Wagner

About this book

While no one would dispute Wagners 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 Wagners 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 Wagners detractors and admirers and challenges most of them. The authors 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 Wagners 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.