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Wagner On Music And Drama (Da Capo Paperback)

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A prolific writer of both opera and prose, Wagner has always been engulfed in controversy. Over the past century and a half, a great deal has been written about him; the book stores are full of such works. After a while, one gets tired of constantly reading what other people think of Wagner. In this book, you can read his own words.

His collected prose extends to 8 volumes of densely packed type. Wading through them is a daunting task. This book is a carefully chosen selection of those writings where Wagner specifically talks about music, opera, or drama. If you are more interested in Wagner the musician than Wagner the political polemicist, this book is for you.

This is a reprint of the 1964 edition by Dutton. It contains the following sections: Cultural Decadence of the Nineteenth Century; The Greek Ideal; The Origins of Modern Opera, Drama, and Music; The Artwork of the Future; Wagner's Development; Bayreuth; Politics. You will find gems such as the original plot for The Ring, and an interesting essay where Wagner describes how he "fixed" some of Beethoven's symphonies.

Is Wagner a brilliant, far-reaching visionary who changed the course of art and philosophy for the next century, or a superficial, self-centered despot with a mercurial thought process? Now, you can decide for yourself.

A selection of useful writings by the prolific Richard Wagner is poorly presented in this volume, which features atrocious translations and dubious editing.

Wagner was not a great prose stylist, to put it mildly, but there is scarcely a sentence in this book that does not cause the brain to seize up in confusion. I struggled to parse tangled clauses or match subjects with distant verbs. I know from other translations of Wagner that one can do much better.

The book is a potpourri of interesting excerpts drawn from hither and yon in Wagner's writing, presented end-to-end in a topical sequence with little indication if we're reading from a letter, an anonymous pamphlet, or a book published under Wagner's name. Nor do we know, without referring to a list of sources buried at the back of the book, when each excerpt was written, arranged as they are willy-nilly throughout with little regard to chronology.

It is hardly controversial to suggest that Wagner changed his mind over his career about a great many things, and why the editors would make it so difficult to understand the development of his ideas over time by this arrangement is a complete mystery to me.

There is useful material in this book, but it is hard-won by the fortitudinous reader for the reasons mentioned.

Goldman and Sprinchorn have translated, edited, and clarified some of Richard Wagner's theoretical writings in this collection. Part of this process necessarily involves changing the text, which will alter meanings. Their stated intention was to make the text more accessible and readable as reading unmediated Wagner is often confusing and frustrating. Wagner really could have used an editor back in his day. The two translators/editors attempt to rectify this by acting as editors ex post facto. But for this to work, the reader has to trust the editors and their intentions, because the author cannot be consulted. So any changes in the meaning of the essays are the direct result of the decisions of the translators/editors without the oversight or consultation of the author.

I don't trust these guys. The introduction is a very extreme and one sided analysis of Wagner's thought and milieu, and it is carried out with absolute certainty. If you are a hard core Wagner apologist, you will thoroughly enjoy their intro. I found it offensive and ill informed.

I will give two quick examples. First is their analysis of "Das J. in der Musik". From the book, "...it is unwise to dismiss Wagner's ideas [in Das J. der Musik]...for his basic argument contains as much truth on the subject as anyone could have seen during the nineteenth century." They then go on to provide an extremely sanitized version of the basic tenets of the essay; and they further go on to explain how Wagner's attacks in the essay weren't that bad because he attacks other elements of society more strenuously. Possibly this interpretation could be tenuously defended if Wagner had no more to say on the subject for the rest of his life. However, he had much more to say on this subject with ever increasing vituperativeness. And to use the word 'truth' to describe the essay is just wrong.

The second example is their ignorant and small minded condemnation of Meyerbeer. From the introduction, "the music of his [Meyerebeer's] operas is incredibly, monumentally inane...Meyerbeer was so passionless and empty a musician that Donald Francis Tovey once remarked that he could not 'regard him as a real person at all.'" The words literally drip with hatred and disgust and have no place in a book with scholarly pretenses. Their analysis is bigoted garbage.

As these two examples show, these men have definite views on the world and make no pretense at neutrality. And for me, because they are translating and editing Wagner's works, neutrality is of vital importance. If I cannot trust them to do their best to transmit Wagner's meaning regardless of their own personal views, then this book is worthless.