Text Box:  15. Our next composer wrote opera. His name was Richard Wagner, and is ranked at number 4 by Goulding, just below the immortals…Bach, Mozart, and Beethoven. He was born in Germany in 1813 and died in 1883, at age 69. Some people write negative things about Wagner and we don’t know if they are true or not. They say he a liar…a wife stealer, anti-Jewish…a waster of money and things…a guy who didn’t pay his many, many debts...a bluffer, who challenged men to duels, and then never showed up.. a braggart, and many other things Otherwise, he was a nice guy. Let’s not dwell on this side of him, however, because all might be exaggerated, and all we know was that he was a great, great classical composer. A piece of his that everyone has heard is his Bridal Chorus taken from the third act of his opera, Lohengrin, (Low in grin) first performed in 1850.