Tristan und Isolde Tristan and Isolde , WWV 90, is a music drama in three acts by Richard Wagner set to a German libretto by the composer, loosely based on the medieval 12th-century romance Tristan and Iseult by Gottfried von Strassburg.
Wagner's composition of Tristan und Isolde was inspired in part by the philosophy of Arthur Schopenhauer , as well as by his relationship with his muse Mathilde Wesendonck.
Tristan und Isolde is widely acknowledged as one of the greatest achievements of Western art music , intriguing audiences with philosophical depths not usually associated with opera, and the "terrible and sweet infinity" of its musical-poetic language.
Other composers such as Claude Debussy , Maurice Ravel , and Igor Stravinsky formulated their styles in contrast to Wagner's musical legacy. Wagner was forced to abandon his position as conductor of the Dresden Opera in , as there was a warrant posted for his arrest for his participation in the unsuccessful May Revolution. There, in , he met the wealthy silk trader Otto Wesendonck. Wesendonck became a supporter of Wagner and bankrolled the composer for several years.
Wesendonck's wife, Mathilde , became enamoured of the composer. The re-discovery of medieval Germanic poetry, including Gottfried von Strassburg 's version of Tristan [ de ] , the Nibelungenlied and Wolfram von Eschenbach 's Parzival , left a large impact on the German Romantic movements during the midth century.
