Aspects of Wagner, Second Edition, revised and enlarged
by Bryan Magee
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Book Summary Information
Author: Bryan MageeEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 1988
ISBN: 0192840126
Number of pages: 102
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Book Reviews of Aspects of Wagner, Second Edition, revised and enlarged
Book Review: Concise Examination of a Master Composer
Summary: 5 Stars
More than any other figure in the classical Canon, Richard Wagner (1813 - 1883) has provoked a dichotomy of passion in regards to his music, character and legacy. Bryan Magee's *Aspects of Wagner*, a series of concise, articulate essays about the composer and theorist, confronts both sides of the polarization, examining the essential components that inspire such adulation, probing with unusual insight the negative connotations ever associated with mere mention of the name.
These aspects, in brief:
THEORY: After the success of Lohengrin, Wagner took a six-year break from composing to recharge the cylinders, theorize and re-examine the operatic form. The result of this sabbatical would shake the foundations of the Canon. For Wagner, no longer would drama be a means to a musical end - window-garnishing syntax to embellish the sonic - instead, music would be the means with which to express the dramatic ~emotion~ of the piece. Music would emphasize, shift and elucidate to the passage of the text, a notion that has proved indescribably influential: the whole of modern film-symphonic owes its debt to this innovation.
JEWS: A virulent anti-Semitist, repelled by the physical aspect of Jews and critical of their compositional abilities - "shallow and artificial" - Wagner espoused these opinions in the public forum and, in reality, reflected the mindset of mainstream German society during his time. Further propagated by Wagner's widow and offspring, these views influenced Hitler as a youth and were taken verbatim for his totalitarian platform. Wagner's demand for Judiasm to be eradicated, via renouncement of faith and conversion to Christian theism, was corrupted by the Nazi propagandists as a call for physical annihilation. More fuel for the critical fire! And yet, one of Wagner's closest companions, Hermann Levi, was a Jew, and conducted the premiere of Parsifal; moreover, Wagner's worldview of pacifism and assimilation doesn't jive at all with the Fascist manifesto - the Nazis took what was useful and abandoned the 'feel good' vibes. Bryan Magee doesn't really address any of this, however: rather, he theorizes as to ~why~ Wagner considered Jews inferior artists, especially in regard to the fact that three of the dominant geniuses of our modern culture were Jewish - Marx, Freud and Einstein. Magee points to the cultural repression of Judaism throughout hundreds of years, an isolationist subjugation that was only beginning to disintegrate by the start of 19th century; the flowering of Jewish intellect - and assimilation of Western culture - would take several generations to unfold. The resultant revolutionary thought of the triumvirate above, undeniable in their influence, stemmed from an outward contemplation and subsequent deconstruction of the adopted conventional standards. Indeed, Wagner's original essays are surprisingly insightful as to the underlying reasons for the artifice of Jewish composers of his day, though the eventual intellectual aptitude they would bring to the table undoubtedly eluded the composer.
IDOLATRY: As much the subject of abject idolatry as venomous refutation, Wagner is a love-or-hate figure, with little ground of compromise between. Magee theorizes that this is because the music, in harmonic construction and theme, gives expression to all that unconscious and repressed in the human mind, including Oedipal sexuality, unleashed eroticism, moral questioning and violence; the tonal qualities stir forth base, animalistic urges to the forefront, taboos further exemplified by the stage-work. The composer's emphasis on the undercurrents of the psyche predated modern psychology by fifty years: thus the subconscious ~rejection~ of many to his music, and its appeal to the more questing intellect.
INFLUENCE: A short list: Gustav Mahler, Anton Schonberg, Richard Strauss, Dvorak, Piotr Tchaikovsky, Claude Dubussy, Edward Elgar, Dmitry Shostakovich, Anton Bruckner; James Joyce, Bernard Shaw, Marcel Proust, D.H. Lawerence, Oscar Wilde, E.M. Forster, Thomas Mann, Virginia Wolff; T.S. Elliot, Baudelaire, Lytton, Ezra Pound; Nietzsche and Freud. When one contemplates the authority these people had over their disciples, the position of Wagner, in terms of all aspects of modern thought, truly staggers the mind, and lends credit to Magee's conclusion that "...Wagner has had greater influence than any other artist on our culture of the age."
PERFORMANCE: The greatest compositions can never reach true interpretation, according to Magee; each conductor brings something different to the performance, and only reaches an approximation of that on paper - even the creator fails to achieve a definitive performance! Magee also goes into depth about what is needed to properly stage a Wagner spectacle, and uses the model of Bayreuth's opera house, constructed by the composer himself, as the epitome surroundings. Wagner set the orchestra out-of-sight, so as not to distract the audience from the on-stage drama; he arranged the acoustics of the opera house to give emphasis to the words, with the music hovering beneath as counterpoint and ambient emphasis. Another issue in this essay is the conflict that arises in non-German speakers listening to Wagner. With the text so critical to the overall appreciation, and the differences of semantic inflection taken into account, there are two choices: learn German, or seek out the better translations that, although conforming to the grammar, sometimes lose the power of meaning.
MUSIC: Magee criticizes the (then) contemporary adaptation of Wagner's sound-cycles to politically-correct allegory. Wagner deliberately utilized myth and archetypes to simplify the narrative and give emphasis on emotional undercurrents; using it as critical commentary on current issues (1960's) was, to Magee, a debasement of Wagner's ideal. Magee also notes how difficult it is to write about the music ~itself~: thus the glut of media talking about every aspect of Wagner *except* that which he is most famous for, that which firmly set his place on the Romantic pantheon!
This book serves as an insightful analysis of Wagner, in all his complexities and contradictions. Recommended for the student of the classical Canon.
Summary of Aspects of Wagner, Second Edition, revised and enlarged
Many music lovers find Wagner's operas inexpressibly beautiful and richly satisfying, while others find them revolting, dangerous, self-indulgent, and immoral. The man who W.H. Auden once called "perhaps the greatest genius that ever lived" has inspired both greater adulation and greater loathing than any other composer.Bryan Magee presents a penetrating analysis of Wagner's work, concentrating on how his sensational and deeply erotic music uniquely expresses the repressed and highly charged contents of the psyche. He examines not only Wagner's music and detailed stage directions but also the prose works in which he formulated his ideas, as well as shedding new light on his anti-semitism and the way in which the Nazis twisted his theories to suit their own purposes. Outlining the astonishing range and depth of Wagner's influence on our culture, Magee reveals how profoundly he continues to shock and inspire musicians, poets, novelists, painters, philosophers, and politicians today.
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