My Life — Volume 2

Wagner, Richard, 1813-1883Project Gutenberg · United StatesMar 2023

3.9

Word count: 792K words
Chapters: 80

Summary

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My Life — Volume 2 by Richard Wagner

Author: Wagner, Richard, 1813-1883,Language: English, Class: ML: Music: Literature of music, Release Date: Feb 1, 2004

Editor's review

This is the English public-domain ebook of Volume 2 of Wagner's autobiography My Life, published by Project Gutenberg. Its value lies not in music theory but in a composer's firsthand testimony to his era: nineteenth-century European musical life, theatre operations, personal relations and political upheavals all unfold from the author's own perspective. Readers can see how Wagner narrates his creative motives, circumstances and controversies, and feel the self-justification and emotional tension characteristic of autobiography. For music history, theatre history and nineteenth-century cultural studies, it is a primary source to be used comparatively and critically. Read it as "the account of a participant" rather than as settled fact; it yields more when read alongside biographical studies, work chronologies and other historical sources. Suitable for thematic study or as selected historical reading, not for light entertainment.

Who it's for

A good fit for

University teachers and students studying nineteenth-century music and opera history
Music lovers interested in Wagner's life and creative background
Researchers needing primary autobiographical material for comparative cultural history
Readers accustomed to English public-domain texts who are willing to read long works slowly

Not a good fit for

Beginners hoping for a quick introduction to analysis of Wagner's music
Casual readers who prefer light narrative and are unfamiliar with nineteenth-century Europe
Chinese readers with limited stamina for long English sentences who need annotations

Reading tips

Read a work chronology or a brief outline of Wagner's life before the autobiography itself to reduce confusion over people and events.
Keep brief timeline notes by chapter, recording possible discrepancies between the author's account and historical fact.
Read alongside the composition dates of Wagner's operas to observe correspondences between the autobiography and the works.
Where names of people and places are dense, do not verify every one; grasp the sequence of events first, then fill in background later.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

FAQ

Is this the complete autobiography or an excerpt?

This is the English ebook of Volume 2 of Wagner's autobiography My Life, a public-domain text published by Project Gutenberg. It contains Volume 2 of the work, not a combined edition of the whole autobiography. Check the volume range before reading to avoid confusing it with Volume 1.

Can I read it without a music background?

Yes, but be prepared. The book deals heavily with nineteenth-century European musical life, theatre affairs and personal relationships, which can feel fragmentary without background knowledge. Read a concise account of Wagner's life and times first, then approach it as historical narrative.

How difficult is the English?

The text is nineteenth-century autobiographical English, with long sentences, dense names of people and places, and period cultural allusions; overall difficulty is moderate to high. It suits readers with some experience of long English texts, who may consult translations or background notes as needed.

Can the autobiography be cited directly as historical fact?

It should not be treated as settled fact. Autobiography involves self-justification and selective memory, and the account of events may be biased. For research or writing, compare it with independent biographies, work chronologies and contemporary documents, and note that it is the author's own account.

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About the author

Wagner, Richard, 1813-1883 Author

Richard Wagner (1813–1883) was a German composer and dramatist, known for reforming opera and advocating the idea of the "total work of art." The collection holds fifteen of his works, mostly opera librettos and related texts, including Tristan and Isolda, Siegfried and The Twilight of the Gods and The Valkyries from the Ring cycle, The Flying Dutchman, Parsifal, and the second volume of his autobiography, My Life. These works show his use of myth and legend as source material and his technique of leitmotifs running through an entire drama, with music and theatre tightly fused on a grand scale. His operatic theories and compositions have had a lasting influence on later music, drama, and literature. Because public information is limited, this note describes only the themes and style of the works held in the collection.