Happy Birthday to the Old Sorcerer - Richard Wagner

Wilhelm Richard Wagner, German composer, theatre director, polemicist and conductor, was born this day. Known euphemistically as 'The Sorcerer', Wagner would eventually become one of the most celebrated (and controversial) German Romantic composers of all time. Today, Tristan und Isolde, Parsifal, Tannhäuser, and the Ring operas still play to awed and overwhelmed audiences.

TCS actually sang parts of Wagner's Die Meistersinger Von Nürnberg (specifically 'Silentium' and 'Wach Auf') on April 6, 2019 with the Scarborough Philharmonic Orchestra as part of a German Romantics concert. So, on this magnanimous day, why not play Wagner’s famous Ride of the Valkyries while you fly through a few fun facts below.

Wagner: 15 facts about the great composer

Richard Wagner led one of the romantic period's most controversial, exciting and bizarre lives - find out more about him with our facts gallery.

He was the only one of his siblings not to receive piano lessons. When he was just 13 though, he wrote a play entitled 'Leubald' that he insisted should be set to music - which is when he started music lessons.

While Wagner was in exile (due to the thorny issue of his increased revolutionary activity in Dresden), he completed several key works including his opera Lohengrin. However, unable to stage the work himself, he wrote to his friend Franz Liszt in the hope of getting it produced. Not only did Liszt get the work staged, he also conducted the premiere in Weimar. What a guy.

Early on, Nietzsche was completely entranced by the music and writing of Richard Wagner, and despite finding most of his influence in philosophy and philology, Nietzsche also composed several works for voice, piano and violin.

Surrounded by great 19th century composers, it was easy to see how his love for music could be nurtured. Despite this, the polymath’s compositions were heavily criticized – even by his friend Wagner.

The story goes that in 1871, Nietzsche sent a birthday gift of a piano composition to Wagner’s wife, Cosima. When Cosima played the piece in public, Wagner left before the end, and one of the guests found him rolling around on the floor, laughing, shortly after. Imagine that: Wagner literally LOLing at your handiwork.

has to be his Ride of the Valkyries, from Die Walküre. But where do we know it from apart from the opera itself? That's right, the terrifying opening helicopter scene from Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now.

particularly when it came to matters of artistic expression. In fact, he published several essays on his vision of a 'Gesamtkunstwerk' ('complete artwork') and his strong views on how they should be presented.

comes from his association with Nazism. In fact, Hitler allegedly said the following: "Whoever wants to understand National Socialist Germany must know Wagner." Controversies still rage today around performances of Wagner's work in modern-day Israel in particular.

of and adoration for Wagner's operatic masterpieces, they needed their very own dedicated theatre to accommodate them. The Bayreuth Festspielhaus is still used to this day for the Bayreuth Festival, which celebrates Wagner's music. Among other quirky features, it has a recessed orchestral pit which makes the musicians invisible to the audience - apparently so that viewers are not distracted from the drama on stage.

but you can't knock the Ring Cycle for its scale and ambition. It's estimated that composing the music for Der Ring des Nibelungen took Wagner from 1848 to 1874, and it wasn't given its full premiere until 1876 at the Bayreuth Festspielhaus.

resorting to burning as many copies as she could get her hands on. It's thought that she didn't want people to see the range of flippant comments and potentially insulting or inflammatory statements about his fellow composers.

The young king was a massive fan of Wagner's work, so he arranged for his debts to be completely wiped out and even for someone to take dictation for Wagner's autobiography.

who was married to silk merchant Otto Wesendonck. Even though Mathilde wasn't too keen on Wagner, he still wrote adoring letters to her - one of which was intercepted by his partner at the time, Minna Planer. Whoops.