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1. Richard Wagner Composer of Operas by John F. Runciman | |
![]() | Kindle Edition:
Pages
(2009-10-04)
list price: US$1.99 Asin: B002RKTEW6 Canada | United Kingdom | Germany | France | Japan |
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2. Opera & drama (Oper und drama) by Richard Wagner | |
Paperback: 464
Pages
(2010-09-11)
list price: US$37.75 -- used & new: US$28.82 (price subject to change: see help) Asin: 117238598X Average Customer Review: ![]() Canada | United Kingdom | Germany | France | Japan | |
Editorial Review Product Description With Richard Wagner, opera reached the apex of German Romanticism. Originally published in 1851, when Wagner was in political exile, Opera and Drama outlines a new, revolutionary type of musical stage work, which would finally materialize as The Ring of the Nibelung. Wagner's music drama, as he called it, aimed at a union of poetry, drama, music, and stagecraft. In a rare book-length study, the composer discusses the enhancement of dramas by operatic treatment and the subjects that make the best dramas. The expected Wagnerian voltage is here: in his thinking about myths such as Oedipus, his theories about operatic goals and musical possibilities, his contempt for musical politics, his exaltation of feeling and fantasy, his reflections about genius, and his recasting of Schopenhauer. This edition includes the full text of volume 2 of William Ashton Ellis's 1893 translation commissioned by the London Wagner Society. Customer Reviews (2)
In 1893, the London Wagner Society published an English translation of Wagner's 8 volume collected works.This is volume 2 of that series.It contains the full text of "Oper und Drama", translated as "Opera and Drama".Our old friend, William Ashton Ellis, did the stilted but essential English translations. Much of what Wagner wrote has nothing to do with music, and quite a large portion is pretty forgettable.However, this book is important, and goes a long way toward helping you understand his music.
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3. Judaism in Music and Other Essays by Richard Wagner | |
![]() | Paperback: 432
Pages
(1995-06-28)
list price: US$25.00 -- used & new: US$16.99 (price subject to change: see help) Asin: 0803297661 Average Customer Review: ![]() Canada | United Kingdom | Germany | France | Japan |
Editorial Review Product Description Musical genius, polemicist, explosive personality—that was the nineteenth-century German composer Richard Wagner, who paid as much attention to his reputation as to his genius. Often maddening, and sometimes called mad, Wagner wrote with the same intensity that characterized his music. The letters and essays collected in Judaism in Music and Other Essays were published during the 1850s and 1860s, the period when he was chiefly occupied with the creation of The Ring of the Nibelung. Highlighting this collection is the notorious 1850 article “Judaism in Music,” which caused such a firestorm that nearly twenty years later Wagner published an unapologetic appendix. Other prose pieces include “On the Performing of Tannhauser,” written while he was in political exile; “On Musical Criticism,” an appeal for a more vital approach to art undivorced from life; and “Music of the Future.” This volume concludes with letters to friends about the intent and performance of his great operas; estimations of Liszt, Beethoven, Mozart, Gluck, Berlioz, and others; and suggestions for the reform of opera houses in Vienna, Paris, and Zurich. The Bison Book edition includes the full text of volume 3 of William Ashton Ellis’s 1894 translation commissioned by the London Wagner Society. Customer Reviews (1)
As for Wagner, "Das Judentum inMusik"'s argument is that because [in mod-19th Century Europe] Jewsare partly involved in the cultures amongst which they live, and are partlyseparate and aloof from them, their music and poetry don't have the warmth,depth and humanity that come from having strong folk roots; Jewish art,while Jews remain apart and not assimilated into the mainstream"folk", is likely to be imitative, clever, ironical, and so on,but not deep or passionate. The essay brings no comfort toWagner-lovers, but not quite as much comfort to Wagner-haters as issometimes claimed.Some people, by no means antisemitic, eg Patrick Magee,defend Wagner's analysis (stripped of its few paragraphs of merely racistwriting). The essay makes an argument about the need for art to have folkroots if it is to be great. Me, I'd say its too easy to findcounter-examples, for Wagner's analysis to stand. Personally, if I were todefend any part of the essay it would be Wagner's valuing of sincereemotional expression in art over irony. We're starting to hear the phrase"post-irony", but it's not yet a reality. I'd welcome a trendback to having the courage to express emotion, in life as well as art,without always hiding behind quote marks. One of Wagner's merits is assupreme non-ironist. But, point out the detractors, rightly, there's astrong thread of antisemitism in amongst Wagner's discussion of culture andof art in this essay. There is a tone of "balance" in most ofWagner's paragraphs, an assumption of the mask of mere intellectualcuriosity over the odd position of Jewish musicians and poets in themid-19th Century. But in some paragraphs animosity shows throughundisguised. On the other hand, the essay is not the same thing as thepolitical antisemitism that had its horrifying culmination under the Nazis.Wagner's subject was the arts. And his proposed "remedy" was forJews to assimilate into the mainstream population and lose their separateidentity. That's a despicably racist idea (why should they, if they don'twant to?), but it's diametrically the opposite of what the Nazis called for- racial segregation followed by mass murder.Reading it, you'll find thatthe essay contains specific offensive passages, and is permeated by ideaswe now find offensive, but that it is not simply a screed of racial orreligious bigotry; mostly the text argues about art and music. In sum,anyone who loves Wagner's music will wish he'd never written or published"Das Judentum in Musik". It disfigures the man's posthumousreputation. But nor is it quite the screed of racial vilification it issometimes made out to be. Wagner was a bigot and a crank, but not amonster. The book gets three stars, because though it is an appallingtranslation of a bad essay, it does at least make this infamous essayavailable for people to judge it for themnselves. Laon ... Read more |
4. The Wagner Operas by Ernest Newman | |
![]() | Paperback: 746
Pages
(1991-09-23)
list price: US$35.00 -- used & new: US$24.00 (price subject to change: see help) Asin: 0691027161 Average Customer Review: ![]() Canada | United Kingdom | Germany | France | Japan |
Editorial Review Product Description Reading the details of the often complex backgrounds of the operas, aswell as what goes on in the opera itself (the discussion of DieMeistersinger von Nürnberg alone runs to more than 110 pagesof text), should immeasurably enrich the listener's opera-goingexperience, even in this age of the surtitle. And an appreciation ofthe range and cogency of Wagner's musical and dramatic genius, whichthis book offers, will serve to balance the unflattering portrait ofWagner the human being that dominates today's thinking about theMaster. --Patrick J. Smith Customer Reviews (4)
Newman comments intellegently on all aspects of the operas. He includes musical themes--surely a necessity in the work of that expert user of the leitmotif!--and even the psychological dimensions of the music. (Before I saw "Tristan und Isolde," I attended a presentation of a musicologist who nearly broke into tears as to the depth of the music in that opera. His comments reminded me of those of Newman regarding the same piece, which reminds me of Jung, one, whom you might say, was a product of some of the same Germanic trends of the late 19th century. But, enough on that...) I read each review before I see the opera to which it applies. I read them again periodically. They are magnificent, allow for reasonable criticism. But they also give the devil his due. I cannot recommend the book more strongly for anyone interested in Wagner, especially if you plan to hear or see the operas. Then leave the volume next to your bed. It's well worth re-reading, learning all dimensions of the music of perhaps the best composer who ever lived. Is that extreme? Perhaps. Was Wagner's genius extreme? Off the scale. Read and enjoy it.
Laon
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5. The Ring of the Nibelung by Richard Wagner | |
![]() | Paperback: 352
Pages
(1977-08-17)
list price: US$19.95 -- used & new: US$10.01 (price subject to change: see help) Asin: 0393008673 Average Customer Review: ![]() Canada | United Kingdom | Germany | France | Japan |
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6. Das Rheingold in Full Score by Richard Wagner | |
![]() | Paperback: 328
Pages
(1985-09-01)
list price: US$22.95 -- used & new: US$12.90 (price subject to change: see help) Asin: 0486249255 Average Customer Review: ![]() Canada | United Kingdom | Germany | France | Japan |
Editorial Review Product Description Customer Reviews (4)
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7. Jesus of Nazareth and Other Writings by Richard Wagner | |
![]() | Paperback: 441
Pages
(1995-10-01)
list price: US$19.95 -- used & new: US$4.97 (price subject to change: see help) Asin: 0803297807 Average Customer Review: ![]() Canada | United Kingdom | Germany | France | Japan |
Editorial Review Product Description Near the end of his life, Richard Wagner supervised the publication of his collected writings, providing an extensive view of his thoughts about art and politics from his youth to his final period of triumph. After his death, there was still more to be told: his admirers discovered a large number of writings he had forgotten, misplaced, never published, or had chosen to omit from his collected works. This volume, the last of eight volumes now reprinted by the University of Nebraska Press, collects the most illuminating of those works. The title work, “Jesus of Nazareth,” was written in 1848 or 1849; its composition coincided with the most widespread revolutionary ferment seen in Europe. It expresses Wagner’s own revolutionary ideals, thoroughly justified (or so he thought) by Jesus and the early Church. At the time Wagner considered Jesus as a revolutionary leader whose struggles with authority and traditions were much like his own.<br><br>The opening work is “Siegfried’s Death,” a poem written in 1848 that set the tone for his most famous operatic work, the tetralogy Der Ring des Nibelungen. Whole sections of the poem were later incorporated into the fourth Ring opera, Gotterdammerung, but the differences are as revealing as the carryover. The essays that Wagner published in journals but saw fit to exclude from his Gesammelte Schriften might have embarrassed the elderly sage but are key documents to Wagner’s activities in his revolutionary period. For example, his ardently prorevolutionary essay, “The Revolution,” would have displeased the wealthy patrons of his later years. This edition includes the full text of volume 8 of the translation of Wagner’s works published in 1899 for the London Wagner Society. Customer Reviews (2)
All in all, fascinating material not only formusicologists, historians, and Wagnerites, but for those interested in theChristology as seen though the eyes of historical personages. ... Read more |
8. Richard Wagner and His World (The Bard Music Festival) | |
![]() | Paperback: 576
Pages
(2009-07-27)
list price: US$26.95 -- used & new: US$20.03 (price subject to change: see help) Asin: 0691143668 Canada | United Kingdom | Germany | France | Japan |
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9. Wagner: The Terrible Man and His Truthful Art by M. Owen Lee | |
![]() | Paperback: 96
Pages
(1999-09-11)
list price: US$19.95 -- used & new: US$12.04 (price subject to change: see help) Asin: 0802082912 Average Customer Review: ![]() Canada | United Kingdom | Germany | France | Japan |
Editorial Review Product Description How is it possible for a seriously flawed human being to produce art that is good, true, and beautiful? Why is the art of Richard Wagner, a very imperfect man, important and even indispensable to us? In this volume, Father Owen Lee ventures an answer to those questions by way of a figure in Sophocles - the hero Philoctetes.Gifted by his god with a bow that would always shoot true to the mark and indispensable to his fellow Greeks, he was marked by the same god with an odious wound that made him hateful and hated. Sophocles' powerful insight is that those blessed by the gods and indispensable to men are visited as well with great vulnerability and suffering. Wagner: The Terrible Man and His Truthful Art traces some of Wagner's extraordinary influence for good and ill on a century of art and politics - on Eliot and Proust as well as on Adolf Hitler - and discusses in detail Wagner's Tannhouser, the work in which the composer first dramatised the Faustian struggle of a creative artist in whom 'two souls dwell.' In the course of this penetrating study, Father Lee argues that Wagner's ambivalent art is indispensable to us, life-enhancing and ultimately healing. Customer Reviews (5)
The three essays that make up this book were written to be given during the 1998 Larkin-Stuart lectures at the University of Toronto.These lectures are devoted to religious and ethical concerns, and Father Lee took the opportunity to examine the relationship of the artist, Wagner to his art. The first lecture, "Wagner and the Wound That Would Not Heal" tells the story of Philoctetes, who was shunned by his fellow soldiers because of his unhealing wound.Finally, they exiled him on an island on their way to conquer Troy.In their tenth year of war, after the death of Achilles, the Greeks heard a prophecy "that the city would never be taken unless the wounded Philoctetes was brought to Troy with his bow (the gift from Apollo)."The Greeks sailed back to the island where they had abandoned Philoctetes and persuade the wounded, bitter man to use his gift to help them. Father Owen is not a Wagner apologist, but he asks us to recognize our debt to the "hateful, wounded man [we] are in need of"---he whose music can penetrate deeply into our psyche and bring us, if not peace, then at least self-knowledge. The second lecture, "Wagner's Influence: The First Hundred Years" discusses the effect that Wagner exercised, for good and ill, on music, art, literature, politics, and psychology.The author quotes philosopher Bryan Magee as being able to say:"Wagner has had a greater influence than any other single artist on the culture of our age." Of course, the worm at the core of this lecture is Wagner's "unquestioned influence on Adolf Hitler."There are still people who won't listen to Wagner's music, and Father Lee acknowledges this artist's blatant anti-Semitism:"He probably wreaked more havoc on himself with his essay 'Judaism in Music' than with anything else he wrote."A hundred years later, Goebbels was able to use it as vicious propaganda. Can we acknowledge this hateful, wounded man and still be pierced by the beauty of his music?The author goes on to quote Leonard Bernstein's article in the 'New York Times,' entitled "Wagner's Music isn't Racist:" "...And if Wagner wrote great music, as I think he did, why should we not embrace it fully and be nourished by it?" The third and last lecture that completes this book is entitled, "You Use Works of Art to See Your Soul."Father Owen Lee concentrates on Wagner's early opera, "Tannhäuser" to prove his point, with help from authors such as Baudelaire and Goethe.He is even tempted to wonder if Wagner had Martin Luther in mind when he created his tormented young hero, "who was gifted in song, clashed with the Pope, sought refuge in the Wartburg, defied the society he knew, and profoundly changed it." Or perhaps, Wagner was thinking of Wagner. These essays have convinced this reviewer at least, that a seriously flawed human being can produce indispensable, undying, truthful art.
A lot of the material is taken from the book,"Aspects of Wagner", which M. Owen Lee acknowledges as a source. Since I had read these books back-to-back, the repetition of material waseasy to see. There is also a discussion of the opera"Tannhauser", which is discussed in about the same level ofdetail as his commentaries on the Ring.
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10. Finding an Ending: Reflections on Wagner's Ring by Philip Kitcher, Richard Schacht | |
![]() | Paperback: 256
Pages
(2005-09-22)
list price: US$19.99 -- used & new: US$1.50 (price subject to change: see help) Asin: 0195183606 Average Customer Review: ![]() Canada | United Kingdom | Germany | France | Japan |
Editorial Review Product Description Customer Reviews (2)
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11. Wagner: The Terrible Man and His Truthful Art by M. Owen Lee | |
![]() | Paperback: 96
Pages
(1999-09-11)
list price: US$19.95 -- used & new: US$12.04 (price subject to change: see help) Asin: 0802082912 Average Customer Review: ![]() Canada | United Kingdom | Germany | France | Japan |
Editorial Review Product Description How is it possible for a seriously flawed human being to produce art that is good, true, and beautiful? Why is the art of Richard Wagner, a very imperfect man, important and even indispensable to us? In this volume, Father Owen Lee ventures an answer to those questions by way of a figure in Sophocles - the hero Philoctetes.Gifted by his god with a bow that would always shoot true to the mark and indispensable to his fellow Greeks, he was marked by the same god with an odious wound that made him hateful and hated. Sophocles' powerful insight is that those blessed by the gods and indispensable to men are visited as well with great vulnerability and suffering. Wagner: The Terrible Man and His Truthful Art traces some of Wagner's extraordinary influence for good and ill on a century of art and politics - on Eliot and Proust as well as on Adolf Hitler - and discusses in detail Wagner's Tannhouser, the work in which the composer first dramatised the Faustian struggle of a creative artist in whom 'two souls dwell.' In the course of this penetrating study, Father Lee argues that Wagner's ambivalent art is indispensable to us, life-enhancing and ultimately healing. Customer Reviews (5)
The three essays that make up this book were written to be given during the 1998 Larkin-Stuart lectures at the University of Toronto.These lectures are devoted to religious and ethical concerns, and Father Lee took the opportunity to examine the relationship of the artist, Wagner to his art. The first lecture, "Wagner and the Wound That Would Not Heal" tells the story of Philoctetes, who was shunned by his fellow soldiers because of his unhealing wound.Finally, they exiled him on an island on their way to conquer Troy.In their tenth year of war, after the death of Achilles, the Greeks heard a prophecy "that the city would never be taken unless the wounded Philoctetes was brought to Troy with his bow (the gift from Apollo)."The Greeks sailed back to the island where they had abandoned Philoctetes and persuade the wounded, bitter man to use his gift to help them. Father Owen is not a Wagner apologist, but he asks us to recognize our debt to the "hateful, wounded man [we] are in need of"---he whose music can penetrate deeply into our psyche and bring us, if not peace, then at least self-knowledge. The second lecture, "Wagner's Influence: The First Hundred Years" discusses the effect that Wagner exercised, for good and ill, on music, art, literature, politics, and psychology.The author quotes philosopher Bryan Magee as being able to say:"Wagner has had a greater influence than any other single artist on the culture of our age." Of course, the worm at the core of this lecture is Wagner's "unquestioned influence on Adolf Hitler."There are still people who won't listen to Wagner's music, and Father Lee acknowledges this artist's blatant anti-Semitism:"He probably wreaked more havoc on himself with his essay 'Judaism in Music' than with anything else he wrote."A hundred years later, Goebbels was able to use it as vicious propaganda. Can we acknowledge this hateful, wounded man and still be pierced by the beauty of his music?The author goes on to quote Leonard Bernstein's article in the 'New York Times,' entitled "Wagner's Music isn't Racist:" "...And if Wagner wrote great music, as I think he did, why should we not embrace it fully and be nourished by it?" The third and last lecture that completes this book is entitled, "You Use Works of Art to See Your Soul."Father Owen Lee concentrates on Wagner's early opera, "Tannhäuser" to prove his point, with help from authors such as Baudelaire and Goethe.He is even tempted to wonder if Wagner had Martin Luther in mind when he created his tormented young hero, "who was gifted in song, clashed with the Pope, sought refuge in the Wartburg, defied the society he knew, and profoundly changed it." Or perhaps, Wagner was thinking of Wagner. These essays have convinced this reviewer at least, that a seriously flawed human being can produce indispensable, undying, truthful art.
A lot of the material is taken from the book,"Aspects of Wagner", which M. Owen Lee acknowledges as a source. Since I had read these books back-to-back, the repetition of material waseasy to see. There is also a discussion of the opera"Tannhauser", which is discussed in about the same level ofdetail as his commentaries on the Ring.
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12. RICHARD WAGNER- HIS LIFE, ART AND THOUGHT by RONALD TAYLOR | |
Hardcover:
Pages
(1997)
Asin: B00400B76C Average Customer Review: ![]() Canada | United Kingdom | Germany | France | Japan | |
Customer Reviews (1)
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13. Richard Wagner and His World (The Bard Music Festival) | |
![]() | Paperback: 576
Pages
(2009-07-27)
list price: US$26.95 -- used & new: US$20.03 (price subject to change: see help) Asin: 0691143668 Canada | United Kingdom | Germany | France | Japan |
Editorial Review Product Description |
14. Finding an Ending: Reflections on Wagner's Ring by Philip Kitcher, Richard Schacht | |
![]() | Paperback: 256
Pages
(2005-09-22)
list price: US$19.99 -- used & new: US$1.50 (price subject to change: see help) Asin: 0195183606 Average Customer Review: ![]() Canada | United Kingdom | Germany | France | Japan |
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15. Richard Wagner: The Last of the Titans by Joachim Kohler | |
![]() | Hardcover: 704
Pages
(2004-12-11)
list price: US$45.00 -- used & new: US$36.00 (price subject to change: see help) Asin: 0300104227 Average Customer Review: ![]() Canada | United Kingdom | Germany | France | Japan |
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16. Wagner Androgyne by Jean-Jacques Nattiez | |
![]() | Paperback: 384
Pages
(1997-12-22)
list price: US$21.95 -- used & new: US$4.63 (price subject to change: see help) Asin: 0691048320 Canada | United Kingdom | Germany | France | Japan |
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17. Wagner's Ring: Turning the Sky Round by M. Owen Lee | |
![]() | Paperback: 122
Pages
(2004-08-01)
list price: US$10.99 -- used & new: US$5.92 (price subject to change: see help) Asin: 0879101865 Average Customer Review: ![]() Canada | United Kingdom | Germany | France | Japan |
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18. The Art-Work of the Future and Other Works by Richard Wagner | |
![]() | Paperback: 422
Pages
(1993-12-01)
list price: US$25.00 -- used & new: US$11.50 (price subject to change: see help) Asin: 0803297521 Canada | United Kingdom | Germany | France | Japan |
Editorial Review Product Description Poor, frustrated, and angered by the fashion-mongers and mode-purveyors” of art, Richard Wagner published The Art-Work of the Future in 1849. It marked a turning point in his life: an appraisal of the revolutionary passions of mid-century Europe, his farewell to symphonic music, and his vision of the music to come. Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony was unsurpassable, he wrote. Henceforth "The Folk must of necessity be the Artist of the Future," and only artists who were in harmony with the Folk could know what harmony was for. The essay became a touchstone for Wagner, his family, friends, and followers, as he sought to produce works that thoroughly combined music, dance, drama, and national saga. In addition to Wagner’s epoch-defining essay, this volume includes his "Autobiographical Sketch," "Art and Climate"; his libretto for an opera, "Wieland the Smith"; and his notorious "Art and Revolution." The concluding piece, "A Communication to My Friends (1851), explains his views on his first successesThe Flying Dutchman, Lohengrin, and Tannhäuserand defines his agenda for later works. As spokesman for the future, Wagner spoke most of himself. In these works he set forth his ambitions, identified his enemies, and began a campaign for public attention that made him a legend in his own time and in ours. |
19. Richard Wagner And the Jews by Milton E. Brener | |
![]() | Paperback: 343
Pages
(2005-12-21)
list price: US$35.00 -- used & new: US$31.50 (price subject to change: see help) Asin: 0786423706 Average Customer Review: ![]() Canada | United Kingdom | Germany | France | Japan |
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20. My Life, Volume 1 by Richard Wagner | |
![]() | Paperback: 562
Pages
(2010-04-02)
list price: US$42.75 -- used & new: US$23.80 (price subject to change: see help) Asin: 114832898X Canada | United Kingdom | Germany | France | Japan |
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