Magee's WAGNER

Speranza

MAGEE, "Aspects of Wagner"

 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.

 

Magee 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.

You can do no better than rush out and buy "Aspects of Wagner", one of the most stimulating books on music and opera it has been my priviledge to read.

 

(Classical Music

This set of essays makes an ideal introduction to Bayreuth's favourite son.

(Washington Post)

The best short book on Richard Wagner in English.

New Statesman and Society

One of the best, most illuminating, and shortest, discussions of Wagner's work ever written.

 

Oone of the most stimulating books on music and opera it has been my privilege to read.

 

Classical Music

This 20-year-old instant classic, pithy, thoughtful, illuminating, now gains a new chapter on - oddly enough - the least discussed side of Wagner, the music itself.

 

Christopher Grier, London Evening Standard

The intensely readable style as well as the interest of the subject-matter holds the attention from beginning to end.

Magee's book remains one which no-one who ventures to give an opinion on Wagner should have failed to read.

S. A. Music Teacher

Each of these essays offer much that is thought-provoking, examining not only the musical works but also the prose works in which Wagner formulated and set out his ideas on art literature, poetry and the theatre.

It is good to have a new edition of this highly readable little volume, which was first published in 1968.

Altogether, among the millions of pages written about one of the most complex minds in European history, this little book makes a contribution both original and thought provoking, quite out of proportion to its size.

Sir Charles Mackerras

 

The revised edition of this brief but near-classic analysis of Wagner's work has not lost its most distinctive quality; usually for a book of this kind, it demands to be read at one sitting - or even, one admirer has insisted, in a single bathtime.

 

Independent

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MAGEE: The Tristan Chord: Wagner and Philosophy

Richard Wagner's devotees have ranged from the subtlest minds (Proust) to the most brutal (Hitler).

 

The enduring fascination with his works arises not only from his singular fusion of musical innovation and theatrical daring, but also from his largely overlooked engagement with the boldest investigations of modern philosophy.

 

In this radically clarifying book, Bryan Magee traces Wagner's intellectual quests, from his youthful embrace of revolutionary socialism to the near-Buddhist resignation of his final years.

 

Magee shows how abstract thought can permeate music and stimulate creations of great power and beauty.

 

And Magee unflinchingly confronts the Wagner whose paranoia, egocentricity, and anti-Semitism are as repugnant as his achievements are glorious.

At once a biography of the composer, an overview of his times, and an exploration of the intellectual and technical aspects of music, Magee's lucid study offers the best explanation of W. H. Auden's judgment that Wagner, for all his notoriety, was "perhaps the greatest genius that ever lived."

From Library Journal

Magee, a British writer on philosophy, music, and theater criticism and a former member of Parliament, has made a remarkable contribution to the already extensive literature on the life and works of Wagner.

 

His central thesis that Wagner's intense study of philosophy had a profound influence on his compositions is lucidly presented in 17 chapters, each rich with historical detail and intellectual discourse.

 

The chapters proceed in rough chronological sequence.

 

We first read of the young Wagner as a left-wing revolutionary and end with his mature, complex relationship with Nietzsche. In the central part of the book, Magee provides an overview of Schopenhauer's philosophy and reveals the extent to which Wagner completely overhauled his own values in order to embrace that thinker's world view.

 

Readers to whom all this may appear somewhat arcane and daunting will be pleasantly surprised by the eminently readable nature of the book.

 

Magee's text is not only illuminating but also highly personal and enormously engaging.

 

The lengthy appendix, in which he tackles head-on the thorny issue of Wagner's anti-Semitism, is a brilliant, balanced discussion and is alone worth the price of the book.

 

Throughout, Magee cites myriad secondary sources but includes no bibliography.

 

Despite this omission, this work is highly recommended for all public and academic libraries.

 

Those readers already passionate about Wagner's works will find new reasons to appreciate them, and those who have avoided his music will find the book a revelation and may be inspired to rethink their phobia.

From Booklist

Because of Wagner's reputation as a proto-Nazi, many music lovers avoid his work-- or enjoy it as a guilty pleasure.

 

Yes, Wagner did indulge in odious anti-Semitism, and, yes, Hitler adored his music.

 

But Magee convincingly demonstrates that Wagner kept his anti-Semitism out of his music and that most Nazi leaders regarded the composer's works as antithetical to their movement.

 

The young Wagner advocated the radical politics of the left, and when he subsequently abandoned the revolution, he did so not to embrace the politics of the right but rather to repudiate all political thought in favor of metaphysics.

 

Those metaphysics bear the distinctive marks of Schopenhauer, credited by Magee with inspiring the composer to otherwise unattainable operatic feats (in, for instance, Tristan und Isolde and Parsifal).

 

Yet unlike any other creative artist, Wagner contributed as much to philosophy as he took from it, decisively shaping his friend Nietzsche's views through sheer strength of character.

 

A carefully researched account of a fiery personality who transmuted daunting ideas into compelling art. Bryce Christensen

Magee gives us an absorbing history of how Wagner's reading list and his protean musical genius combine, illuminating in the process why these masterpieces can so overwhelm us. A wonderful book.

Russell Platt, Symphony Magazine

A remarkable contribution to the extensive literature on Wagner, Magee's text is not only illuminating but also highly personal and enormously engaging.

Those readers already passionate about Wagner's works will find new reasons to appreciate them, and those who have avoided his music will find the book a revelation.

Library Journal

A sound and highly readable exploration of the composer's philosophical milieu.

Magee's mellow, lucid interpretation of how intellectual influences informed and nourished Wagner's libretti is highly persuasive.

Kirkus Reviews

A carefully researched account of a fiery personality who transmuted daunting ideas into compelling art.

A splendid no-holds-barred account...Magee is unrivalled.

BBC Music Magazine

Enlightening, exciting.

The Tristan Chord is quite simply indispensable and should take its place among any Wagnerian's short list of required reading.

John Rockwell, The New York Times