Book Description
This book presents a lively and informative account of Die Meistersinger von NÜrnberg, including its literary sources and the evolution of the text from a light comic opera into its final form. John Warrack examines the music and historical tradition of the Mastersingers; Lucy Beckett analyzes the Hans Sachs character and reveals how Wagner communicates with his audience, both musically and dramatically; Michael Tanner suggests new ways to interpret Meistersinger as a reflection of Wagner's overall view of opera; while Patrick Carnegy provides a history of key productions. The volume contains a full synopsis, bibliography, and music examples as well as three valuable appendices. ... Read more

Book Description
Wagner's operas can be counted among the most important works of art of the nineteenth century. But Wagner was a composer around whom violent artistic, political, and literary controversies raged during his lifetime. Even today, Wagner's music seems to arouse either adulation or antipathy. In The Complete Operas of Richard Wagner, as in the first four volumes of his famous series on the great opera composers, Charles Osborne first describes the composer's life at the time he wrote each opera, thus providing a biographical thread which runs through the book; follows it with a thorough examination of the libretto and its sources; and lastly tells the story of the opera, which he links to the major musical features. This book is, in effect, a musical biography of Wagner, tracing his development from his first complete opera, Die Feen, to his last, Parsifal. It serves as an invaluable guide to the often perplexing Wagner oeuvre both for the regular opera-goer and the armchair listener. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Adequate; mediocre. Ernest Newman does same thing better.
Osborne gives some background on the writing of each of the mature Wagner operas. Then a quick plot summary, with some of the key musical themes.Since a synopsis comes with every complete opera recording, I'm not surehow useful these synopses are. We get too much explanation of plot and notenough critical commentary, by my standards. And little in the commentaryis new; Ernest Newman's book "Wagner Nights", though 50 or soyears older, is still a better introduction, making the same points asOsborne, and more.

Not all the commentary is reliable; the chapter on"Parsifal" buys into some of the nonsense first talked by RobertGutman about this opera (the Grail knights as homosexual SS order, and soon), which has been comprehensively and devastatingly demolished by LucyBecket in her book "Parsifal".

I find Osborne's"even-handedness" a little irritating at times. "Tristan undIsolde", he says, is a masterpiece, though it's too long, of course.That reminds me of Mozart's reply to the Emperor who thought his "IlSeraglio" score had "too many notes": "Which notes doyou think I should take out?" (I'm quoting the "Amadeus"movie there, and from memory, so that's not quite what was really said, butclose enough.) Like Mozart, I find that a dumb comment, unless Osbornecares to tell us which parts of "Tristan" etc we should do awaywith to make it shorter. And I think the job of someone writing anintroduction to any composer is to be critical, certainly, but also tocommunicate enthusiasm, not weariness.

So for new insights, Tanner,Magee, Millington are better, and for "sources, plot plot summary plusmusical commentary" Newman is better. It's not actually bad, justmediocre. Also, unlike Newman Osborne covers the first three Wagner operas,"Die Feen", "Das Liebesverbot" and "Reinzi",so that's quite useful.

Laon ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Wow!
This was written by my great, great, grandfather!I was so excited about it!Finally I can read it as I do not speak German!My maiden name is Fricke and there are were four Richard Frickes that followed him: my brother, father, grandfather (who are all alive) and then his son and himself (both deceased).Who is George?We must be related! ... Read more

Book Description

Book Description
Richard Wagner is a late bloomer in music. His first major composition was performed when he was nearly 30, and the Ring Cycle premiered when he was 53. Although he was among the world's greatest composers, he was not a good person. He didn't repay borrowed money, he bore grudges against people who had done favors for him, he was unfaithful to his first wife, and he took his second wife away from her husband. But, he remains fascinating and controversial today. ... Read more

Book Description
Richard Wagner's anti-Semitism considered in the context of his time, place, and aspirations rather than in relation to his later appropriation by the Nazis. ... Read more

Book Description
This book analyzes the lifelong impact of Beethoven's music on Wagner and its importance for his conception of music drama. Kropfinger charts and scrutinizes Wagner's early responses to the composer and considers his experience as a conductor of Beethoven's music. A discussion of the Romantic "Beethoven image" leads to a careful study of Wagner's aesthetic writings, including his "programmatic explanations," the text "Concerning Franz Liszt's symphonic poems," and his Beethoven centenary essay. The penultimate chapter addresses Wagner's theory and practice of music drama, which he came to regard as the preordained successor to the Beethoven symphony. By analyzing special terms--such as "Leitmotiv"--Wagner's structural view of musical drama comes to the fore; it is a view that deepens not only our understanding of musical drama as a "hybrid" genre of art but also of purely musical structure and forms that Wagner sought to outdo. ... Read more

Product Description
When the people of Dresden rose up against their king in May 1849, Richard Wagner went from Royal Kapellmeister to republican revolutionary overnight. He gambled everything, but the rebellion failed, and he lost all. Now a wanted man in Germany, he fled to Zurich. Years later, he wrote that the city was "devoid of any public art form" and full of "simple people who knew nothing of my work as an artist." But he lied: Zurich boasted arguably the world's greatest concentration of radical intellectuals and a vibrant music scene. Wagner was accepted with open arms. This book investigates Wagner's effect on the musical life of the city and the city's impact on him. Mathilde Wesendonck emerges not as Wagner's passive muse but as a self-assured woman who exploited gender expectations to her own benefit. In 1858, Wagner had to flee Zurich after again gambling everything -- this time on Mathilde -- and again losing. But it was in Zurich that Wagner wrote his major theoretical works; composed Das Rheingold, Die Walküre, and parts of Siegfried and Tristan und Isolde; first planned Parsifal; held the first festival of his music; and conceived of a theater to stage his own works. If Wagner had been free in 1849 to choose a city in which to seek heightened intellectual stimulation among the like-minded and the similarly gifted, he could have come to no more perfect place. ... Read more

Book Description
This book presents composer Richard Wagner's formative ideas in a systematic and coherent manner and examines their development and evolution as reflected in his prose, poetry , letters, and music-dramas. ... Read more

Book Description

Customer Reviews (10)

Obviously
Ever since I’m interested in the topic I am fascinated by the energy that a lot of people use to deny the obvious: that Wagner’s aggressive an prototypical anti-semitism (that went far beyond what could be expected in his time and let Hitler call Wagner his only true precurser – Vorgänger) can also be found in his works.
If an artist hates religion or women you would not be too surprised to find traces of that in his works. “Obvious” you would say.
But Wagnerians all over the world go a long way to deny that there is anti-semitism in Wagner’s dramatic operas. You have to be very determined to do so. For instance you have to drop his anti-semitic books out of his “Collected Works” as happened in Germany with the innocent explanation they were lacking intellectual “niveau”. Well, racism usually does.
The less you want to know about Wagner’s anti-semitism (and there is a LOT of nonsense about it to be read, things like “anti-semitism was in the air at the time, he couldn’t escape it”, that kind of stuff) the easier it is to enjoy his works (and continue to spend money on them).
You don’t have to read Weiner – read Wagner himself and you are cured. Only: Not his “Collected works”. Rather things like “Das Judentum in der Musik” or “Was ist deutsch?” If you are reminded of „Mein Kampf“ you got the general idea.

So some reviews contend that Wagner’s villains only appear to be jewish because in his time so many people attributed these mischievous traits to them. But of course Wagner, the arch-anti-semite, didn’t intend that.
Sure. If you are ready to believe that then probably Hitler killed 6 million jews by mistake.

Marc Weiner’s book may be a little overly complicated. That is because he is under enormous pressure to prove his OBVIOUS point scrupulously.
It is a very informative book that offers a lot of information about what anti-semitism is like.
That could be part of the reason why so many people hate it.

Finally my favourite quotation from the book, worth keeping in mind for future use:
From Georg Groddeck (a psychologist in the times of Freud) (translated from German):
“When things are done up heroically they cease to be immoral. I learned that from Wagner’s analytical textbook.” (Der Ring, 1927)

Keew da Vagnah!
The title of this review is perhaps appropriate, as only one with the approximate intelligence of Elmer Fudd would give any merit to this convoluted, highly questionable stab at serious scholarship. And no, I'm not a hopeless Wagnerian who tailgates at the elitist festival at Bayreuth or who owns 50 different copies of Die Feen on CD. Wagner's anti-Semitism was real enough, but this book goes so far over the deep end that in the end it actually comes close to redeeming the accused (to a certain extent).

While not as obviously venomous as Paul Lawrence Rose's Wagner: Race, Revolution & Redemption, RW & the Anti-Semitic Imagination is just as questionable. Weiner's thesis is that all of the unpleasant characters in Wagner's later operas, with their appearance, smells & voices, are clandestine Jews. Weiner uses such airtight evidence as using another composer's (Mussorgsky) alleged anti-Semitic work to prove that Wagner was doing the same. I hope Mr. Weiner is never my attorney.

One of Weiner's favorite examples in trying to prove his thesis is The Ring's Alberich. Alberich is short, ugly, greedy, manipulative, and cruel to his own race. According to Weiner, this is proof positive that this character is a metaphor for Jewish people. Well....the Nibelungen, the race that Alberich enslaves with the ring & is a member of, were peaceful & not portayed by Wagner in a bad light before Alberich used the nasty little trinket. I suppose it never occurred to Weiner that the Nibelungen were depicted as dwarves in the saga centuries before Wagner even set the tale to music. Of the Nibelungen, only Alberich, Mime, and Hagen are shown as ruthless. The rest are downtrodden. Incidentally, Alberich is the only major character to survive the whole Ring cycle. If Wagner had truly genocidal feelings towards this metaphor, surely he would have had Wotan spear him in Rheingold.

Secondly, Weiner claims that Wagner had Hegelian notions of "the East" being a place of degeneracy and fear, while "the West" was enlightened. However, anyone who knows even a little about Wagner knows that Schopenhauer was a much bigger influence on his thinking than Hegel ever was. What were those statues of Buddha doing at Wahnfried? Why exactly did Wagner become a vegetarian? What is the entire premise of Tristan und Isolde? It was Schopenhauer's love of Eastern thought (primarily Buddhism) that motivated Wagner to formulate such things. Buddhist resignation, rather than any Teutonic drive to conquer, is at the heart of Wagner's later masterpieces.

If you want some good books that deal specifically with Wagner's anti-Semitism, I suggest Ring of Myths and/or The Darker Side of Genius. Unfortunately, both of these books are a little over Elmer's head.

Not entirely untrue, but...
The most naked flaw of the book is that its rather simple themes are described in graduate school vocabulary of the most indulgent kind.Often, complex ideas require complex language.But here, there is little complexity beyond word choice.For example, instead of 'walk' Weinerconsistently chooses 'perambulate'.Is MW's tongue in his cheek?Is hepunishing us for all his years of educational drudgery?Is he(un)consciously emulating Wagner's steriotype of Jewish intellectuals beinglittle more than stuffed shirts spouting flashy, showy, yet ultimatelyshallow knowledge?Other examples:

perambulatory peregrination

topoi,gustatory, mephitic

(he uses vouchafe at least 4 times!)

A big diction(my penis may be small but I have a huge diction...) is an asset, but MWcontinually trips over it.Obsfucation, like sloppy handwriting, is an aidto the inept--it forces the confused reader to assume that the writer hasmade some sort of profound point when in fact there is little beyond thevocabulary.But this style is endemic to academia, and itcontributes to no one 'in the real world' taking academics seriously.Moreodiously, an anti-semite could take such an observation, combine it withthe disproportionate representation of Jews in the academy vis a visgeneral population, and conclude that MW's book is evidence of thedeleterious effect of Jewish thinking on higher education [pretentious wordchoice deliberate].In this light, MW's book becomes fodder for high-browanti-semites--and I assume that this was not his point.But again, this isa style problem, and there are much worse examples out there, I just can'tthink of one right now.

The content is simple.But even more simple thanMW realizes.In the 19th c. Jews were often associated with 'bad' or evilattributes.So much so, that if one were to make an opera with an evilcharacter, then the attributes of that character could be construed asJewish.Furthermore, there any fool can find anti-semitism in a Wagneropera, particularly if one looks for it.But that is the beauty of Wagner. There is such a degree of complexity to his work, so many levels ofinterpretation, that one can find a myriad of meanings.I believe MW is onto something.But it is not profound, it is overdone, and it misses muchmore profound and meaningful levels of interpretation.The book would makea nice thesis, especially if it was shortened to about 100pp.But the bookoversimplifies Wagner's operas, and it has the potential to ruin a reader'scouriosity in Wagnerian opera, especially if that reader is sensitive andJewish. And if you want to hate Wagner as a person, which I do, or ifyou think you like him, read 'Köhler's Nietsche and Wagner, A Lesson inSubjugation'.Here is a book that gives you more than you thoughtpossible.And if you want some high-brow-dirt on Wagner or Nietzsche, itshere.

Bigoted view of Wagner's music
Wagner's art is too profound and rich to be viewed as Marc Weiner desperately tries to convince us it should, ie, a tool of hate propaganda. Taking Weiner too serioulsly would only impoverish our experience ofWagner's operas. Weiner is so bigoted that he can only see hate in everynote of Wagner's operas. Do not let it diminish the rich experience thereis in Wagner's works awating for those who want to really explore them.

No contemporary evidence
The people who say this book is nonsense aren't necessarily "screeching", as a reader from New Orleans says.

(Though the "reader from New Zealand" who seems to be expressing support forthe losing side during WWII is the kind of Wagner fan who embarrassesWagner fans.)

Anyway the New Orleans reader quotes as "facts",the only two pieces of "evidence" that Weiner cited to show thataudiences in Wagner's lifetime recognised coded antisemitic messages in theoperas.

"Fact 1" is that there were protests against"recognizable antisemitism" at the _Die Meistersinger_ premieresat Mannheim and Vienna in 1869. But that's not a fact.

The protestsweren't against _Meistersinger_, but were against Wagner's disgracefulre-publication, early in 1869, of the antisemitic essay _Das Judentum inMusik_. All Wagner productions current that year (except in Berlin)suffered a backlash. In Breslau Wagner's _Lohengrin_ was withdrawn afterprotests from the local Jewish community, and the reception of Wagner's_Rienzi_ in Paris was "harmed". Serves Wagner right,too.

Weiner didn't allege there was any antisemitism in either_Lohengrin_ or _Reinzi_ (and obviously he would have if he thought it couldbe done) but they were still part of the same wave of protest, in 1869,that also included the Mannheim and Vienna _Meistersinger_.

That is, theprotests were not about or caused by any of the three Wagner operas thatwere campaigned against in 1869, but were to do with offence properly takenat Wagner's essay.

For background to the 1869 republication of _DasJudentum_ and the hostile reaction it caused, see Jacob Katz, _The DarkerSide of Genius: Wagner's anti-Semitism_, pp 70-77.

Further evidence thatthe protests were about the essay's republication, not about_Meistersinger_ or the other operas, is that after Wagner later wrote hisopen letter disassociating himself from antisemitic agitation, there wereno further protests at performances of _Meistersinger_ or any other Wagneroperas.

On the Mahler "fact", that's not really evidence ofwhat Wagner's contemporary audiences read into Wagner's operas.Weinersays that even by the turn of the century it would have been hard to readWagner's alleged coded messages. This presumably explains why earlycommentators mysteriously failed to notice them. But the Mahler quote isfrom the turn of the century, 1898, twenty-seven years after the_Rheingold_ premiere (in which Mime first appeared), twenty-two years afterthe _Siegfried_ premiere (in which Mime returns), and fifteen years afterWagner's death. It tells us something about Mahler in 1898, but not aboutWagner's contemporary audiences.

The late date is only one issue withthe Mahler quote. I quote the review by Lisa Norris, Kutztown University ofPennsylvania, for H-Judaic:

"Weiner's references to Mahler areproblematic too. He quotes Mahler's private remark in 1898 that Wagner'sMime was "intended to ridicule the Jews (with all of theircharacteristic traits...)...," but Weiner does not point out that in1897, the Jewish-born Mahler converted to Catholicism, and so his ownrelationship to Judaism and antisemitism was singular and at a criticalstage. Can Weiner then really claim that "Mahler stated what I believemust have been obvious to Wagner's contemporaries..." (p. 143)? Whereare representative statements from the broader spectrum of opera-goingsociety to corroborate this?"

Where indeed?

The issue is notwhether Wagner was antisemitic; I doubt if many Wagner fans,"screeching" or otherwise, would deny that. It makes Wagner theman reprehensible in the same way that other antisemitic composers like JSBach, Chopin, Liszt, Mussorgsky, Schubert, Schumann, to give a few examplesfrom a regrettably very long list, were reprehensible people. 19th centuryantisemitism was a European-wide cultural attitude, not a Wagnerian one,and for some it may be easier to focus on one individual than on a culture,or several cultures. Still, the fact remains that Wagner _was_ antisemitic,and that's a disgrace for the man. But it doesn't follow that artists putthe worst of themselves into their art: no-one alleges, for example, thatTS Eliot's antisemitismis hidden in coded messages in the poems of"Cats".

But the issue is whether Weiner's book alleging secretantisemitic codes in Wagner's operas is a good book or a lot of nonsense.

The second conclusion seems more reasonable. Weiner suggests that peoplewho disbelieve him are in denial, and hints this may be because they areantisemitic themselves. This is not an acceptable kind of argument. Youcould turn it around and say that only someone who has - perhapsinadvertently - absorbed antisemitic attitudes could read supposedly Jewishcharacteristics into a fairly standard-issue mythological dwarf like Mime.But insult, on either side, is not a particularly useful form of argument.

People refuse to accept Weiner's thesis for the same reason they refuseto accept von Daniken's thesis in "Chariots of the Gods" orBerlitz's thesis on the Bermuda Triangle: because the arguments don't holdup and the evidence isn't there.

Weiner's arguments in favour of hiscoded messages are so unconvincing, despite the ingenuity used in creatingand describing them, that taken as a whole his book is a convincingargument against the existence of coded antisemitic messages in Wagner'soperas.

. ... Read more

Product Description
It is well known that Richard Wagner, the renowned and controversial 19th century composer, exhibited intense anti-Semitism. The evidence is everywhere in his writings as well as in conversations his second wife recorded in her diaries. In his infamous essay "Judaism in Music," Wagner forever cemented his unpleasant reputation with his assertion that Jews were incapable of either creating or appreciating great art.

Wagner's close ties with many talented Jews, then, are surprising. Most writers have dismissed these connections as cynical manipulations and rank hypocrisy. Examination of the original sources, however, reveals something different: unmistakeable, undeniable empathy and friendship between Wagner and the Jews in his life. Indeed, the composer had warm relationships with numerous individual Jews. Two of them resided frequently over extended periods in his home. One of these, the rabbi's son Hermann Levi, conducted Wagner's final opera--Parsifal, based on Christian legend--at Wagner's request; no one, Wagner declared, understood his work so well. Even in death his Jewish friends were by his side; two were among his twelve pallbearers.

The contradictions between Wagner's antipathy toward the amorphous entity "The Jews" and his genuine friendships with individual Jews are the subject of this book. Drawing on extensive sources in both German and English, including Wagner's autobiography and diary and the diaries of his second wife, this comprehensive treatment of Wagner's anti-Semitism is the first to place it in perspective with his life and work. Included in the text are portions of unpublished letters exchanged between Wagner and Hermann Levi. Altogether, the book reveals astonishing complexities in a man long known as much for his prejudice as for his epic contributions to opera. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

One Of The Very Best Books About Wagner
Despite a few notable exceptions, Milton Brener's Richard Wagner and the Jews is nearly the only book that deals fairly with the famed opera composer's anti-Semitism; and as such, this book is a welcome corrective to some of the more shrill anti-Wagner screeds of the last few decades. Brener does not intend to excuse Wagner; he merely comes closer than most in explaining him.

Besides being probably the greatest artist who ever lived, Wagner was also a bundle of contradictions. However, this bundle of contradictions never seemed to be able to realize that he was just that. Indeed, Wagner did possess anti-Semitic attitudes, but his anti-Semitism was of a different stripe than that espoused by the Nazis. Wagner called for Jewish assimilation within the German population, which certainly did not conform with later Nazi policy. Like many a 19th-Century anti-Semite, Wagner seems to have seen Jewishness as almost an abstract, metaphysical concept. Of course, that does not excuse him. He did indeed say vile things about Jews, and he needs to be held accountable for those attitudes, but to simply (and wrongly) call him a proto-Nazi is not only intellectually dishonest, it wrongly stains the reputation of an artist who created stupendous, deeply human works-of-art.

As Brener also points out, there is nothing inherently anti-Semitic in any of Wagner's great works of art. Unfortunately, some writers, such as Robert Gutman, seem to have a compulsion to find even the most tenuous, implausible Anti-Semitic connections in Wagner's work. It is simply impossible to find such links. There is not the slightest overt connection to anti-Semitism in any of Wagner's works, and if there are any such covert links, then one would have had to have entered the composer's mind to see them. Wagner's many genuine friendships with Jews complicate Gutman's position even more.

This is simply a fabulous book. And, along with The Darker Side of Genius and The Ring of Myths, it is also the most responsible volume available that deals specifically with Wagner's most famous character flaw.

Also included, as an appendix, is the composer's infamous essay, "Judaism in Music". While the essay is bitter and paranoid, it is helpful for a frame of reference to the preceding 300 pages. Needless to say, I find Wagner's argument that Jews are incapable of generating higher culture to be utterly worthless. Schoenberg & Mahler (and many other Jewish artists) obviously dismantle that argument, and as for Wagner's claim that Jews are incapable of high art because they are "rootless", we only need to look at Aaron Copland, a man of Lithuanian Jewish heritage, who used Appalachian & Mexican melodies and rhythms to create incredible works of art.

Wagner gets his day in court
Having read many books on the life of Wagner over the years, I can safely say that this biographical sketch by Brener ranks among the best.The author is a retired attorney who is also a music and art critic.Like most of us who love Wagner's music, Brener is troubled by the composer's less than admirable traits -- his manipulation of his friends, his skipping out on debts, and particularly his anti-Semitism.How could a man who wrote some of the most moving music and insightful music dramas in Western civiilzation be such a defective human being?Brener sets out to understand Wagner the man in human perspective and succeeds admirably.He focuses mainly on Wagner's public views of "the Jews" and his private, long-standing and meaningful friendships with many individual Jews.A retired lawyer, he has done his homework, deposed all the key witnesses, and developed an argument that leaves no stone unturned.Brener makes a compelling case for Wagner as a nuanced human being rather than the black and white monster as some biographers portray him.In addition, the book is extremely well written and hard to put down.I came away with a greater appreciation of Wagner and a deeper understanding of the nature of prejudice.Highly recommended.

A solid, readable study
This is not the usual diatribe that we expect on Wagner's Antisemitism. Instead it is a biography focusing on the composer's relations with the Jews. Brener makes a sharp distinction between "the Jews" in Roman type and the same phrase in italic, the former representing Wagner's Jewish friends, the latter the Jewish community that he despised.

The main characters are Karl Tausig, Heinrich Porges, Joseph Rubinstein, and Hermann Levi--all close associates of Wagner and all Jewish. The chapters on Levi are especially revealing, a sharp challenge to orthodox opinion by such scholars as Peter Gay. The analysis of Wagner's major tract on the subject, "Judaism in Music," is adequate.

Brener is a good writer with a refined sense of tone and wit. He knows the primary literature backwards and forwards. His mastery of the secondary sources seems less secure but still sufficient for his purposes. Obviously he has visited most of the places he discusses, for his descriptions of them (both then and now) are vivid.

His theme is summed up in a concise sentence that concludes his preface: "I do not beleive that, at the deeper levels, the man who created Tristan und Isolde, Parsifal, and Der Ring des Nibelungen could possibly have been the monster that so many have painted." He proves his point well.

I enjoyed this book and learned much from it. I recommend it wholeheartedly to fellow Wagnerians. ... Read more

Book Description
This book is a study of the prose writings of Richard Wagner and their relevance to an understanding of his music and drama, as well as their relation to music criticism and aesthetics in the nineteenth century in general. It looks at central themes in his writings, such as philosophies of musical form and meaning, Wagner's metaphors and terminology, and connects them with analysis of music from his own operas and works by other composers such as Beethoven and Berlioz about whom Wagner wrote. ... Read more

Book Description

Customer Reviews (1)

Dreadful translation, but important texts
The German word "Erdball" means "world". It takes a weird translator to want to render it into English as "Earthball". H Ashton Ellis is that translator, a man who, inlearning German, forgot all his English. Ellis translates German compoundwords not with plain English but with strange Germanic formulations, eg"leg-dancers", or "tone-arranger" for a German wordthat simply means "composer".So while it's good to have theseWagner texts available in English, it's a shame that the re-appearance ofthese awful translations in a modern edition will publishers fromcommissioning a new, competent, plain-English translation discourage. Ellis also makes Wagner's "Das Judentum in Musik" harder toevaluate by introducing antisemitic overtones (perhaps of his own) wherethe Wagner text doesn't justify it. For example, the Ellis text describesMendelsohn as"a Jew composer", which has a hostile, sneering,sound to it. But Wagner's text has "Judaische"; the correcttranslation is the merely descriptive "a Jewish composer". Thereare other, similar examples.

As for Wagner, "Das Judentum inMusik"'s argument is that because [in mod-19th Century Europe] Jewsare partly involved in the cultures amongst which they live, and are partlyseparate and aloof from them, their music and poetry don't have the warmth,depth and humanity that come from having strong folk roots; Jewish art,while Jews remain apart and not assimilated into the mainstream"folk", is likely to be imitative, clever, ironical, and so on,but not deep or passionate.

The essay brings no comfort toWagner-lovers, but not quite as much comfort to Wagner-haters as issometimes claimed.Some people, by no means antisemitic, eg Patrick Magee,defend Wagner's analysis (stripped of its few paragraphs of merely racistwriting). The essay makes an argument about the need for art to have folkroots if it is to be great. Me, I'd say its too easy to findcounter-examples, for Wagner's analysis to stand. Personally, if I were todefend any part of the essay it would be Wagner's valuing of sincereemotional expression in art over irony. We're starting to hear the phrase"post-irony", but it's not yet a reality. I'd welcome a trendback to having the courage to express emotion, in life as well as art,without always hiding behind quote marks. One of Wagner's merits is assupreme non-ironist.

But, point out the detractors, rightly, there's astrong thread of antisemitism in amongst Wagner's discussion of culture andof art in this essay. There is a tone of "balance" in most ofWagner's paragraphs, an assumption of the mask of mere intellectualcuriosity over the odd position of Jewish musicians and poets in themid-19th Century. But in some paragraphs animosity shows throughundisguised.

On the other hand, the essay is not the same thing as thepolitical antisemitism that had its horrifying culmination under the Nazis.Wagner's subject was the arts. And his proposed "remedy" was forJews to assimilate into the mainstream population and lose their separateidentity. That's a despicably racist idea (why should they, if they don'twant to?), but it's diametrically the opposite of what the Nazis called for- racial segregation followed by mass murder.Reading it, you'll find thatthe essay contains specific offensive passages, and is permeated by ideaswe now find offensive, but that it is not simply a screed of racial orreligious bigotry; mostly the text argues about art and music. In sum,anyone who loves Wagner's music will wish he'd never written or published"Das Judentum in Musik". It disfigures the man's posthumousreputation. But nor is it quite the screed of racial vilification it issometimes made out to be. Wagner was a bigot and a crank, but not amonster. The book gets three stars, because though it is an appallingtranslation of a bad essay, it does at least make this infamous essayavailable for people to judge it for themnselves.

Laon ... Read more

Book Description
In contrast to most books on Richard Wagner, this biography focuses primarily on Wagner as an important figure in the development of the theatre. While his contribution to music history has been exhaustively documented and analyzed, his theatrical ventures, in particular the founding of the Bayreuth Festival, have not been the object of much research by English-speaking theatre historians. Nevertheless, the Festival was a crucial event in the development of the European theatre as it established the paradigm for all modern theatre and music festivals, while the Festival Theatre itself has provided the most widely imitated architectural configuration in 20th-century theatre building. ... Read more

Book Description
This book explores the immense influence of the composer Richard Wagner on nineteenth- and twentieth-century Russian writers, musicians and artists.It contains a history of the production of Wagner's works in Russia and the Soviet Union (by directors including Meyerhold and Eisenstein), an account of Wagner's visit to Russia in 1863, and a detailed investigation of the impact of his music and ideas on the Russian Modernist movement. The last two chapters explore the fate of Wagner's works after the 1917 Revolution, when he was first hailed but then reviled, and finally rehabilitated during the years of glasnost. ... Read more