Decoding Wagner: An Invitation to His World of Music Drama (includes 2 CDs)
by Thomas May
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Book Summary Information
Author: Thomas MayEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 2004-12-22
ISBN: 1574670972
Number of pages: 220
Publisher: Amadeus Press
Book Reviews of Decoding Wagner: An Invitation to His World of Music Drama (includes 2 CDs)
Book Review: interesting book with cds
Summary: 5 Stars
This well writen book has an analysis of all Wagner operas. I found it helpful, used together with the Metropolitan Opera site.
Summary of Decoding Wagner: An Invitation to His World of Music Drama (includes 2 CDs)
The cultural controversies he helped to create have long since died down, but Richard Wagner still remains a polarizing icon. Just as he dreamed of combining the arts, his influence extends well beyond the field of classical music to theater, literature, painting, and more. Wagner represents a phenomenon which is hard to ignore. His compulsive need to document his thoughts-apart from his art-finds an echo in the enormous body of explanation Wagner has inspired. Yet even with so much written about him, Wagner continues to be a deeply misunderstood figure.This guide aims to unlock the world of Richard Wagner and his works, his monumental achievements, and, ultimately, the great emotional power inherent in his art. This emotional power is double-edged, often serving as a kind of mirror for what each listener brings to it. The book challenges the assumptions and stereotypes of the "Wagnerian" idea of art.
Decoding Wagner presents a straightforward, fresh overview of what Wagner attempted to achieve with his "artwork of the future." Lively discussions of his major works place them in the context of his life and consider the interplay of dramatic and musical elements with philosophical ideas which are so unique to Wagner.
Two accompanying full-length CDs illustrate and trace his growth as a composer. Decoding Wagner appraises the enormously expressive richness that continues to make his art compelling and relevant for contemporary audiences.
In the voluminous Wagner bibliography, Thomas May's book occupies a special place. Concise but remarkably information-packed and accompanied by two CDs of excerpts, it is addressed to those who seek a deeper understanding of Wagner's operas. The controversies--artistic, human and moral--generated by Wagner's innovative ideas and reprehensible behavior frequently obscure the greatness of his achievements. May performs an extraordinary feat: although unflinchingly aware of Wagner's arrogance, self-aggrandizement, duplicity, faithlessness, hedonism, greed, political opportunism, chauvinism, and anti-Semitism, he communicates boundless admiration for the composer and passionate love for his works. Suggesting that the very schism between Wagner's flawed character and idealistic aspirations inspired "monumentally stirring meditations on the contradictory range of human experience," he correlates and reconciles his "monstrous ego" with his sublime genius. The evolution of Wagner's operas, from his early and incomplete attempts to the late, often extensively revised masterpieces, culminated in a lofty artistic vision: the "total artwork" which, combining all the arts, would result in heightened experience and spiritual elevation. Wagner wrote his own texts, considering poetry and music inseparable and himself equally master of both, an assessment not universally shared. May takes the librettos very seriously, following them from their historical or mythological origin to their final form with formidable but unobtrusive erudition. Among his references are the Buddha, Aristotle, Shakespeare, Thomas Mann, and T.S. Eliot, and he must have read everything about Wagner as well as Wagner's own often repellent autobiographical, theoretical, and political writings (which make one wish he had written nothing but music). May's musical analyses are equally riveting and absorbing. He traces the operas' ever-increasing depth, breadth, and grandeur, the growing importance and masterful use of the unifying leitmotif and the "Wagnerian" orchestra, and the often hidden strands that connect them despite their individual uniqueness. Opera lovers spurred by May's book to hear these works performed could not wish for a more knowledgeable, illuminating, and inspiring guide. --Edith Eisler
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