Europe by far. Ever since the outbreak of the Protestant Reformation within the Holy Roman Empire, of approximately 100 million native speakers of German in the world, roughly 80 million consider themselves Germans. Thus, the number of Germans lies somewhere between 100 and more than 150 million, depending on the criteria applied. Today, people from countries with German-speaking majorities most often subscribe to their own national identities, the German term Deutsche originates from the Old High German word diutisc, referring to the Germanic language of the people. It is not clear how commonly, if at all, the word was used as an ethnonym in Old High German, used as a noun, ein diutscher in the sense of a German emerges in Middle High German, attested from the second half of the 12th century. The Old French term alemans is taken from the name of the Alamanni and it was loaned into Middle English as almains in the early 14th century. The word Dutch is attested in English from the 14th century, denoting continental West Germanic dialects, while in most Romance languages the Germans have been named from the Alamanni, the Old Norse, Finnish and Estonian names for the Germans were taken from that of the Saxons. In Slavic languages, the Germans were given the name of němьci, originally with a meaning foreigner, the English term Germans is only attested from the mid-16th century, based on the classical Latin term Germani used by Julius Caesar and later Tacitus. It gradually replaced Dutch and Almains, the latter becoming mostly obsolete by the early 18th century, the Germans are a Germanic people, who as an ethnicity emerged during the Middle Ages. Originally part of the Holy Roman Empire, around 300 independent German states emerged during its decline after the Peace of Westphalia in 1648 ending the Thirty Years War and these states eventually formed into modern Germany in the 19th century. The concept of a German ethnicity is linked to Germanic tribes of antiquity in central Europe, the early Germans originated on the North German Plain as well as southern Scandinavia. By the 2nd century BC, the number of Germans was significantly increasing and they began expanding into eastern Europe, during antiquity these Germanic tribes remained separate from each other and did not have writing systems at that time. In the European Iron Age the area that is now Germany was divided into the La Tène horizon in Southern Germany and the Jastorf culture in Northern Germany. By 55 BC, the Germans had reached the Danube river and had either assimilated or otherwise driven out the Celts who had lived there, and had spread west into what is now Belgium and France. Conflict between the Germanic tribes and the forces of Rome under Julius Caesar forced major Germanic tribes to retreat to the east bank of the Rhine, in Roman-held territories with Germanic populations, the Germanic and Roman peoples intermarried, and Roman, Germanic, and Christian traditions intermingled. The adoption of Christianity would later become an influence in the development of a common German identity
2.
Bayreuth Festival
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The Bayreuth Festival is a music festival held annually in Bayreuth, Germany, at which performances of operas by the 19th-century German composer Richard Wagner are presented. Wagner himself conceived and promoted the idea of a festival to showcase his own works, in particular his monumental cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen. Performances take place in a specially designed theatre, the Bayreuth Festspielhaus, the Festival has become a pilgrimage destination for Wagner enthusiasts, who often must wait years to obtain tickets. The origins of the Festival itself lie rooted in Richard Wagners interest in establishing his financial independence, a souring of the relationship with his patron, Ludwig II of Bavaria, led to his expulsion from Munich, where he had originally intended to launch the festival. Wagner next considered Nuremberg, which would have reinforced the significance of works such as Die Meistersinger. On the advice of Hans Richter, however, the focus fell upon Bayreuth which enjoyed three distinct advantages, first, the town boasted a splendid venue, the Markgräfliches Opernhaus built for Margrave Frederick and his wife, Friederike Sophie Wilhelmine in 1747. With its ample capacity and strong acoustics, the house was a good match for Wagners vision. Finally, the town had no cultural life that could offer competition to Wagners own artistic dominance, the Festival, once launched, would be the dominant feature of Bayreuths cultural landscape. In April 1870, Wagner and his wife Cosima visited Bayreuth, on inspection, the Opera House proved to be inadequate. It was built to accommodate the baroque orchestras of the 18th century and was unsuited for the complex stagings. Nonetheless, the Burgermeisters proved open to assisting Wagner with the construction of a new theatre. After a fruitless meeting in the spring of 1871 with the German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck to obtain funds, Wagner embarked on a tour across Germany, including Leipzig. Societies were established, among other places, in Leipzig, Berlin, despite making direct appeals based on Wagners role as a composer of the new German Reich, the Societies and other fundraising channels were well short of the needed sum by the end of 1872. Wagner made another appeal to Bismarck in August 1873 and was again denied, desperate, Wagner turned to his former patron, Ludwig II who reluctantly agreed to help. In January 1874, Ludwig granted 100,000 Thaler and construction on the theatre, designed by architect Gottfried Semper, a planned 1875 debut was postponed for a year due to construction and other delays. Since its opening in 1876, the Bayreuth Festival has been a socio-cultural phenomenon, the inauguration took place on 13 August 1876, with a performance of Das Rheingold. Artistically, the festival was a success, financially, however, the festival was a disaster and did not begin to make money until several years later. Wagner abandoned his plan to hold a second festival the following year
3.
Siegfried Wagner
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Siegfried Wagner was a German composer and conductor, the son of Richard Wagner. He was a composer and the artistic director of the Bayreuth Festival from 1908 to 1930. Helferich Siegfried Richard Wagner, nicknamed Fidi, was born in 1869 to Richard Wagner and his future wife Cosima, through his mother, he was a grandson of Franz Liszt, from whom he received some instruction in harmony. Some youthful compositions date from about 1882, in 1892 he undertook a trip to Asia with a friend, the English composer Clement Harris. During the voyage he decided to abandon architecture and commit himself to music, reputedly, it was also Harris who first aroused his homoerotic impulses. While on board ship he sketched his first official work, the symphonic poem Sehnsucht and this piece was not completed until just before the concert in which Wagner conducted it in London on 6 June 1895. He composed more operas than his father, though his works are numerous, none entered the standard repertory. In 1908 he took over as Artistic Director of the Bayreuth Festival in succession to his mother, for years, his mother urged him to marry and provide the Wagner dynasty with heirs, but he fought off her increasingly desperate urgings. The two married on 22 September 1915, peter Pachl, one of Siegfrieds biographers, asserted that in 1901 Siegfried had sired an illegitimate son, Walter Aign. However, that remains controversial, as he supplied no evidence. Nonetheless, several recent authors, such as Frederic Spotts and Brigitte Hamann, have taken it up, Wagner died in Bayreuth in 1930, having outlived his mother by only four months. Since his two sons were still only adolescents, he was succeeded at the helm of the festival by his wife Winifred
4.
Richard Wagner
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Wilhelm Richard Wagner was a German composer, theatre director, polemicist, and conductor who is primarily known for his operas. Unlike most opera composers, Wagner wrote both the libretto and the music for each of his stage works and he described this vision in a series of essays published between 1849 and 1852. Wagner realised these ideas most fully in the first half of the four-opera cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen and his advances in musical language, such as extreme chromaticism and quickly shifting tonal centres, greatly influenced the development of classical music. His Tristan und Isolde is sometimes described as marking the start of modern music, Wagner had his own opera house built, the Bayreuth Festspielhaus, which embodied many novel design features. The Ring and Parsifal were premiered here and his most important stage works continue to be performed at the annual Bayreuth Festival, until his final years, Wagners life was characterised by political exile, turbulent love affairs, poverty and repeated flight from his creditors. His controversial writings on music, drama and politics have attracted extensive comment, notably, since the late 20th century, where they express antisemitic sentiments. The effect of his ideas can be traced in many of the arts throughout the 20th century, his influence spread beyond composition into conducting, philosophy, literature, Richard Wagner was born to an ethnic German family in Leipzig, where his family lived at No. 3, the Brühl in the Jewish quarter and he was baptized at St. Thomas Church. He was the child of Carl Friedrich Wagner, who was a clerk in the Leipzig police service, and his wife, Johanna Rosine. Wagners father Carl died of typhus six months after Richards birth, afterwards his mother Johanna lived with Carls friend, the actor and playwright Ludwig Geyer. In August 1814 Johanna and Geyer probably married—although no documentation of this has found in the Leipzig church registers. She and her family moved to Geyers residence in Dresden, until he was fourteen, Wagner was known as Wilhelm Richard Geyer. He almost certainly thought that Geyer was his biological father, Geyers love of the theatre came to be shared by his stepson, and Wagner took part in his performances. In his autobiography Mein Leben Wagner recalled once playing the part of an angel, in late 1820, Wagner was enrolled at Pastor Wetzels school at Possendorf, near Dresden, where he received some piano instruction from his Latin teacher. He struggled to play a scale at the keyboard and preferred playing theatre overtures by ear. Following Geyers death in 1821, Richard was sent to the Kreuzschule, at the age of nine he was hugely impressed by the Gothic elements of Carl Maria von Webers opera Der Freischütz, which he saw Weber conduct. At this period Wagner entertained ambitions as a playwright and his first creative effort, listed in the Wagner-Werk-Verzeichnis as WWV1, was a tragedy called Leubald. Begun when he was in school in 1826, the play was influenced by Shakespeare
5.
Franz Liszt
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Franz Liszt was a prolific 19th-century Hungarian composer, virtuoso pianist, conductor, music teacher, arranger, organist, philanthropist, author, nationalist and a Franciscan tertiary. Liszt gained renown in Europe during the nineteenth century for his prodigious virtuosic skill as a pianist. As a composer, Liszt was one of the most prominent representatives of the New German School and he left behind an extensive and diverse body of work in which he influenced his forward-looking contemporaries and anticipated many 20th-century ideas and trends. Franz Liszt was born to Anna Liszt and Adam Liszt on October 22,1811, in the village of Doborján in Sopron County, in the Kingdom of Hungary, Liszts father played the piano, violin, cello and guitar. He had been in the service of Prince Nikolaus II Esterházy and knew Haydn, Hummel, at age six, Franz began listening attentively to his fathers piano playing and showed an interest in both sacred and Romani music. Adam began teaching him the piano at age seven, and Franz began composing in an elementary manner when he was eight and he appeared in concerts at Sopron and Pressburg in October and November 1820 at age 9. After the concerts, a group of wealthy sponsors offered to finance Franzs musical education in Vienna, There Liszt received piano lessons from Carl Czerny, who in his own youth had been a student of Beethoven and Hummel. He also received lessons in composition from Antonio Salieri, then director of the Viennese court. Liszts public debut in Vienna on December 1,1822, at a concert at the Landständischer Saal, was a great success and he was greeted in Austrian and Hungarian aristocratic circles and also met Beethoven and Schubert. In spring 1823, when his one-year leave of absence came to an end, Adam Liszt therefore took his leave of the Princes services. At the end of April 1823, the returned to Hungary for the last time. At the end of May 1823, the family went to Vienna again, towards the end of 1823 or early 1824, Liszts first composition to be published, his Variation on a Waltz by Diabelli, appeared as Variation 24 in Part II of Vaterländischer Künstlerverein. Liszts inclusion in the Diabelli project—he was described in it as an 11 year old boy, born in Hungary—was almost certainly at the instigation of Czerny, his teacher, Liszt was the only child composer in the anthology. After his fathers death in 1827, Liszt moved to Paris, to earn money, Liszt gave lessons in piano playing and composition, often from early morning until late at night. His students were scattered across the city and he often had to long distances. Because of this, he kept uncertain hours and also took up smoking, the following year he fell in love with one of his pupils, Caroline de Saint-Cricq, the daughter of Charles Xs minister of commerce, Pierre de Saint-Cricq. Her father, however, insisted that the affair be broken off, Liszt fell very ill, to the extent that an obituary notice was printed in a Paris newspaper, and he underwent a long period of religious doubts and pessimism. He again stated a wish to join the Church but was dissuaded this time by his mother and he had many discussions with the Abbé de Lamennais, who acted as his spiritual father, and also with Chrétien Urhan, a German-born violinist who introduced him to the Saint-Simonists
6.
Winifred Wagner
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Winifred Wagner was the English-born wife of Siegfried Wagner, the son of Richard Wagner, and ran the Bayreuth Festival after her husbands death in 1930 until the end of World War II in 1945. She was a friend and supporter of Adolf Hitler, and she, Winifred Williams was born in Hastings, England, to John Williams, a writer, and his wife, the former Emily Florence Karop. Winifred lost both her parents before the age of two and was raised in a number of homes. Eight years later she was adopted by a distant German relative of her mother, Henrietta Karop, and her husband Karl Klindworth, a musician and a friend of Richard Wagner. It was arranged that Winifred Klindworth, as she was called at the time, aged 17, would meet Siegfried Wagner, aged 45, a year later they were married. It was hoped that the marriage would end Siegfrieds homosexual encounters and the associated costly scandals, in 1923, Winifred met Adolf Hitler, who greatly admired Wagners music. When Hitler was jailed for his part in the Munich Beer Hall Putsch, Winifred sent him food parcels, in the late 1930s, she served as Hitlers personal translator during treaty negotiations with Britain. Although Winifred remained personally faithful to Hitler, she denied that she had supported the Nazi party. Her relationship with Hitler grew so close that by 1933 there were rumors of impending marriage, haus Wahnfried, the Wagner home in Bayreuth, became Hitlers favorite retreat. Hitler gave the government assistance and tax exempt status. According to biographer Brigitte Hamann, Winifred Wagner was reported to be disgusted by Hitlers persecution of the Jews, in one notable incident, in the late 1930s, a letter from her to Hitler prevented Hedwig and Alfred Pringsheim from being arrested by the Gestapo. According to Gottfried Wagner, Winifreds grandson, she never admitted the error of her ways, after the war, her posthumous devotion to the man she cryptically referred to as USA – for Unser Seliger Adolf – remained undimmed. She corresponded with Hitler for nearly two decades, like Hitler, Winifred Wagner believed profoundly in the rite of a secular cult of German nationalism, of Nordic self-realization, and völkischer aspiration. After the collapse of the Third Reich, a court banned her from the Bayreuth Festival. In the 1950s she again became a political hostess, in 1975, Winifred Wagner gave a filmed interview to Hans-Jürgen Syberberg in which she appeared unrepentant concerning her past. To have met him, she declared, is an experience I would not have missed. She died in Überlingen, one of the best preserved sites, on the shore of Lake Constance, on 5 March 1980 at the age of 82. The friendship of Winifred and Hitler is treated fancifully in A. N. Wilsons novel, Winnie, Winifred Wagner, A Life at the Heart of Hitlers Bayreuth
7.
Wahnfried
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Wahnfried was the name given by Richard Wagner to his villa in Bayreuth. The name is a German compound of Wahn and Fried, the house was constructed from 1872 to 1874 under Carl Wölfels supervision after plans from Berlin architect Wilhelm Neumann, the plans being altered according to some ideas of Wagner. The front of the house shows Wagners motto Hier wo mein Wähnen Frieden fand – Wahnfried – sei dieses Haus von mir benannt, the grave of Richard Wagner and his wife Cosima lies on the grounds of Wahnfried. The house has been a museum since 1976, visitors can take a walk in the remote Hofgarten, the baroque park of Bayreuths New Castle, to where a path directly leads. A stylized version of Villa Wahnfried was used for the sets of Stefan Herheims new production of Parsifal at the Bayreuth Festival in 2008, Richard Wagner Museum Bayreuth Richard Wagners Grave Wahnfried
