# Richard Wagner

The first fact about Richard Wagner in a public catalog is a dated essay and a dated festival, not a later dictator’s taste. Das Judenthum in der Musik was printed 3 and 9 September 1850 in the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik and reprinted as a signed pamphlet in 1869. Britannica’s article (https://www.britannica.com/topic/Das-Judentum-in-der-Musik) and the public-domain English at Internet Archive (https://archive.org/details/judaismmusic00wagnuoft) independently present that prose. It is antisemitic. It names Meyerbeer and Mendelssohn. It is his act. They are not Mein Kampf, and they are not nothing. Ludwig II’s 4 May 1864 summons (Britannica https://www.britannica.com/biography/Richard-Wagner-German-composer; Bavarian digital collections https://www.digitale-sammlungen.de/) enabled Tristan (10 June 1865), Meistersinger (21 June 1868), and Bayreuth while straining a treasury. The Festspielhaus and first Ring (13–17 August 1876) are on the Bayreuth Festival’s official history (https://www.bayreuther-festspiele.de/en/) as pilgrimage and as a new public house — split cult from access. Parsifal (26 July 1882) is a heard score and a stage monopoly. 1861 Paris Tannhäuser and 1870–71 Kaiser-adjacent prose polarised art as national brief. Meistersinger’s closing German-art address is 1868 libretto (Stanford https://opera.stanford.edu/Wagner/), not a 1933 parade stored as 1868. Downstream, and dated as such: from 30 January 1933 Bayreuth under Winifred took National Socialist state patronage. He had been dead since 13 February 1883. Contribution is low and complex. The usable file of 1850/1869 is real; authorship of 1933 is not his. Cambridge Companion to Wagner (https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/cambridge-companion-to-wagner/) is a classroom file that includes this distinction. Offsets are URLs with later dates. SLUB Dresden (https://www.slub-dresden.de/en/) holds the 1843 post and 1849 revolt/warrant. Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/author/372) carries Oper und Drama 1851. IMSLP (https://imslp.org/wiki/Category:Wagner,_Richard) and the Library of Congress (https://www.loc.gov/) are score doors. The Met (https://www.metopera.org/) spread repertory beyond pilgrimage. Wahnfried’s museum (https://www.wagnermuseum.de/en/) opened the family house. 30 July 1951 New Bayreuth reopened a public festival after the postwar ban. What the score must not say: that 1850 is 1933; that 1933 unpaid 1850; that a leitmotif is a people; that 1849 is 1871; that Ludwig’s money is only a jewel or only a school; that Winifred’s guest list is a Ring chord. Complex contribution is the honest type. Confidence is high on print and premiere dates; medium on any unique coefficient from an 1850 sentence to a 1933 indicator. 1850 is not 1869. 1869 is not 1933. 1876 cult is not 1876 hearing. 1849 revolt is not 1849 exile. Hostile slogan and hagiography are both refused. Off-family padding — a health series nailed to Tristan without a medical file — is refused. Keep 1850, 1869, 1876, 1882, 1933, and 1951 on separate dates. Remaining dated instruments kept after dropping later editions, museums, and split rows: 1850-09-03 [Das Judenthum in der Musik is printed in the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik on 3 and 9 September 1850](/facts/wag-judenthum-1850); 1869-03-01 [The 1869 pamphlet reprint issues Das Judenthum in der Musik under Wagner’s own name, expanded](/facts/wag-judenthum-1869); 1850-09-09 [The 1850 essay publicly attacks Meyerbeer and Mendelssohn as named Jewish composers](/facts/wag-meyerbeer-attack); 1864-05-04 [Ludwig II’s 1864 summons begins a royal subsidy of Wagner that strains Bavarian public finance](/facts/wag-ludwig-fiscal); 1876-08-13 [The 1876 Festival organises a Master-cult around Wagner as priest of the work](/facts/wag-bayreuth-cult); 1882-07-26 [Parsifal premieres as a Bühnenweihfestspiel reserved to Bayreuth, a stage monopoly](/facts/wag-parsifal-monopoly); 1861-03-13 [The 1861 Paris Tannhäuser run becomes a nationalist riot instrument in a Franco-German cultural fight](/facts/wag-tannhauser-1861); 1871-01-18 [Wagner’s 1870–71 public writings greet the new German Reich as a cultural-national brief](/facts/wag-1871-nation); 1849-05-09 [A warrant after the May 1849 Dresden uprising forces Wagner into years of exile](/facts/wag-exile-1849); 1876-08-01 [Building and staffing the 1876 Festival extracts unpaid, underpaid, and hierarchical musical labour](/facts/wag-festival-labour); 1874-04-28 [Wahnfried (1874) becomes a closed family archive-court over the public work](/facts/wag-wahnfried-file); 1865-06-10 [Tristan und Isolde’s 1865 Munich premiere is a court-luxury object before it is a public repertory staple](/facts/wag-tristan-isolation); 1868-06-21 [Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg (1868) becomes a public guild-opera later usable as national brand](/facts/wag-meistersinger-nation); 1880-01-01 [Mein Leben, printed for a private circle, publicises a self-myth as if it were a register](/facts/wag-mein-leben); 1876-08-17 [The Ring as a family-controlled performing property concentrates later repertory rents on Bayreuth and heirs](/facts/wag-copyright-rents); 1843-02-02 [Wagner becomes Dresden Hofkapellmeister in 1843, a public court-opera labour post](/facts/wag-dresden-1843); 1849-05-03 [Wagner takes a documented part in the May 1849 Dresden uprising as revolutionary public speech](/facts/wag-may-1849); 1851-01-01 [Oper und Drama (1851) publishes a public theory of music drama as copyable German prose](/facts/wag-opera-drama-1851); 1864-05-04 [Ludwig II’s patronage enables completion and staging of works that exile poverty had blocked](/facts/wag-ludwig-enables); 1865-06-10 [The 1865 Tristan premiere puts a new public music-drama object into the theatre file](/facts/wag-tristan-access). Later Loeb, UNESCO, and encyclopedia pages are evidence, not additional acts.

## Dated facts

- Parsifal’s 1882 premiere still puts a new public score into the world even under a stage monopoly. https://factrail.ai/facts/wag-parsifal-score. Sources: https://imslp.org/wiki/Category:Wagner,_Richard, https://www.bayreuther-festspiele.de/en/.
- 1882: Parsifal premieres as a Bühnenweihfestspiel reserved to Bayreuth, a stage monopoly. https://factrail.ai/facts/wag-parsifal-monopoly. Sources: https://www.bayreuther-festspiele.de/en/, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Richard-Wagner-German-composer.
- 1880: Mein Leben, printed for a private circle, publicises a self-myth as if it were a register. https://factrail.ai/facts/wag-mein-leben. Sources: https://www.wagnermuseum.de/en/, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Richard-Wagner-German-composer.
- The first complete Ring cycle is heard at Bayreuth in August 1876. https://factrail.ai/facts/wag-ring-1876. Sources: https://www.bayreuther-festspiele.de/en/, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Richard-Wagner-German-composer.
- 1876: The Ring as a family-controlled performing property concentrates later repertory rents on Bayreuth and heirs. https://factrail.ai/facts/wag-copyright-rents. Sources: https://www.bayreuther-festspiele.de/en/, https://doi.org/10.1017/ccol9780521642996.
- The Festspielhaus opens in 1876 as a purpose-built public music-drama house. https://factrail.ai/facts/wag-festspielhaus. Sources: https://www.bayreuther-festspiele.de/en/, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Richard-Wagner-German-composer.
- The 1876 Festival organises a Master-cult around Wagner as priest of the work. https://factrail.ai/facts/wag-bayreuth-cult. Sources: https://www.bayreuther-festspiele.de/en/, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Richard-Wagner-German-composer.
- Building and staffing the 1876 Festival extracts unpaid, underpaid, and hierarchical musical labour. https://factrail.ai/facts/wag-festival-labour. Sources: https://www.bayreuther-festspiele.de/en/, https://doi.org/10.1017/ccol9780521642996.
- Wahnfried (1874) becomes a closed family archive-court over the public work. https://factrail.ai/facts/wag-wahnfried-file. Sources: https://www.wagnermuseum.de/en/, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Richard-Wagner-German-composer.
- 1871: Wagner’s 1870–71 public writings greet the new German Reich as a cultural-national brief. https://factrail.ai/facts/wag-1871-nation. Sources: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Richard-Wagner-German-composer, https://doi.org/10.1017/ccol9780521642996.
- The 1869 pamphlet reprint issues Das Judenthum in der Musik under Wagner’s own name, expanded. https://factrail.ai/facts/wag-judenthum-1869. Sources: https://archive.org/details/judaisminmusicda00wagn, https://www.britannica.com/topic/Das-Judentum-in-der-Musik.
- Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg (1868) becomes a public guild-opera later usable as national brand. https://factrail.ai/facts/wag-meistersinger-nation. Sources: https://opera.stanford.edu/Wagner/, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Richard-Wagner-German-composer.

## Methodology

https://factrail.ai/methodology

Canonical: https://factrail.ai/people/richard-wagner