My Life

The great and controversial composer of the Ring cycle tells his own life story in this candid, sprawling autobiography, recounting his impoverished early struggles, his revolutionary politics and exile, his tempestuous loves and friendships, and the fierce artistic vision that reshaped opera and music forever. Dictated late in life, it offers an intimate, if self-serving, view of one of the most influential and divisive figures in the history of art. Rich in detail about nineteenth-century music, theater, and European upheaval, it illuminates the mind behind Tristan and the Ring. For lovers of music and biography, My Life is a fascinating firsthand chronicle of genius, ambition, and the making of a musical revolution.