{"product_id":"richard-wagner-the-last-of-the-titans-9780300104226","title":"Richard Wagner: The Last of the Titans","description":"\u003cp\u003eIn this new biography of Richard Wagner  Joachim Khler draws on social and political analysis  documentary interpretation  and psychological insights to paint a rounded picture of Wagner as both a controversial historical phenomenon and a complex human being. Khlers reading of the letters  diaries  and other documents of the main protagonists  some of them unfamiliar even to seasoned Wagnerians  results in some breathtaking but convincing reappraisals. He examines Wagners love affairs with Jessie Laussot  Mathilde Wesendonck  and Judith Gautier and assesses their lasting emotional effect. He re-evaluates Wagners relationships with his mother  step-father  sister  andmost revealinglyhis wife  Cosima  a relationship seen as based on fear rather than love. Khler explores the philosophical roots of Wagners work  which the composer himself deliberately obfuscated. And he analyzes Wagners relationship with King Ludwig  whom Wagner is revealed to have blackmailed  and with Nietzsche  whom he tried to destroy. The traumas of his youth haunted Wagner throughout his life  as his emotional development underlay his notorious anti-semitism. Khlers interpretation of Wagners dreams  as recorded in Cosimas diaries  offers astonishing insights into the paranoia and insecurity of a man who was one of the leading composers of his age.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"My Store","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":45279598968885,"sku":"ByrdShop_0300104227","price":37.45,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0627\/8139\/0901\/files\/9780300104226.jpg?v=1780603402","url":"https:\/\/atxbooks.com\/products\/richard-wagner-the-last-of-the-titans-9780300104226","provider":"ATX Books","version":"1.0","type":"link"}