Aspects of Wagner (Oxford Paperbacks) [Paperback]

Despite the fact that this book was first published in 1969, it is so well written in such reasonable language that it still stands as one of the most cogent introductions to the genius of Richard Wagner. The bookstore shelves are full of volumes on the man many consider one of the most important composers ever. But many of those books are biased by quirks of each writer who preach either a love-him-or-hate-him agenda. Magee goes to the source, addressing the writings of the composer during his musical hiatus between Lohengrin and the Ring of the Niebelungen, a period (1848 - 1851) when Wagner withdrew into the works of the great German philosophers and gradually formed his world view of Opera as Drama, or, a religous happening - quite a different stance from the 'Opera as Entertainment' that was the popular consensus of the time. Magee offers translations of Wagner's words that clarify the messages that so often are lost in the verbiage that Wagner labored as he responded to the importance of mythology as a universal language, to Shakespeare as the perfect man of words, to the music of Beethoven as the writer of music that ALMOST didn't need poetry ( even though he granted that Beethoven's 9th Symphony which includes poetry was the gold standard of his time and indeed opened all the Bayreuth Festivals with that Beethoven work before presenting his own operas), and to the writings of Karl Marx, et al. Magee's essays include notes on the claims of AntiSemitism, on the influence of Wagner on the other artists of his time and after his time, and even on performance standards of his works. All this, in a book just over 100 pages in length! An invaluable tool for those who want to better understand why Wagner's music continues today to cause such profound emotional responses. Beautifully written and informative.

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.

I say "second book" because other books, for example Michael Tanner's, work better as a general introduction to Wagner.

This is not a comprehensive overview of Wagner's life, work and thought, but a collection of essays on different Wagner topics. But the essays are very good. Magee is interesting on the notoriously strong emotional response, positive or negative - people have to the music, and offers some thoughts on why this is so. The essay, "Jews, not least in music" puts Wagner's (in)famous essay "Das Judentum in Musik" into perspective, as considerably less inflammatory than many people, who have perhaps only heard the title, believe. It's also interesting on Wagner's influence in literature, poetry, painting, and so on. The previous reviewer praises this book in terms that would tend to put me off it: but really Magee is not a difficult or abstruse read. His ideas are perceptive but written in absolutely plain English.

And I don't think Magee would support the idea that unless people have studied Wagner deeply they only "think" they enjoy Wagner. Actually it's like Shakespeare; you can read a library of commentary, and some of it, like Magee will be helpful, but you can also just see or listen to the work itself, and find it perfectly self-explanatory. Anyone who "thinks" they are enjoying Wagner is right.

Magee's is a short book, just over 100 pages. It's an odd thing about a man whose works are famous for their length, but the shorter books about Wagner tend to be the best.

Laon