Order from a Major Online Bookstore
Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine
Save Your Time And Money
| AnyBook4Less.com | Order from a Major Online Bookstore |
|
| Home | Store List | FAQ | Contact Us | | ||
| Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine Save Your Time And Money |
||
 |
Title: The Tristan Chord: Wagner and Philosophy by Bryan Magee ISBN: 0-8050-6788-4 Publisher: Metropolitan Books Pub. Date: 07 November, 2001 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $35.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.95 (19 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Remarkable in Every Way; Brushes Away Many Cobwebs
Comment: Contrary to most Wagner "scholars," Bryan Magee possesses keen insight into the various branches of knowledge which are a sine qua non for coming to terms with the composer's gargantuan achievements: philosophy, music, literature, and political history. Magee has taught philosophy at the university level, served as a member of the British Parliament, and been employed as a critic of both opera and the theater. His credentials are impeccable; his intellect is capacious; and his gift for clarity and lucidity tend to make him something of an anomaly amongst other Wagner commentators. In fact, just when you thought there was little or nothing left to say about Wagner's legacy, along comes Magee with his brilliant book that not only provides remarkable insight into the subject at hand, but which also seriously brings into question other generally accepted "truths" about the composer's legacy. In short, uputdownable -- an indispensable work.
Rating: 5
Summary: Lucid, clear summary of Wagner's philosophical views
Comment: There aren't many composers whose philosophical views are of such crucial, and controversial, importance as Wagner's. But this is not because Wagner was an important philosopher.
As Magee shows, Wagner's thinking should not be too readily dismissed. Wagner was no philosophical dilletante. He was awesomely well-read in the philosophy, philology and linguistics of his day, in addition to his vast reading in literature ancient and "modern", in history, myth, and the history of myth, and much more. And he was an intelligent and sometimes extraordinarily perceptive man, whose erudition was not just for showing off with but of vital importance to his thought and work.
However Wagner believed, wrongly, that his intuition was as sure a guide in the world of ideas as it was in music and drama. So his philosophical writings follow his intuitions, not his reasoning - indeed he seems to avoid reasoning, except in small bursts, out of principle. His writing is therefore irrational and self-contradictory, obscure in the worst German manner: neither original (except accidentally, where he achieves originality by misunderstanding a source, particularly Schopenhauer), nor lucid, nor "true". "True", that is, in the sense of being based on "matters of fact or reason".
So his philosophy is not, despite what Wagner probably thought, of much importance in its own right. It is mainly important because it permeates and influences his major works, which are among the few most endlessly fascinating human creations of any kind. The increasingly Buddhist resignation, withdrawal from the world, of his later works are steeped in Schopenhauerian doctrine, just as the leftist radicalism of the earlier works are steeped in the work of the libertarian democratic-socialist Feuerbach. Magee's book is invaluable in tracing the effect of these and other philosophers on Wagner's work. _Tristan und Isolde_, for example, was indeed written in the white heat of a love affair, but that love was Wagner's love of Schopenhauer, not of Matthilde Wesendonck.
Wagner's philosophical ideas are important to his work in a way that seems true of no other composer. Mozart's use of Masonic symbols in _Zauberflöte_ and elsewhere (eg his "three" chords, three maidens, three boys, etc) has never seemed more than skindeep, almost flippant, references, while in Wagner the philosophical ideas cut deep both with the drama and the characters. Magee shows how the many complex layers and depths of works like the _Ring_, Tristan_, _Parsifal_, and even the earlier Romantic operas like _Lohengrin_ and _Tannhäuser_, can never be fully explored without an understanding of Wagner's key ideas: the futility and evil of power-seeking and conquest, the struggle of the artist to escape from, and yet redeem, the constricting culture in which they operate, the desirability of losing the world by annihilating one's one ego-consciousness, the value of the irrational and of dream, and much else.
There is another, hopefully temporary, reason why it is worth knowing what Wagner's philosophical ideas actually were. Recently there has been a small avalanche of books presenting Wagner as a proto-Nazi, even a serious influence on Hitler, and one who put proto-Nazi ideas into his dramas. Books by Rose, Weiner, Köhler, Zelinsky, Millington and others creak and twang with the sound of long bows stretched past the breaking point, as they try to fit Wagner's operas and his prose works into a Nazi frame.
And "frame" is the word. As Magee shows, Wagner was a radical democrat when young (democracy being a radical idea at that time, in Europe), who drifted as far right as supporting constitutional monarchy, particularly when constitutional monarchs were writing his cheques. And who, after his disillusionment with Bismarckian Germany, lost interest in politics altogether. There were slim pickings for the Nazis, except for the antisemitism that Wagner shared with Hitler's other favourites, particularly Bruckner, also Beethoven, Bach and Brahms and many others, whose antisemitism is as ignored as Wagner's is stressed.
Magee adds an appendix on Wagner's antisemitism, putting it back in context as a disgraceful form of bigotry, just like the ignorant bigotry of today's taxi-driver who sounds off about Vietnamese, or Afghan, or African immigrants. Wagner, like many a talk radio jock, populist politician and barroom loudmouth of our own day, called for Jews to lose their separate culture and identity and assimilate into German culture. This is contemptibly racist, but the diametric opposite of the Nazi program of racial segregation followed by genocide. I might add, as Magee does not, that Wagner was an ardent abolitionist, passionately opposing slavery in the US. On some racial issues Wagner was more progressive and less racist than many Europeans and Americans of his day. But we seldom hear about this from those who prefer a simple caricature to a complicated human being.
And of course the Nazis banned _Parsifal_ for its pacifist content, as well as banning complete cycles of the _Ring_, which charts Wotan's moral degradation and downfall in pointing out its message of the futility of power and conquest. Magee notes that Wagner performances actually became much less frequent under the Nazis than before the takeover. The soundtrack of the Third Reich was not Wagner, as today's filmmakers think; in reality the opera houses played Auber, Lortzing and Lehar (Hitler never attended a Wagner opera after 1942). When classical music was played at the rallies, it was Bruckner and Liszt as much as, or more than, Wagner, but mainly the music played was "cholly Cherman" brass band music. Magee makes these points clearly and elegantly.
My main criticism of the book is that Magee clearly loves Schopenhauer almost as much as does Wagner. As a result I think he grossly underestimates the influence of the left-wing Feuerbach not only on the early works but on the later works: even _Parsifal_ ends with a political revolution, the peaceful overthrow of a hereditary monarchy. And the _Ring_ ends with us, the vassals and working women, alive after the fire and flood, facing the future with all heroes and gods swept away. I believe there is at least as much Feuerbach and Schopenhauer in the mature operas, and Magee tends to skimp on the continued radicalism of Wagner's Feuerbachian leanings and borrowings.
But this is a minor criticism of a splendid book. It is an invaluable guide to Wagner's philosophy, as well as being a remarkably clear exposition of Schopenhauer's philosophy. Highly recommended.
Cheers!
Laon
Rating: 5
Summary: Aesthetic states...
Comment: I read this at the same time as J. Kholer's Wagner's Hitler (q.v.) and the result was partial dialectical collision. It is difficult to know how to take Wagner in the midst of so much revisionist detective work. But Magee's book is, in the realm of pure Wagner limbo, a splendidly done piece which shows Wagner to be one of the most complex and significant figures of the nineteenth century. This is not the same as the usual oulala about genius since Wagner and Nietzsche both did a lot of bungled work, among them fixing culturally inadequate views of tragedy. They both failed their own tests, and if you can't figure out the essence of Greek tragedy you can end up in the middle of one yourself. Worth keeping in mind in the tiresome eulogies of these two failures of genius. What a waste.
As a musical peon in the Verdi bleachers with the old rotten cabbage in reserve I can do without hagiographies of this period, but find the subject interesting in a different way. With the Marx brothers A Night At The Opera under one's belt maybe the right methodology to deal with all this is at hand: this complete shambles is important!
Thus it is worth looking at a book such as Josef Chytry's The Aesthetic State for a history of the context of attempts to produce a tragic theatre, and/or the Gesantkuntswerk that Wagner so heroically pursued. But in the context of the overall history which starts with the ancient Greeks the question (which haunted Hegel) is why modern society simply can't match that great other chord of the 'aesthetic state' proceeding from Homer to Euripides. Here Wagner, good or bad, fails his own test, but is the most remarkable self-appointed guinea pig putting the whole issue to a test. It is hard to believe a man of such talents and heroic endeavors could be so unlucky as to fall into the whole occult shebant leading into the emergence of the lunatic far right. Watching him fail is significant in itself, especially next to the stupefying things he manage to accomplish in the process.
But in the final analysis, Wagner was coopted by the society he was and we see a great success in the middle of a great fiasco.
Anyway, Magee's book is a really good snapshot of Wagner. It is good to see the bright side first in trying to get the riddle of Wagner straight.
 |
Title: Aspects of Wagner by Bryan Magee ISBN: 0192840126 Publisher: Oxford Press Pub. Date: November, 1988 List Price(USD): $12.95 |
 |
Title: The Wagner Operas by Ernest Newman ISBN: 0691027161 Publisher: Princeton Univ Pr Pub. Date: 23 September, 1991 List Price(USD): $26.95 |
 |
Title: Wagner's Ring: Turning the Sky Round by M. Owen Lee ISBN: 0879101865 Publisher: Limelight Editions Pub. Date: October, 1994 List Price(USD): $10.00 |
 |
Title: The Perfect Wagnerite by George Bernard Shaw ISBN: 0486217078 Publisher: Dover Pubns Pub. Date: 01 June, 1967 List Price(USD): $7.95 |
 |
Title: I Saw the World End: A Study of Wagner's Ring by Deryck Cooke ISBN: 0193153181 Publisher: Oxford Univ Pr on Demand Pub. Date: May, 1992 List Price(USD): $35.00 |
Thank you for visiting www.AnyBook4Less.com and enjoy your savings!
Copyright� 2001-2021 Send your comments
