Full Description
While no one would dispute Wagner's ranking among the most significant composers in the history of Western music, his works have been more fiercely attacked than those of any other composer. Alleged to be an unscrupulous womanizer and megalomaniac, undeniably a racist, Wagner's personal qualities and attitudes have often provoked, and continue to provoke, intense hostility that has translated into a mistrust and abhorrence of his music. In this emphatic, lucid book, Michael Tanner discusses why people feel so passionately about Wagner, for or against, in a way that they do not about other artists who had personal traits no less lamentable than those he is thought to have possessed. Tanner lays out the various arguments made by Wagner's detractors and admirers, and challenges most of them. The author's fascination for the relationships among music, text, and plot generates an illuminating discussion of the operas, in which he persuades us to see many of Wagner's best-known works anew--The Ring Cycle, Tristan und Isolde, Parsifal.
He refrains from lengthy and detailed musical examination, giving instead passionate and unconventional analyses that are accessible to all lovers of music, be they listeners or performers. In this fiery reassessment of one of the greatest composers in the history of opera, Tanner presents one of the most intelligent and controversial portraits of Wagner to emerge for many years.
Contents
Preface and Acknowledgements ix 1 The Case of Wagner 1 2 Prejudices and Banalities 14 3 Getting under Way 31 4 Domesticating Wagner 48 5 Grandeur and Suffering in Wagner:Some Case Studies 63 6 Lobengrin and its Prelude 83 7 Wagner Ponders 95 8 What is the Ring about? l09 9 Men and Gods 119 10 The Fearless Hero 131 11 The Passion of Passion 140 12 Art, Tradition and Authority 156 13 The Ring Resumed 168 14 Redemption to the Redeemer 184 15 Posdude: Wagner and Culture 201 Chronology 213 Select Bibliography 222 Index 227
