Richard Wagner

                         

Wilhelm Richard Wagner was a German composer, theatre director, polemicist and conductor. Wagner is mostly known for his operas and musical dramas and unlike most opera composers he wrote both the Libretto (lyrics) and the music for each of his operas. Wagner started out as a composer and came to revolutionize opera through his concept of Gesamtkunstwerk (total work of art), by which he sought to combine the poetic, visual, musical and dramatic arts, with music subsidiary to drama, and was announced in a series of essays from 1849 and 1859.

The compositions made during the later years in his life are notable for their complex textures, rich harmonies and orchestration. He advanced the musical language by creating extreme chromaticism and quickly shifting tonal centres, these advances greatly influenced the development of classical music. His most recognizable work would have to be Ride of the Valkyries.  

Richard Wagner’s reforms to opera made it so there was no clear separation between recitative and aria, and ensembles are completely avoided. The orchestra is treated symphonicially, with themes that are combined and developed endlessly during the course of the action.

Sources

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Wagner

http://www.ipl.org/div/mushist/rom/wagner.html

Here is Ride of the Valkyries