The life and legacy of one of music’s most influential figures.
During a wildly unpredictable sixty-nine year life, Richard Wagner became the hero of his era and the official protagonist of a new unified Germany: his music was its music. The architect of the vast four-day, fifteen-hour epic, he unleashed through his thousands and thousands of words gods and dwarves, dragons and songbirds, maidens and female warriors on horseback. All dug deep into the subconscious of his audience, discharging among them oceanic and engulfing emotions. Wagner was the creator, indeed, of the very theatre in which the heaving, roaring audience sat. He was the self-proclaimed Musician of the Future.
This was exactly what he had set out to achieve, but there was nothing inevitable about it. The magnitude of his accomplishment grew out of – and existed in the face of – a profound instability, which characterises every stage and every phase of his life and which is at the very heart of his music. Withdrawing from instability back into the kingdom of art where he would always be an absolute monarch, where his will would always prevail, he explored the depths and the heights of human experience, by which he meant, of course, his own experience. In this bold vision of Wagner’s life, bestselling author and acclaimed performer of `Inside Wagner's Head’, Simon Callow turns his famed storytelling energies towards this vast and complex revolutionary of music.
About the Author :
Simon Callow is an actor, director and writer. He has appeared on the stage in many films, including the hugely popular Four Weddings and a Funeral. Callow’s books include ‘Being an Actor’, ‘Shooting the Actor’, a highly acclaimed biography of Charles Laughton, a multi-volume biography of Orson Welles (of which the first two parts have been published) and ‘Love is Where it Falls’, an account of his friendship with the great play agent, Peggy Ramsay.
Review :
‘Would Callow be able to tell me, in layman’s language, what it is about Tristan that makes it so powerful? The answer, I am happy to say, is yes. The perfect introduction for those, like me, who may not be obsessives but who sense that something profound is going on, and would like to know more. A delightful little book’ Craig Brown, Mail on Sunday
‘A sparkly written, witty, learned and absorbing account, Callow brings The Master vividly to life’ The Times
‘Intelligent, fluent and buoyant’ The Daily Telegraph
Praise for Simon Callow’s ‘Charles Dickens’:
‘Simon Callow is not simply a terrific actor who happens to write – you could as well call him a terrific writer who happens to act’ The Times
‘This is the book we have long been waiting for and only Simon Callow could have written it… A marvellous book.’ Michael Slater
‘A comprehensive biography as enthralling as one of his own performances … A great achievement.’
Catherine Peters, Literary Review
‘Vivid and exuberant… This book, with its fresh angles and out-of-the-way sources, is the harvest of [Callow’s] dedication [to impersonating Dickens on stage]… His book is a celebration, jubilant, vigorous, imaginative, and, as Dickens might have said, an all-round sizzler.’ John Carey, Sunday Times
‘Callow … writes with great authority and elegant insouciance, which makes this "biography with a twist" very entertaining’ Independent on Sunday
‘By his enthusiasm for his subject, Callow has ensured that his book is a worthy addition to the Dickens studies’ Sunday Express
‘An excellent book’ Andrew Marr, Start the Week
‘Intelligent, fluent and buoyant’ Daily Telegraph
‘4/5… a crisply succinct account’ Sunday Telegraph
‘Colourful, almost salacious anecdotes abound’ Sunday Times
