ABSTRACT
Born in Leipzig on 22 May 1813, the son of Carl Friedrich Wagner (or Ludwig Geyer) and Johanna Rosine Wagner, Wilhelm Richard Wagner grew up in a Leipzig household filled with enthusiasm for the theater; later Richard developed enthusiasms of his own for music, antiquity, and the opera. Lessons in piano, violin, and the elements of composition anticipated his career as a music dramatist, by 1833, when he left Leipzig and university studies in law to settle in Würzburg, Wagner had written a symphony and several sonatas and arranged for piano the Ninth Symphony of his musical idol Beethoven; the following year he began work on Das Liebesverbot, based on Measure for Measure by his dramatic idol Shakespeare.
