PARSIFALIA ----

Speranza

By courtesy of D. Everett

Introductory Reading



Wagner Without Fear : Learning to Love - and Even Enjoy - Opera's Most Demanding Genius
William Berger
1998
 New York
Vintage Books

A gentle introduction to Wagner's works in general, and a more detailed account of each of the ten "canonical" operas (see the main FAQ, section II subsection F, for an overview). Written for the newcomer who finds Wagner intimidating, this book provides an introduction to the Wagner phenomenon and a biographical sketch, before presenting the operas. The author also gives practical advice for the novice opera- goer. With recommendations for further reading and listening.

Richard Wagner's Music Dramas
Carl Dahlhaus
Cambridge University Press

One essay for each of the ten stage works in the Bayreuth canon. Michael Tanner writes: Carl Dahlhaus ... gives perhaps the most succinct and helpful account of the specific dramatic and musical features of each work, while largely abstaining from giving his view of their import, or from passing any judgements.

Decoding Wagner : An Invitation to his World of Music Drama
Thomas May
Amadeus Press

Confronting commonly held assumptions, Mr. May presents a straightforward overview of what Richard Wagner attempted to achieve with his artwork of the future, the great emotional power in his art and the world of this deeply misunderstood figure and cultural icon. In its author's words, the book aims to offer a sensible overview of his achievement ... an introduction for those who would like to delve more fully into these works ... The spotlight is on the works themselves, on the common ground behind the music and the drama - and on the relevance this continues to hold for us. With eight pages of b/w photographs.
Other remarks:
Packaged with two full-length BMG Classics CDs.

Wagner Nights
Ernest Newman
Princeton Univ. Press

An authoritative introduction to each of the ten canonical operas. Although this book provides a detailed summary both of the dramatic action and the music, and useful information on the sources and the process of creation respectively of each work, it provides no interpretation of the dramas. Michael Tanner writes: Some of his research is invariably dated, but not seriously so. Given the usual misery of reading opera plots, it is an astonishingly enjoyable book.
Laon comments: Ernest Newman's book remains the best introduction to Wagner's operas. He is astonishingly good on Wagner's sources, and on the draft processes Wagner went through as he transformed source material into his final forms. Other books deal with different aspects of individual operas in more depth, but this is still one of the books to start with. Still relevant today.

Many biographies have been written about Richard Wagner: this list is by no means exhaustive. There are also, below, biographies of Cosima Wagner. Most of Wagner's biographers acknowledge that it is impossible to discuss Wagner's life without also discussing his works; therefore these biographies also contain, to a lesser or greater extent, discussion of the origins and early history of the musical and dramatic works.




Autobiography
Title: My Life

Richard Wagner, Martin Gregor-Dellin (ed. German critical edition), Mary Whittall (ed. English translation)
Da Capo Press NY

Richard Wagner's autobiography, as dictated to Cosima. Wagner had the first three volumes printed privately by G. A. Bonfantini in Basle, in just 15 copies. The first volume was proofread by Friedrich Nietzsche. The fourth and final volume was printed by Th. Burger in Bayreuth in 1880. The first edition of Mein Leben is one of the rarest published documents of the nineteenth century. Of the original 15 copies, those that Wagner had given to selected friends were recalled by Cosima after his death. Most were then destroyed (though, unbeknown to Wagner, his printer Bonfantini had kept a private copy for himself, which was bought from his widow by Mrs. Burrell). A mere handful of copies has survived in the great libraries of the world.
First public edition published by F. Bruckmann, Munich in 1911; second edition 1915, both with some passages suppressed. Suppressed passages first published in Die Musik, xxii, 1929-30, p.725-31; translated by Ernest Newman and published in Fact and Fiction about Wagner, London, 1931, p.199-202. First English translation begun by Wm. Ashton Ellis, completed by an anonymous hand, published 1911 (see David Irvine's book in subsection D below), reprinted by Scholarly Press, Michigan in 1976, then by Constable in 1994. Critical edition of the complete German text, 1963, was the basis for the second English translation in 1983.
Other remarks:
Take it with a pinch of salt. For the electronic edition of the German text, see section XII below.

Biographies of Richard Wagner
In addition to some of the biographies listed here, marked with (P), Deathridge and Dahlhaus include among the "principal biographies" those by M. Koch (Richard Wagner, Berlin, 1907-18), and M. Fehr (Richard Wagners Schweitzer Zeit, Aarau/Leipzig 1934 and Arrau/ Frankfurt a.M., 1954), neither of which appear to have been translated into English.


Title: Richard Wagner : His Life in His Work
Original title: Wagner : Das Leben im Werke
Original language:German
Author(s): Paul Bekker
Translator(s): M. M. Bozman
First published: 1924 (German)
First English edn:1931
Publication date: 1981 (reprint)
Place published: Westport, Conn.
Publisher(s): Greenwood Publishing Group

This is a highly readable biography of the old-fashioned, romantic kind. While some details have been corrected by later scholarship, this does not detract from the value of the book as an introduction to Wagner's life and work. Each chapter concentrates on one or more of the thirteen operas, providing biographical background and introducing the opera, in the order in which the music was written. Thus one chapter is devoted to the creation of the Ring, while later chapters provide the background to Siegfried act 3 and Götterdämmerung respectively; one chapter is devoted to the creation of Tannhäuser and a later chapter considers the rewrite for Paris (the Venusberg) and the ensuing scandal. Bekker is particularly insightful on Wagner's music: he was, for example, the first to observe that the motif Welterbschaft (Inheritance of the World) -- he calls it "the Siegfried melody" (p.397) -- which appears for the first time in S-3-i and for the last time in the closing bars of the tetralogy, is closely related to the march of the Mastersingers. He did not know, however, that this theme had been conceived for Die Sieger (see Osthoff, below). Although Bozman has retained the original German in Bekker's quotations from Wagner's poems, he provides English translations only from "singable" versions (variously by Newman and Corder) which, by diverging from the meaning of the German, can only serve to mislead and confuse the reader.

Richard Wagner : His Life and Works from 1813 to 1834 (P)
Mary Banks Burrell, John Naglee Burk (ed)
First published: 1898
Publication date: 1972 (reprint)
Place published: New York
Publisher(s): Vienna House Inc
ISBN: 0 8443 0031 4
LOC call number: ML410.W1 B82 (1898)

An account of Wagner's early life compiled from original letters, manuscripts, the first three volumes of Wagner's autobiography and other documents by Mrs Burrell née Banks and illustrated with portraits and facsimiles. See also (section VI) the edition of letters collected by Mrs. Burrell. Ernest Newman wrote the following concerning Mrs. Burrell: About 1883, the year of Wagner's death, the Hon. Mrs. Burrell began collecting material for a life of the composer. She managed to obtain from the widow of Bonfantini, the Italian printer in Basle who, between 1870 and 1875, had set up the private edition of Mein Leben (limited to fifteen copies), an extra copy of that work which Bonfantini had surreptitiously struck off for his own benefit. Mein Leben set Mrs. Burrell on the track of a number of people mentioned therein who were still alive, or whose heirs would be likely to possess valuable Wagner documents. She acquired a large number of these documents... Unfortunately Mrs. Burrell died in 1898 after completing only this first volume of her Wagner biography.
Other remarks:
Originally published by A. Wyon, London.


Richard Wagner
Houston Stewart Chamberlain
J.B. Lippincott, J. M. Dent & Co.

Chamberlain, who never met Richard Wagner, would marry Eva Wagner in 1908 and become a central figure in the 'Bayreuth Circle'. He was born an English aristocrat but took German nationality. He is best known for his book Grundlagen des 19. Jahrhunderts, which described human history in terms of racial struggles. Chamberlain's interpretation of Wagner, from a viewpoint of anti-modernism and racial prejudice, can be seen as one step towards his subsequent adoption by the Nazi movement. For biographical information see Evangelist of Race: the Germanic Vision of Houston Stewart Chamberlain, Geoffrey G. Field, Columbia Univ. Press, 1981.
Other remarks:
Originally published by F. Bruckmann (Verlagsanstalt für Kunst und Wissenschaft) , Munich. This edition reprinted 1915, 1925.


Life of Richard Wagner : Being an Authorized English Version of 'Das Leben Richard Wagners' (P)
Carl Friedrich Glasenapp, William Ashton Ellis
First published: 1894 (volumes 1-3 only, German)
First English edn:1900-1908
Publication date: 1977 (reprint)
Place published: London
Publisher(s): Da Capo Press Inc

The first part of Glasenapp's biography translated into English and enlarged by Wm. Ashton Ellis. Glasenapp is generally regarded as having continued the process of myth-making that Wagner himself began in Mein Leben and he has been accused of hagiography. Wagner himself said that if he had not been an artist then he would have liked to have become a saint -- but precisely because he was an artist, he could not also be a saint. Despite its subtitle, Ellis' book only follows Glasenapp for its first three volumes.
Other remarks:
English version originally published by Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner and Co., London. For the electronic edition of Glasenapp's biography, see section XII below.


Title: Wagner and His Works : the Story of his Life, with Critical Comments
Author(s): Henry Theophilus Finck
First published: 1893
Publication date: 1968 (reprint)
Place published: Westport, Conn.
Publisher(s): Greenwood Press
Volume: 2 vols.
ISBN: 1 4047 9097 7
LOC call number: ML410.W1 F3 (1893)
Abstract:
Henry T. Finck was the music editor of The New York Evening Post. A review of this book, from 1893, appears in The Wagner Library.
Other remarks:
Originally published by Charles Scribner's Sons, NY, and by H. Grevel and Co, London.


Title: Richard Wagner : His Life, His Work, His Century (P)
Original title: Richard Wagner : sein Leben, sein Werk, sein Jahrhundert
Original language:German
Author(s): Martin Gregor-Dellin
Translator(s): J. Maxwell Brownjohn
First published: 1980 (German)
Publication date: 1983
Place published: London, San Diego
Publisher(s): Collins, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich
LOC call number: ML410.W1 G73413 1983
Abstract:
Abridged version of the German original. With bibliography.
Other remarks:
For the electronic edition of the German text, see section XII below.


Title: Richard Wagner : The Man, His Mind and His Music (P)
Author(s): Robert Gutman
First published: 1968 (first edition)
Publication date: 1990 (revised edition)
Place published: London and San Diego; Toronto
Publisher(s): Harcourt Brace Jovanovich
ISBN: 0 1402 1168 3 pbk (1971), 0 1567 7615 4 pbk (1990)
LOC call number: ML410.W1 G83 1990
Abstract:
Gutman has been criticized by Wagner scholars for selective and inaccurate quotation, for misrepresenting his sources and for his bizarre interpretations of Wagner's operas. Despite this, his book has been very popular in the USA, where it has poisoned the minds of an entire generation. Some Wagnerians, including the editor of this FAQ, believe that Gutman has done great damage through his influence on other authors (such as Rose, Weiner and Köhler) and on producers of Wagner's works.
Gutman's account of Wagner's life is consistently inaccurate and often highly misleading. He gets the facts wrong about Wagner's birth, his death and much that happened in-between. His portrayal of the "the man" could be considered defamatory. As far as "his mind" is concerned, Gutman portrays Wagner as a sociopathic monster who bears little resemblance to the man described by those who knew him; compare the account by Praeger and Wagner Remembered (personal accounts selected and edited by Spencer). He also describes Wagner as a proto-Nazi and in doing so, makes a better job of portraying a Wagner who would have been acceptable to the Nazi ideologues than did von Westernhagen in his Richard Wagners Kampf gegen seelische Fremdherrschaft. According to Gutman, compared to Wagner, Adolf Hitler was a liberal. In general Gutman's approach is to gainsay Wagner's more scholarly biographers where there is a consensus and to agree with the minority where they are divided, except where the majority view is critical of Wagner. Gutman's comments on "his music" are superficial and built upon an interpretation of Wagner's technique that the composer himself rejected.
On the basis of one word in the libretto -- probably a misprint -- Gutman claims that Tristan und Isolde is about a triangular relationship between the title characters and Tristan's boyfriend, Melot. His interpretation of Parsifal rests upon the assumption that the libretto was influenced by the racial theories of 'Count' Gobineau, despite the fact that Wagner had not read anything by Gobineau until three years after he had completed his libretto. Gutman's interpretation of Parsifal as a celebration of "racial purity" was demolished by Constantin Floros in Studien zur Parsifal- Rezeption (in Richard Wagner: Parsifal, Musik-Konzepte, no. 25, ed. Metzger and Riehn, 1982; pages 25-32) and by Lucy Beckett in her Cambridge Opera Handbook on 'Parsifal', pages 121-123. Unfortunately this perverse interpretation is still being promoted by Barry Millington.
Gutman's treatment of the brief relationship between Wagner and Gobineau cannot be reconciled with the Wagner-Gobineau correspondence, which he had obviously never consulted. When discussing the relationship between Wagner and Nietzsche he accepts without question the distortions and falsifications of Nietzsche's writings and correspondence made by his sister Elisabeth, and he repeats von Westernhagen's interpretation of the "mortal insult", one that later scholarship has shown to be untenable.
The revised edition fails to correct many of the misconceptions, mistranslations, and errors both of fact and of judgement that disfigured the first edition. Those who are concerned for the environment can only weep, at the thought that many trees were cut down for the sake of this dreadful book.
Other remarks:
This book is sometimes found with two others (Culshaw's Ring Resounding and Shaw's Perfect Wagnerite) in a boxed set issued by Time Life Books. The discerning reader will keep only Culshaw and Shaw.


Title: Richard Wagner : A Critical Biography
Author(s): George Ainslie Hight
First published: 1925
Publication date: 2001 (reprint)
Place published:
Publisher(s): Best Books
Volume: 2 vols.
ISBN: 0 7222 5579 9
LOC call number: ML410.Wl H63 (1925)
Abstract:
As well as an account of Wagner's life this book provides an introduction to the major works, with extensive discussion of their musical form and content.
Other remarks:
Originally published by Arrowsmith, London.


Title: Richard Wagner : His Life and Works
Original title: Richard Wagner : sa vie et ses oeuvres
Original language:French
Author(s): Adolphe Jullien
Translator(s): Florence Percival Hall, B.J. Lang (introduction)
First published: 1886 (French), 1886 (UK), 1892 (US)
Publication date: 1981 (reprint)
Place published: Boston; Neptune NJ
Publisher(s): Millet; Paganiniana Publications
Volume: Originally 2 volumes. The reprint is in a single volume.
ISBN: 0 8766 6579 2 (reprint)
LOC call number: ML401.Wl J9 (1892)
Abstract:
A profusely illustrated biography of Richard Wagner. The French original contained fourteen engravings by Fantin-Latour, to whom the book was dedicated, together with many contemporary illustrations. The American edition added further illustrations: according to the title page it contains, ... fifteen portraits of Richard Wagner and one hundred and thirteen text-cuts; scenes from his operas; views of theatres, autographs and numerous caricatures. The Paganiniana reprint has added a few more drawings and photographs, introducing material from the twentieth century. The caption writer was in error, however, in describing Winifred Wagner as granddaughter of Richard Wagner (under illustration facing page 415).
Other remarks:
French original published by J. Rouam, Paris. English translation first published by G. Wood, London.


Title: Richard Wagner : the Last of the Titans
Original title: Der Letzte der Titanen : Richard Wagners Leben und Werk
Original language:German
Author(s): Joachim Köhler
Translator(s): Stewart Spencer
First published: 2001 (German)
Publication date: 2004
Place published: New Haven and London
Publisher(s): Yale University Press
ISBN: 0 3001 0422 7
Abstract:
Joachim Köhler has been called the von Däniken of Wagner scholarship. In this radical reappraisal of Richard Wagner, he reveals that Wagner's relationship with Cosima was based on fear, rather than love; that Wagner was blackmailing his patron, the king of Bavaria; and that Wagner set out to destroy another homosexual, Friedrich Nietzsche. According to Köhler, the key to understanding Wagner's adult life (as the author claims to understand that life) is to be found in his childhood and in his relationships with his mother, his stepfather Geyer and his sister Rosalie during those formative years. With 24 black and white illustrations.
Reviewing this book for The Washington Post, Patrick J. Smith takes the view that it is "very much a product, and victim, of current modes of thought and sensibility. His subtitle, The Last of the Titans, is meant to be cuttingly ironic. Here is a portrait of Wagner with not just feet of clay but a whole body of it, a thoroughly nasty man leading a thoroughly nasty life... Köhler discusses each opera -- even the early, rarely performed ones -- but everywhere his aim is reductive and psychologically obsessed. The transfiguration of woman that recurs in Wagner's operas relates, we're told, to the composer's adoration of the memory of his older sister Rosalie, who died young in childbirth; all Wagner's evil geniuses are reincarnations of his stepfather, Ludwig Geyer, a theater trickster and general nullity (whom Wagner uneasily felt might be his father -- and possibly Jewish to boot). Even the extended discussions of operas are reducible to psychological cliche, such as the "insight" that Lohengrin's problem is a fear of castration, while the essence of the Ring cycle lies in the opposition of the Aryan Siegfried and the Jew Hagen."
Other remarks:
The German original was published by Claassen, Munich.


Title: The Life of Richard Wagner (P)
Author(s): Ernest Newman
First published: 1933-47
Publication date: 1976
Place published: Cambridge
Publisher(s): Cambridge University Press
Volume: 4 vols.
ISBN: 0 5212 9149 6
LOC call number: ML410.W1 N532
Abstract:
Despite it being more than 50 years old, and written at a time when many primary sources were suppressed or difficult to obtain, this is still considered to be one of the most authoritative Wagner biographies in English. Newman had his blind spots, however; as Bryan Magee has pointed out, he was inaccurate when writing about Schopenhauer and his influence on Wagner; and Walker described his treatment of Franz Liszt as character assassination. Reference and source literature is listed at the start of each volume.

Title: Richard Wagner : the Story of an Artist
Original title: Wagner, histoire d'un artiste
Original language:French
Author(s): Guy Comte de Pourtalès
Translator(s): Lewis May
First published: 1932 (English translation)
Publication date: 1972 (reprint)
Place published: Westport, Conn.
Publisher(s): Greenwood Press
LOC call number: ML410.W1 P73 1972
Abstract:
A readable biography. It will be of little value to the scholar, however, on account of the author's occasional carelessness with chronology. In general he follows the canonical account of Wagner's life and work, as defined by Glasenapp, Chamberlain and Wagner himself.
Other remarks:
English translation originally published by Harper and Brothers.


Title: Wagner as I Knew Him
Alternative title:Wagner, wie ich ihn kannte (German translation)
Author(s): Ferdinand Christian Wilhelm Praeger
First publication:1885
Publication date: 2001, 2003 (reprints)
Place published: Honolulu
Publisher(s): University Press of the Pacific; Best Books
ISBN: 1 4102 0771 4 (pbk), 0 7222 5598 5 (hbk)
LOC call number: ML410.W1 P9 (1892)
Abstract:
According to Sir W.H. Hadow this book was received with great alarm and indignation by the Wagnerians, partly because it fell short of unthinking hero-worship, partly because it gave a full and indiscreet account of the Dresden revolution, Wagner's part in which it was a matter of religion to ignore or minimize. The German version of the book was suppressed at the instance of H.S. Chamberlain ... There can be no doubt that Chamberlain's efforts to suppress this book were motivated by the desire to eradicate all knowledge of Wagner's socialist views and of his revolutionary activities, which had become an embarassment to the reactionary "Bayreuth circle".
Hadow concluded: I have read many books on Wagner ... and have come to the conclusion that among contemporary biographies Praeger gives the truest picture. On the other hand Newman described him as, generally untrustworthy, and he is sometimes misleading. Most of Praeger's account is based on what he was told by Wagner himself; in some cases it is likely that Praeger has misunderstood or that a conversation was less than perfectly remembered. It should also be kept in mind that Wagner did not always tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Praeger also relied in part on other unreliable sources and he was not always entirely truthful about his own friendship with Wagner. Despite these faults, the book is a fascinating account of Wagner as he was known to one of his friends.
Two years Wagner's junior, like him Praeger grew up in Leipzig but settled in London from 1834. It was during a visit to Dresden in 1843 that Praeger was introduced to Wagner, perhaps by August Röckel, with whom he maintained a correspondence from which he quotes in this book. Thus Praeger's account of Wagner's revolutionary years is partly based on accounts by Wagner himself -- given during his Zürich years and so before he began to conceal his part in the Dresden revolt -- and partly on letters from Röckel, who served a thirteen-year prison sentence for his part in those events. Praeger and his wife got to know Wagner well at the time of his London concerts in the spring of 1855. This visit is described in detail, although Praeger might have exaggerated the part he played in the decision to invite Wagner.
As well as being a writer, Praeger was a musician and composer. His accounts of the creation of many of Wagner's musical works, although based on conversations with Wagner and study of his scores (and in some cases manuscripts), are not always to be relied upon. For example, his comment that when writing Lohengrin Wagner composed the third act, then the first and second, is a misunderstanding based on examination of the orchestral draft of the score, which was composed in that order, although the earlier draft had been composed from act one to act three.
Other remarks:
Originally published by Longmans, Green and Co., London. German translation (by the author) published in 1892 by Breitkopf and Härtel, Leipzig. The Hawaii edition is a facsimile of an 1892 copy. It does not correct any of the errors in the original, which shows little evidence of editing or proofreading. This especially concerns the German quotations and the titles of Wagner's works, some of which are garbled.


Title: Wagner : A Biography (P)
Original title: Wagner
Original language:German
Author(s): Curt von Westernhagen
Translator(s): Mary Whittall
First published: 1968 (German)
Publication date: 1978
Place published: Cambridge UK
Publisher(s): Cambridge University Press
Volume: 2 vols.
ISBN: 0 5212 8254 3
LOC call number: ML410.W1 W543
Abstract:
A conservative biography from a noted German scholar, who in the 1930s had published a study of Wagner entitled, Richard Wagners Kampf gegen seelische Fremdherrschaft (Richard Wagner's Struggle against Spiritual Foreign Domination), in which he tried to convince the Nazi movement to adopt Wagner and to prefer him to Nietzsche. Even in 1968, Westernhagen still played down Wagner's revolutionary involvement in 1848-9 and referred to Wagner's "alleged" anti-Semitism. Michael Tanner writes: a work of piety by an old Wagnerian, selectively making use of modern research.
Other remarks:
See also Westernhagen's Richard Wagner : sein Werk, sein Wesen, sein Welt (P), Zürich 1956.


B2. Shorter biographies
Title: Wagner, a Biography : with a Selection of Books, Editions and Recordings
Author(s): Robert Anderson
Publication date: 1980
Place published: London and Hamden, Conn.
Publisher(s): C. Bingley, Linnet Books
Series: The Concertgoer's Companions
ISBN: 0 2080 1677 5
LOC call number: ML410.W1 A599
Abstract:
With bibliography and discography.

Title: Wagner
Author(s): John Chancellor
Publication date: 1978 and 1980
Place published: London, Boston
Publisher(s): Weidenfeld and Nicolson; Little, Brown; Panther (pbk)
ISBN: 0 2977 7429 8, 0 3161 3622 0
LOC call number: ML410.W1 C43 1978b
Abstract:
One of the first biographies to make extensive use of Cosima Wagner's Diaries, then newly published. With bibliography.

Title: Wagner, the Man and his Music
Author(s): John Culshaw, Gerald Fitzgerald (picture ed.)
Publication date: 1978 and 1979
Place published: New York and London
Publisher(s): E. P. Dutton, Hutchinson
Series: Composer Series
ISBN: 0 5252 2960 4
LOC call number: ML410.W1 C9
Abstract:
Organization: Metropolitan Opera Guild

Title: The New Grove Wagner
Author(s): John Deathridge and Carl Dahlhaus
Publication date: 1984
Place published: London and New York
Publisher(s): W W Norton & Co
ISBN: 0 3933 1590 8 (pbk)
LOC call number: ML410.W1 D3 1984
Abstract:
A critical biography that destroys some of the myths created by Wagner and later perpetuated by Glasenapp, Ellis and von Westernhagen. Given its origin in a dictionary article, it is understandable that this book emphasises the facts about Wagner and his works, and that it provides little criticism or interpretation. The final chapters, concerning the operas and music-dramas, are essentially an abridged version of Dahlhaus' book Richard Wagner's Music Dramas. There are useful appendices including a list of Wagner's musical and dramatic works (based on the catalogue), a list of his writings and speeches (cross-referenced to GSD/SSD and to the Prose Works), and an extensive bibliography. If, like Mr. Gradgrind, you want facts alone, then this is the biography to obtain.
Other remarks: Reprinted in 1997. Not to be confused with the later book by Barry Millington (see below).

Title: The Life of Richard Wagner and the Wagnerian Drama
Author(s): David Falkayn
Publication date: 2002
Place published:
Publisher(s): Fredonia Books
ISBN: 1 5896 3927 8
LOC call number:
Abstract:

Title: Richard Wagner
Author(s): Hans Gal
Translator(s): Hans-Hubert Schönzeler
First published: 1963 (German)
Publication date: 1976
Place published: New York
Publisher(s): Stein and Day
ISBN: 0 8128 1942 X
LOC call number: ML410.W1 G143 1976b
Abstract:
Part 1: The life of an adventurer. Part 2: The man and his music.

Title: The Illustrated Lives of the Great Composers : Wagner
Author(s): Howard Gray
Publication date: 1990
Place published: London, New York and Sydney
Publisher(s): Omnibus Press
ISBN: 0 7119 1687 X (pbk)
LOC call number: ML410.W1 G685 1990
Abstract:
Wagner's life in words and pictures.

Title: Richard Wagner
Author(s): Sir W. H. Hadow
Publication date: 1934
Place published: London
Publisher(s): T. Butterworth, Ltd.
LOC call number: ML410.W1 H26
Abstract:
An entertaining biography that would make a good short introduction to Wagner's life and works. Apart from Mein Leben (in which Hadow places a little too much faith) and various editions of Wagner's letters, Hadow has distilled and condensed his material from the more substantial biographies already published: primarily those by Bekker, Chamberlain, Ellis, Finck, Hight and Wallace, the memoirs of Praeger, Newman's Wagner as Man and Artist and the first volume of his monumental biography. In other words the book is mostly derivative. There are minor errors, some of which suggest that Hadow was not intimately familiar with Wagner's scores; he is careless with dates.

Title: Richard Wagner, His Life and His Dramas : A Biographical Study of the Man and an Explanation of His Work
Author(s): William James Henderson
First published: 1901
Publication date: 1990 (reprint)
Publisher(s): Reprint Services Corporation
ISBN: 0 7812 9098 8
LOC call number: ML410.Wl H52 (1923)
Abstract:
Other remarks:
Originally published by G.P.Putnam's sons, NY and London. Republished in 1923. Reprinted in 1971, AMS Press, NY.


Title: Richard Wagner, 1813-1883
Author(s): Francis Hueffer
First published: 1872
Publication date: 1934
Place published: London
Publisher(s): Sampson, Low, Marston and Co., Ltd.
LOC call number:
Abstract:

Title: Wagner
Author(s): Robert L. Jacobs
First published: 1965
Publication date: 1977
Place published:
Publisher(s): Littlefield Adams
Series: The Master Musicians
ISBN: 0 8226 0724 7
LOC call number: ML410.W1 J17
Abstract:
Other remarks:
Originally published by J.M. Dent and Sons, London, and by E.P. Dutton and Co., New York.


Title: Wagner and the Romantic Disaster
Author(s): Burnett James
Publication date: 1983
Place published: New York and Tunbridge Wells
Publisher(s): Hippocrene, Midas, Seven Hills
ISBN: 0 8825 4667 8, 0 8593 6106 3
LOC call number:
Abstract:
With bibliography.

Title: Wagner's Life and Works
Author(s): Gustav Kobbé
First published: 1896
Publication date: 2001 (reprint)
Place published: New York
Publisher(s): G. Schirmer
LOC call number: ML410.W1 K72
ISBN: 0 7812 9341 3, 0 7222 5586 1
Volume: 2 vols.
Abstract:
With bibliography.
Other remarks:
Originally published by G. Schirmer, New York.


Title: Portrait of Wagner : an Illustrated Biography
Original title: Richard Wagner in Selbstzeugnissen und Bilddokumenten
Original language:German
Author(s): Hans Mayer
Translator(s): Robert Nowell
Publication date: 1972
Place published: New York
Publisher(s): Herder and Herder
LOC call number: ML410.W1 M28 1972
Abstract:

Title: Wagner
Author(s): Barry Millington
Publication date: 1984
Place published: London
Publisher(s): J.M.Dent and Sons Ltd
Series: The Master Musicians
ISBN: 0 4600 3181 3 (hbk), 0 4608 6069 0 (pbk), 0 3947 5279 1 (pbk)
LOC call number: ML410.W1 M58 1984
Abstract:
Considered by many to be the best single-volume introduction to Wagner's life and works, this short biography (of which only a little over a hundred pages is strictly biographical, the remaining two-thirds of the book considering the works) is very well researched and, in general, a useful introduction. It is also problematic. Millington's discussion of the sources, conception and development of the canonical dramas should be treated with caution; not least because of his extreme focus on Wagner's anti-Semitic and racial obsessions; it has been suggested that Millington is the one with the obsession.
The chapter on the Ring provides a good introduction to the work. Millington provides a brief overview of the sources of the libretto and a detailed account of the origins and development of the scenarios, poems and scores of the four component operas. He discusses Wagner's approach to the synthesis of music and poetry, and he shares some insight into Wagner's leitmotivic technique; he concludes this section by following the Rhinemaidens motif through all the fluctuations of passion throughout the four-part drama, which is something Wagner recommended in an 1879 essay. The chapter ends with a survey of interpretations of the drama, concluding with the assertion that no single interpretation has an exclusive claim to authenticity.
The chapter on Die Meistersinger is the weakest in the book, with its factual errors and strange omissions. In discussing Wagner's source material, it ignores the sources that other commentators have regarded as the most significant. It perpetuates old myths -- such as Wagner's assertion that Hanslick walked out of a reading of the libretto when he recognised himself in Beckmesser -- and introduces new ones, notably Millington's fantasy about an anti-Semitic subtext; see the main Wagner FAQ, part III, section D, for references that discuss this subject.
The earlier sections of his chapter on Parsifal are informative and in parts insightful. In the last three pages, however, Millington embarks upon a muddled discussion of the views of Robert Gutman and the even more extreme interpretation of Parsifal by Hartmut Zelinsky. The naive reader might be left with the impression that there was some substance in these bizarre interpretations of the drama.
Other remarks:
Appendices include a detailed chronology and a bibliography.


Title: The New Grove Wagner
Author(s): Barry Millington (ed.)
Publication date: 2001
Place published: London
Publisher(s): St Martins Press
ISBN: 0 3122 3324 8
LOC call number: ML410.W1 N46 2002
Abstract:
A "spin-off" from the second edition of the New Grove Dictionary, this biography has been developed from articles by Barry Millington and other contributors to New Grove. Some of these articles present a view of each of the canonical dramas that Millington has developed further since writing the 'Master Musicians' biography listed above.
Whilst it must be conceded that Barry Millington has read widely, if not always critically enough, in the Wagner literature, and that he has many facts at his fingertips, the reader should be aware that this author holds an idiosyncratic view of Wagner's life and works. Other commentators, such as Michael Tanner and Dieter Borchmeyer, strongly disagree both with Millington's approach and with his conclusions. The increasing domination of reference works in English by Millington has led to his viewpoint becoming a paradigm, one that should not be taken uncritically; indeed, it can be and should be challenged. Millington's theories, regardless of how many times they appear in print, are not facts and his opinions are by no means beyond criticism.
In his account of Die Meistersinger, Millington alleges that the work was part of an "ideological crusade" that was waged by Wagner in the 1860's. It would be interesting to see some evidence to support the existence of this "crusade" and to know how, if it existed, it affected Die Meistersinger. Millington repeats his claim that the character of Beckmesser carries, at the very least, overtones of anti-Semitic sentiment. This claim is, to put it mildly, highly controversial, and there are many who believe that, in his advocacy of this interpretation, Millington has moved into the "lunatic fringe" of Wagner scholarship.
In his comments on Parsifal, Millington once more alleges that this work contains concepts of racial purity, an idea that he had absorbed from Gutman's book. In fact, there are no references to racial purity, neither direct or indirect, in Parsifal, and it is remarkable that Millington persists in this delusion. Furthermore, the idea that Wagner was concerned with racial purity is a misunderstanding that originated with Gutman and one that all serious scholars have rejected.
Other remarks:
Not to be confused with the earlier book (above), which was derived from the first edition of New Grove, by Deathridge and Dalhaus.


Title: Richard Wagner : a Sketch of his Life and Works
Original title: Richard Wagner : Eine Skizze Seines Lebens Und Wirkens
Original language:German
Author(s): Franz Muncker, Heinrich Nisle (illustrator)
Translator(s): D. Landman
Publication date: 1891
Place published: Bamberg
Publisher(s): Buchner
LOC call number: ML410.W1 M94
Abstract:

Title: Wagner as Man and Artist
Author(s): Ernest Newman
First published: 1914, revised 1925
Publication date: 1963, reprints 1969 and 1989
Publisher(s): Victor Gollancz Ltd; Cape; Limelight Editions
ISBN: 0 2246 1586 6, 0 8791 0052 4 and 0 8446 2653 8
LOC call number: ML410.W1 N5 1925 and ML410.W1 N55 1985
Abstract:
An expanded version of the 1914 original. Neither as detailed nor as informative as Newman's four-volume biography. In the 1914 edition Newman provided the first objective account of the Jessie Laussot affair. J.K. Holman writes that Newman cleared away a vast underbrush of inadequate Wagner commentary ... he separated fact from fiction with regard to aspects of Wagner's personal life, which had been rigidly protected and/or extravagantly reinvented by the composer himself in the autobiography Mein Leben, and subsequently by his wife, Cosima. Newman also separated sense from nonsense in Wagner's extensive theoretical writings ...
Other remarks:
Originally published by J.M. Dent and Sons, London and Toronto. Republished in 1925 by John Lane at The Bodley Head, London. First US edition published by Garden City Pub. Co. in 1937.


Title: Wagner and his World
Author(s): Charles Osborne
Publication date: 1977
Place published: London and New York
Publisher(s): Thames and Hudson, Charles Scribner's Sons
ISBN: 0 5001 3060 4
LOC call number: ML410.W1 O8
Abstract:
Traces Wagner's life through hardships, debt, political exile, long artistic frustrations and triumphant successes. With 142 black and white pictures.

Title: Wagner
Author(s): Elaine Padmore
Publication date: 1971 and 1973
Place published: London and New York
Publisher(s): Faber and Faber Ltd., T. Y. Crowell Co.
ISBN: 0 5710 8785 X, 0 6908 6512 0, 0 6908 6511 2
LOC call number: ML410.W1 P23
Abstract:
Elaine Padmore studied music variously at the University of Birmingham, the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, and Trinity College of Music, London. After a short career as a singer, she became a music producer with the BBC, where she was responsible for opera broadcasts. Ms. Padmore has been director of the Wexford Festival (1982-1994) and artistic director of the Royal Opera in Copenhagen (1993-2002). She is currently the director of opera at Covent Garden.

Title: Richard Wagner
Author(s): Robert Raphael
Publication date: 1969
Place published: New York
Publisher(s): Twayne Publishers
ISBN: 0 8057 2976 3
LOC call number: ML410.W1 R33
Abstract:
With bibliography. Michael Tanner writes concerning Raphael's account of the works: Robert Raphael ... is entirely concerned to elucidate their significance, and mainly does so very well, though one often feels he could be writing about spoken dramas.

Title: Richard Wagner, Composer of Operas
Author(s): John F. Runciman
First published: 1913
Publication date: 2001 (reprint)
Place published:
Publisher(s): Best Books
LOC call number: ML410.Wl R82
Abstract:
Casts aside much previously written about Wagner (by Glasenapp and Chamberlain, for example) and attempts to discover the real Wagner.
Other remarks:
Originally published by G. Bell, London. Available as an etext


Title: The Real Wagner
Author(s): Rudolph Sabor
Publication date: 1987
Place published: London
Publisher(s): Andre Deutsch
ISBN: 0 2339 7870 4
LOC call number: ML410.W1 S12 1987
Abstract:
This biographical study consists of a series of essays, each of them considering a different aspect of Wagner's character, yet also tracing the story of Wagner's life. Much of that story is told in the words of Wagner and his correspondents. The book is beautifully illustrated and obviously a labour of love.
Other remarks:
Foreword by Wolfgang Wagner.


Title: Wagner
Author(s): Michael Tanner
Publication date: 1995
Place published: Cambridge UK, Princeton NJ
Publisher(s): Cambridge Univ. Press, Princeton Univ. Press
ISBN: 0 0025 5532 8, 0 6910 1162 1
LOC call number: ML410.W13 T36 1996
Abstract:
This is more a series of essays than a complete biography. The author discusses Wagner's life in relation to his dramas and the reverse. Tanner's conservative and romantic viewpoint (he writes on opera for the Spectator) makes an interesting contrast to the more radical and analytical approach of Millington, with whom Tanner has crossed swords. Includes a chronology and a short but informative bibliography.

Title: Richard Wagner : His Life, Art and Thought
Author(s): Ronald Taylor
Publication date: 1979
Place published: London and New York
Publisher(s): Paul Elek, Taplinger
ISBN: 0 8008 4792 X
LOC call number: ML410.W1 T4 1979b
Abstract:
With bibliography.

Title: Wagner
Author(s): Walter James Redfern Turner
First published: 1933
Publication date: 1979, 1993 (reprints)
Place published: Westport, Conn.
Publisher(s): Greenwood Press
ISBN: 0 7812 9629 3
LOC call number: ML410.W1 T8
Abstract:
Born in Melbourne in 1884, W.J.R. Turner went to London in 1907 to become a writer. He spent some time in Germany and Austria in 1913-14 writing satirical sketches for the New Age and concert reviews for the Musical Standard. He served in the First World War during which he published The Hunter and Other Poems (1916), the first of sixteen volumes of poetry. From 1918- 1940 he was music critic of the New Statesman.
Other remarks:
Originally published by Duckworth, London.


Title: Richard Wagner as he Lived
Author(s): William Wallace
First published: 1925
Publication date: 2001 (reprint)
Place published:
Publisher(s): Best Books
ISBN: 0 7222 5602 7 (hbk)
LOC call number: ML410.W1 W22 1933
Abstract:
Other remarks:
Originally published by Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner and Co., London. First US edition published by J. Curwen and Sons in 1933.


Title: Richard Wagner : A Biography
Author(s): Derek Watson
Publication date: 1979, 1981, 1983
Place published: London, New York
Publisher(s): J. M. Dent and Co., Schirmer, McGraw-Hill
ISBN: 0 4600 3166 X (hbk), 0 0287 2700 2 (hbk), 0 0706 8479 0 (pbk)
LOC call number: ML410.W1 W38 1981
Abstract:
With bibliography.

B3. Sketches and summaries
Title: Richard Wagner
Author(s): Nathan Haskell Dole
First published: 1891
Publication date: 2003 (reprint)
Place published:
Publisher(s):
ISBN: 0 7950 4262 0
LOC call number: ML410.W1 D66
Abstract:

Title: Richard Wagner : an Introduction
Author(s): Isaac Goldberg
Publication date: 1924
Place published: Girard, Kansas
Publisher(s): Haldeman-Julius Company
LOC call number: ML410.W13 G75
Abstract:
A short introduction to the life and work of Richard Wagner.

Title: An introduction to the Life and Works of Richard Wagner
Author(s): Chappell White
Publication date: 1967
Place published: Englewood Cliffs, N.J.
Publisher(s): Prentice-Hall
LOC call number: ML410.W1 W56
Abstract:

B4. For younger readers
Title: Wagner
Author(s): Greta Cencetti
Publication date: 2001
Place published:
Publisher(s): McGraw-Hill Childrens Publishing
ISBN: 1 5884 5474 6
LOC call number:
Abstract:
For children "in grades 2 to 6" (ages 7-12).

Title: Richard Wagner and German Opera
Author(s): Donna Getzinger and Daniel Felsenfeld
Publication date: 2004
Place published: Greenboro, NC
Publisher(s): Reynolds, Morgan Incorporated
ISBN: 1 9317 9824 9
LOC call number:
Abstract:

Title: Richard Wagner : Titan of Music
Author(s): Monroe Stearns
Publication date: 1969
Place published: New York
Publisher(s): F. Watts
Series: Immortals of Music
LOC call number: ML410.W13 S78
Abstract:
For young readers in grades 4 to 8 (ages 9-14).




C. Biographies of Cosima Wagner
Title: Cosima la sublime
Language: French
Author(s): Françoise Giroud
Publication date: 1996
Place published: Paris
Publisher(s): Fayard, Pocket
ISBN: 2 2135 9532 1 (hbk), 2 2660 7863 1 (pbk)
LOC call number: ML429.W133 G57 1996
Abstract:
Giroud was a feminist, journalist, author, sometime government minister, and cofounder of L'Express.

Title: Cosima Wagner
Original title: Cosima Wagner : Ein Lebens- und Charakterbild
Original language:German
Author(s): Richard Maria Ferdinand Graf Du Moulin-Eckart
Translator(s): Catherine Alison Phillips
First published: 1929-31
Publication date: 1995 (reprint)
Place published: Munich
Publisher(s): Da Capo Press Inc
Volume: 2 vols.
ISBN: 0 3067 6102 5 (pbk)
LOC call number: ML410.W11 C624
Abstract:
The authorised biography of Cosima Wagner. With an introduction by Ernest Newman. Introduction to the Da Capo edition by George Buelow. Martin van Amerongen observes that Du Moulin-Eckart must have written his book lying flat on his stomach, so cringingly obsequious is its tone. Ernest Newman, trying to determine the progress of Wagner's affair with Cosima (in his Life), found Du Moulin-Eckart's biography infuriating: he flits backwards and forwards from fact to fact, from date to date, with as little sense of design as a fly zigzagging across a window-pane.
Other remarks:
Originally published by A.A. Knopf, New York.


Title: Cosima Wagner
Author(s): George Richard Marek
Publication date: 1981-1983
Place published: New York and London
Publisher(s): Harper and Row, Julia MacRae Books
ISBN: 0 0601 2704 X, 0 8620 3120 6
LOC call number: ML429.W133 M4
Abstract:

Title: Richard and Cosima Wagner : Biography of a Marriage
Author(s): Geoffrey Skelton
Publication date: 1982
Place published: London and New York, Boston
Publisher(s): Victor Gollancz Ltd, Houghton Miffin Co.
ISBN: 0 5750 3017 8, 0 3953 1836 X
LOC call number: ML410.W1 S43 1982
Abstract:

Title: Cosima Wagner : a Biography (UK title)
Alternative title:Cosima Wagner : Extraordinary Daughter of Franz Liszt (US title)
Author(s): Alice Hunt Sokoloff
Publication date: 1969-70
Place published: London and New York
Publisher(s): Macdonald and Co.
ISBN: 0 3560 2939 5
LOC call number: ML410.W11 S6 1970
Abstract:




D. Other Biographical Studies
Title: Wagner, a Case History
Original title: De buikspreker van God
Original language:Dutch
Author(s): Martin van Amerongen
Translator(s): Stewart Spencer, Dominic Cakebread
First published: 1983
Publication date: 1983 and 1984
Place published: London and New York
Publisher(s): J. M. Dent and Sons Ltd., G. Braziller
ISBN: 0 4600 4618 7
LOC call number: ML410.W1 A59873 1984
Abstract:
An amusing and irreverent examination first of Richard Wagner's life and works, and secondly of how his descendants have treated his artistic legacy. With a short but interesting bibliography and a brief discography.
Other remarks:
Dutch original was published by Uitgeverij De Arbeiderspers, Amsterdam.


Title: Wagner : A Documentary Study
Original title: Wagner : sein Leben und seine Welt in zeitgenossischen Bildern und Texten
Original language:German
Author(s): Herbert Barth, Dietrich Mack (ed), Egon Voss (ed)
Translator(s): Peter Robert John Ford, Mary Whittall
Publication date: 1975
Place published: London
Publisher(s): Thames and Hudson
ISBN: 0 5002 7399 5
LOC call number: ML410.W1 B1853 1975b
Abstract:
Preface by Pierre Boulez.

Title: The Truth about Wagner
Author(s): Philip Dutton Hurn, Waverley Lewis Root
Publication date: 1930
Place published: New York
Publisher(s): Frederick A. Stokes Company
LOC call number: ML410.W1 H93
Abstract:
In part based on documents in the Burrell Collection. With eleven illustrations in black and white.

Title: Two Essays on Wagner
Author(s): David Irvine
Publication date: 1912
Place published: London
Publisher(s): Watts and Co.
LOC call number ML410.W1 I72 1912
Abstract:
1. Wagner's bad luck, an exposure of 800 errors in the authorised translation of Wagner's autobiography. 2. The badness of Wagner's bad luck, a first exposure of anti-Wagnerian journalism.
Other remarks:
The first of these essays was published in 1911.


Title: Wagner in Exile : 1849-62
Original title: Richard Wagners Verbannung und Ruckkehr 1849-1862
Original language:German
Author(s): Woldemar Lippert
Translator(s): Paul England
First published: 1927 (German)
Publication date: 1930
Place published: London
Publisher(s): G. G. Harrap & Co.
LOC call number: ML410.W11 L4 (German)
Abstract:
Coverage of a previously little-researched part of the composer's life by the keeper of the principal public archives of Saxony. Contains previously unpublished correspondence and other documents.

Title: A Study of Wagner
Author(s): Ernest Newman
First published: 1899
Publication date: 1974 (reprint)
Place published: New York
Publisher(s): Vienna House
ISBN: 0 8443 0065 9
LOC call number: ML410.W13 N5 1974
Abstract:
Newman's first book about Wagner, written while he was still sceptical about his subject.
Other remarks:
Originally published by Bertram Dobell, London.


Title: Fact and Fiction about Wagner
Author(s): Ernest Newman
Publication date: 1931
Place published: London, New York
Publisher(s): Cassell and Co., Alfred Knopf
LOC call number:
Abstract: Newman was so incensed by Hurn and Root's The Truth About Wagner that he wrote this book in response.




E. Wagner and his Circle
Title: The Dream King : Ludwig II of Bavaria
Author(s): Wilfrid Blunt
Publication date: 1970
Place published: London
Publisher(s): Hamish Hamilton Ltd.
ISBN: 0 2411 1293 1
LOC call number:
Abstract:
A biography of Wagner's patron. Passages in this book have been plagiarised, almost word for word, from Newman's Life.
Other remarks:
With a family tree and a short bibliography.


Title: Ludwig II, the Mad King of Bavaria
Author(s): Desmond Chapman-Huston, ed. Osyth Leeston
Publication date: 1990
Place published: New York
Publisher(s): Dorset Press
ISBN: 0 8802 9493 0
LOC call number: DD801
Abstract:
It could be argued that Ludwig was not actually "mad" although he probably did suffer from inherited schizophrenia.

Title: Friedrich Nietzsche: Sämtliche Werke: Kritische Studienausgabe
Alternative title:Nietzsches Werke: historisch-kritische Ausgabe (electronic edition)
Language: German
Author(s): eds. Giorgio Colli, Mazzino Montinari
Author(electronic edition):ed. Malcolm Brown
Publication date: 1980 and 1995 (CDROM)
Place published: Munich
Publisher(s): Deutsche Taschenbuch Verlag
Volume(s): 15 vols.
ISBN: 3 4235 9044 0 (pbk), 3 1101 6599 6 (hbk), 1 5708 5117 4 (CDROM Windows), 1 5708 5079 8 (CDROM Mac)
LOC call number: B3312 .A2 1980
Abstract:
Includes all of Nietzsche's writings and his previously unpublished manuscript notes (Nachgelassene Fragmente), which take up more than half of this edition. Only with the publication of these previously unpublished jottings has it been possible to appreciate the paradigmatic importance of Wagner for Nietzsche. With their richly faceted analyses of the pros and cons of their relationship, they provide a counterweight to the exaggerations of Nietzsche's last two anti-Wagnerian tracts, Der Fall Wagner and Nietzsche contra Wagner. Against the background of his unpublished papers, Nietzsche's published statements on Wagner appear in a substantially different light. It now becomes clear, for example, that Nietzsche's break with Wagner was by no means as radical as posterity, in its ignorance of the sources, long believed. The idea that he changed overnight from an unquestioning Wagnerian to an equally unquestioning anti-Wagnerian belongs to the past. (Dieter Borchmeyer, in Drama and the World of Richard Wagner, 2003).
The editors corrected many distortions and restored many omissions of previous editions, most of them resulting from the attempts of the philosopher's sister Elisabeth to misrepresent aspects of Nietzsche's life, especially concerning his friendships with Richard and Cosima Wagner. Much that had been written about these relationships, by the respective biographers of Nietzsche, Richard and Cosima Wagner, was revealed to have been based on falsehood.
Other remarks:
Originally published by Walter de Gruyter, Berlin.


Title: Friedrich Nietzsche: Sämtliche Werke: Kritische Gesamtausgabe
Language: German
Author(s): eds. Giorgio Colli, Mazzino Montinari, Wolfgang Müller-Lauter, Karl Pestalozzi
Publication date: 1967-
Place published: Berlin
Publisher(s): Walter de Gruyter
Volume(s): 40 vols. (projected)
ISBN: 3 1100 7774 4
LOC call number:
Abstract:
This annotated and strictly chronological complete edition of Nietzsche's writings and notes extends and completes the Kritische Studienausgabe. It aims to render obsolete all previous editions (of which there have been several, in various degrees incomplete and inaccurate).

Title: Wagner and Nietzsche
Original title: Wagner und Nietzsche : der Mystagoge und sein Abtrünniger
Original language:German
Author(s): Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau
Translator(s): Joachim Neugroschel
First publication:1974 (German)
Publication date: 1976-1978
Place published: New York and London
Publisher(s): Seabury Press
ISBN: 0 8164 9280 8
LOC call number: ML410.W19 F563
Abstract:
Like Robert Gutman, Fischer-Dieskau gives too much credence to the "official" version of the breach between Wagner and Nietzsche. Cosima's Diaries and other evidence provide abundant grounds to doubt the story of the final conversation between Wagner and Nietzsche, which according to the "official" version took place at Sorrento on 2 November 1876. In fact this story is entirely the invention of Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche.
Much that has been written about the relationship between Wagner and Nietzsche has been made obsolete by more recent scholarship, which has in large part been concerned with tearing down the edifice constructed by Nietzsche's sister Elisabeth. An important part in this has been played by the critical editions respectively of Nietzsche's writings and of his letters edited by Giorgio Colli and Mazzino Montinari. These editions have, amongst other corrections, revealed some of the passages concerning Wagner in Nietzsche's later works to have been falsified by Nietzsche's sister.

Title: Wagner at Home
Original title: Le collier des jours : le troisième rang du collier
Alternative title:Visites à Richard Wagner
Original language:French
Author(s): Judith Gautier
Translator(s): Effie Dunreith Massie
First publication:1909, revised 1943 (French)
First English edn:1910-11
Publication date: 2001 (reprint)
Place published:
Publisher(s): Best Books
ISBN: 0 7222 5572 1 (hbk)
LOC call number: ML410.W1 G28 (1912)
Abstract:
Memoirs of Judith Gautier (1845-1917), a French author (member of the the Academie Goncourt and of the Legion d'Honneur) with whom Wagner became infatuated during the 1870s. She kept him supplied with fabrics, perfumes and intimate letters (which he destroyed) during the composition of Parsifal. Judith translated the libretto into French.
Other remarks:
Translation originally published in by Mills and Boon Ltd (London) and John Lane Inc. (New York). See below for a biography of Judith Gautier.


Title: Magic Fire : Scenes Around Richard Wagner
Author(s): Bernita Leonarz Harding
Publication date: 1953
Place published: Indianapolis
Publisher(s): Bobbs Merrill
LOC call number:
Abstract:
These scenes focus on four of the most important people in Wagner's life: Minna Wagner, Mathilde Wesendonck, King Ludwig II, and Cosima Wagner. Written in a popular style, not scholarly.

Title: Nietzsche and Wagner : A Lesson in Subjugation
Original title: Friedrich Nietzsche und Cosima Wagner : Die Schule der Unterwerfung
Original language:German
Author(s): Joachim Köhler
Translator(s): Ronald Taylor
First publication:1996 (German)
Publication date: 1998
Place published: New Haven and London
Publisher(s): Yale University Press
ISBN: 0 3000 7640 1
LOC call number: B3316 .K63 1998
Abstract:
Laon writes: "I am sorry to say that this book has the scholarly merit of a UFO abduction memoir. Köhler asserts that Nietzsche was homosexual, a claim for which he adduces no evidence at all. But we have plenty of evidence of Nietzsche's heterosexuality and no evidence at all of same-sex desire or practice. Nietzsche was a misogynist, hostile and contemptuous towards women, also clearly afraid of them, but that doesn't make him homosexual. Köhler seems to think that claiming something is the same as making it so. He also claims that after the Nietzsche- Wagner split Wagner conducted a relentless and vindictive campaign against Nietzsche on the grounds that he was homosexual. Again, Köhler doen't support this claim of a homophobic campaign by Wagner with any evidence. But then, how could he? There was no such campaign. It is clear from Cosima Wagner's Diaries that Wagner's private reaction to the split with Nietzsche was regret, a wish to have the breach healed, and an undoubtedly patronising pity for that poor young man Nietzsche. These are not the sort of feelings that lead to persecution or a campaign of vilification, as Köhler claims. Wagner's actual attitude to homosexuals is suggested in an earlier letter to a homosexual friend. Wagner suggests that his friend try to cut down a little, on the pederasty. The attitude is one of amused tolerance, which won't do now, but it was progressive and liberal by the standards of his time. Wagner was not a homophobe. Wagner did not respond in public to Nietzsche's repeated attacks (except once, a very indirect reference in one of his essays, without mentioning Nietzsche's name); contra Köhler, the abuse was very much a one-way street, and not in the direction that Köhler suggests. Köhler also presents a Nietzsche who wrote anti-Semitic passages in his works during the alliance with Wagner, but who stopped after the split. This is simply and flagrantly untrue. The post-Wagner Nietzsche attacked anti-Semites, but he also continued to attack and insult Jews."

Title: The Swan King : Ludwig II of Bavaria
Author(s): Christopher McIntosh
Publication date: 1982
Place published: London
Publisher(s): Allen Lane
ISBN: 0 7139 1204 9
LOC call number:
Abstract:
Another biography of Wagner's patron.

Title: Personal Recollections of Wagner
Original title: Erinnerungen an Richard Wagner
Original language:German
Author(s): Angelo Neumann
Translator(s): Edith Livermore
First publication:1907 (German), 1909 (English)
Publication date: 2001 (reprint)
Place published:
Publisher(s): Best Books
ISBN: 0 7222 5592 6
LOC call number: ML410.W1 N42
Abstract:
Neumann was a singer, producer and impresario who, while director of the Leipzig opera, obtained permission from Wagner to stage the Ring there. He proposed to establish a Wagner theatre in Berlin, although sufficient funding was never raised for this project. In 1882 with Wagner's permission, Neumann produced a staging of the Ring suitable for touring, which he staged all over Europe. Like many of Wagner's most enthusiastic supporters, remarkably, Neumann was Jewish.
Other remarks:
English translation first published by Archibald Constable and Co., London.


Title: Judith Gautier : A Biography
Author(s): Joanna Richardson
Publication date: 1986-87
Place published: London and New York
Publisher(s): Quartet books
ISBN: 0 7043 2483 0, 0 5311 5025 9 (hbk), 0 7043 0085 0 (pbk)
LOC call number: PQ2257.G9 Z84 1987
Abstract:
Judith Gautier was Wagner's muse during the composition of Parsifal.

Title: A Richard Wagner Dictionary
Author(s): Edward M. Terry
Publication date: 1939
Place published: New York
Publisher(s): H.W. Wilson
LOC call number: ML410.W1 A15
Abstract:
This is a quick alphabetical reference guide to places and people in Wagner's life, titles of his prose works (keyed to the Ellis' translation), synopses of the operas, and biographies of the operas' characters . With musical examples.

Title: Recollections of Richard Wagner
Original title: Erinnerungen an Richard Wagner
Original language:German
Author(s): Baron Hans von Wolzogen
Translator(s): Agnes and Carnegie Simpson
Publication date: 1894
Place published: Bayreuth
Publisher(s): C. Giessel
LOC call number: ML410.W1 W7
Abstract:
The young poet Hans von Wolzogen became an enthusiastic disciple of Wagner in his student days, corresponded with Wagner, and was invited to Bayreuth in October 1877 to become editor of the publication Bayreuther Blätter. This periodical became his life's work; publication ended with Wolzogen's death in 1938. He also produced a series of thematic guides to Wagner's operas (see section IV) and edited three volumes of Wagner's letters (see section VI).




F. Wagner and his Contemporaries
Title: Mozart, Weber, and Wagner : With Various Essays on Musical Subjects
Original language:French
Author(s): Hector Berlioz
Translator(s): Edwin Evans
First publication:1918
Publication date: 1986, 1999 (reprints)
Place published: New York
Publisher(s): Somerset, Reprint Services Corp.
ISBN: 0 7812 0566 2
LOC call number: ML410.B5 A543 1918z
Abstract:
Other remarks:
Originally published in translation by W. Reeves, London.


Title: Aus Eduard Hanslicks Wagner-Kritiken
Language: German
Author(s): Eduard Hanslick, Heinrich Kralik (ed.)
Publication date: 1947
Place published: Vienna and New York
Publisher(s): Europa Verlag
LOC call number: ML410.W13 H16
Abstract:

Title: Eduard Hanslick's Music Criticisms
Original language:German
Author(s): Eduard Hanslick
Translator(s): Henry Pleasants
Publication date: 1988
Place published: New York
Publisher(s): Dover Publications
ISBN: 0 4862 5739 8
LOC call number: ML246.8.V6 H242 1988
Abstract:

Title: Richard Wagner's Visit To Rossini And An Evening At Rossini's In Beau-Sejour
Original language:French
Author(s): Edmond Michotte
Translator(s): Herbert Weinstock
First publication:1893 and 1906 (French)
Publication date: 1992
Place published: London
Publisher(s): Quartet Books
ISBN:
LOC call number: ML410.W11 M42
Abstract:
Two short memoirs by a friend of Rossini.

Title: Wagner Remembered
Author(s): Stewart Spencer
Publication date: 2000
Place published: London
Publisher(s): Faber and Faber Ltd
ISBN: 0 5711 9653 5
LOC call number:
Abstract:
Richard Wagner as portrayed in the memoirs and diaries of relatives, friends and fellow musicians. Including Queen Victoria, King Ludwig and Giacomo Meyerbeer.




III. General Titles about Richard Wagner
These are general books about Wagner and his ideas, that do not fall into the categories above.


A. Influences on Wagner
Title: Schiller and Wagner : a Study of their Dramatic Theory and Technique
Author(s): Marie Haefliger Graves
Publication date: 1938
Place published: Ann Arbor, MI
Publisher(s): Published by the author.
LOC call number: PT2494 .G7
Abstract:
Graves compares the dramatic techniques of Schiller and Wagner, and discusses the influence of Shakespeare and classical Greek drama on both dramatists.
Other remarks:
Reprinted in 1947.


Title: The Influence of Shakespeare on Richard Wagner
Author(s): Margaret Inwood
Publication date: 2000
Place published: New York, Queenstown Ontario and Lampeter Wales
Publisher(s): Edwin Mellen Press
ISBN: 0 7734 7774 8
LOC call number: ML410.W19 I59 1999
Series: Studies in the History and Interpretation of Music
Volume: No.64
Abstract:

Title: Wagner and Beethoven : Richard Wagner's Reception of Beethoven
Original title: Wagner und Beethoven : Untersuchung zur Beethoven-Rezeption Richard Wagners
Original language:German
Author(s): Klaus Kropfinger
Translator(s): Peter Palmer
Publication date: 1991
Place published: Cambridge UK
Publisher(s): Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 0 5213 4201 5
LOC call number: ML410.W19 K9313 1991
Abstract:
The impact of Beethoven's music on Wagner and its importance for his conception of music drama. Kropfinger charts and scrutinizes Wagner's early responses to the composer and considers his experience as a conductor of Beethoven's music.
Other remarks: Table of contents.

B. Wagner's Influence
Title: Darwin, Marx, Wagner : Critique of a Heritage
Author(s): Jacques Barzun
First publication:1958
Publication date: 1981
Place published: Chicago
Publisher(s): Univ. of Chicago Press
LOC call number: CT105 .B33
Abstract:
Among the subjects discussed in the book are Wagner's relationships with Berlioz, Liszt and Nietzsche, and his influence on literature and artistic life in Germany and England respectively.
Other remarks:
Originally published by Doubleday and Co.


Title: Wagner and Debussy
Author(s): Robin Holloway
Publication date: 1979
Place published: London
Publisher(s): Eulenburg
ISBN: 0 9038 7325 7
Abstract:

Title: Musica Ficta : Figures of Wagner
Original language:French
Author(s): Philippe Lacoue-Labarthe
Translator(s): Felicia McCarren
First publication:1991 (French)
Publication date: 1994
Place published: Stanford
Publisher(s): Stanford Univ. Press
ISBN: 0 8047 2385 0 (hbk), 0 8047 2376 1 (pbk)
LOC call number: ML410.W19 L213 1994
Abstract:
The title of this book is deceptive: although Wagner is very much present in the first of the four essays, he progressively fades away in the remaining three. The first essay deals with the impact of Wagner's music on Baudelaire, who wrote an extraordinary letter to the composer after first hearing excerpts from four of Wagner's operas at a concert in 1860. He declared them sublime. It is interesting to note that this initial reaction was to Wagner's music as absolute music and not in the context of the Gesamtkunstwerk, and so not to the Wagnerian program itself. If not already, then before writing his Richard Wagner and Tannhäuser in Paris a year later, Baudelaire had read an article in which Wagner summarised his theoretical ideas. Lacoue-Labarthe (or his translator) refers to it as the Letter on Music but it might be better known to the reader as Zukunftmusik or The Music of the Future. The second essay concerns Mallarmé, who was expressing opinions about Wagner before he had heard a note of his music; although Mallarmé had read both Baudelaire's essay and Zukunftmusik. Those who find Mallarmé's prose opaque should not expect Lacoue-Labarthe to provide illumination.
The next essay is about Heidegger's views on art. Although Wagner is scarcely mentioned in Heidegger's works -- neither is music -- the author has found one place where he is discussed: in a series of lectures on Nietzsche's ideas about art and aesthetics, The Will to Power as Art, which Lacoue-Labarthe explores together with an almost contemporary essay by Heidegger, On the Origin of the Art-work. It is not always easy to tell when the author is discussing Nietzsche's thought and when he is discussing Heidegger's thoughts inspired by Nietzsche; and to complicate matters further, the discussion is grounded in Hegel's theory of the historical development of art and aesthetics. The essay touches on such interesting questions as whether Wagner's post- 1850 dramas were an artistic project or an aesthetic one, whether this project was a failure, and whether Nietzsche's break with Wagner was justified on philosophical grounds. Heidegger claimed that it was a historical necessity, and in particular a necessity of German history.
The last essay is about Adorno and contains few mentions of Wagner, which is perhaps just as well. It starts out in the direction of a general discussion of the relative importance of words and music in opera (the theme of Strauss' Capriccio) but soon focuses on a late (1963) essay by Adorno, one concerning Schoenberg's Moses and Aaron, and ends up considering this opera in relation to Hegel's concept of the sublime. The author's connection of this essay to Hölderlin's theory of tragedy is clever rather than explanatory and his comparison of Schoenberg's opera to Parsifal is superficial; it would have been more interesting to read a discussion of whether Adorno's arguments about Moses also could be applied to Tannhäuser.
Although one can sympathise with a translator who has to render a work filled with philosophical terminology from French, and in addition cope with extensive quotations from works originally published in German, the result could be described as polyglot and must be read with some care. It would have helped if the translator had taken more care with near- cognates; for example, by writing Affekt rather than (as noun) affect. As far as I know, there is no such word in English as "historial" (which is used throughout the book); the correct translation of "geschichtliche" is, historical or historic. It does not help that the author delights not only in using Greek words (such as mimesis =representation; agôn, anamnesis ="the remembrance of things past", eidos, ekphanastathon, épistèmè, katharsis, lexis, metexis, mousiké, phainesthai, physis, polémos, propos, tekhnè, topos, tupein, haplè diègèsis) and quoting from St. John's Gospel but also in using words derived from Greek roots (such as, eidetic). Those readers who have forgotten their Greek should have a dictionary close to hand.
Other remarks: Table of contents.

Title: Richard Wagner : The Terrible Man and His Truthful Art: The 1998 Larkin-Stuart Lectures
Author(s): M. Owen Lee
Publication date: 1999
Place published: Toronto and New York
Publisher(s): University of Toronto Press
ISBN: 0 8020 4721 1
LOC call number: ML410.W13 L44 1999
Abstract:
Discusses various aspects of Wagner and his influence.

C. Wagner as Thinker
Title: The Ideas of Richard Wagner : An Examination and Analysis
Author(s): Alan Aberbach
First publication:1988 (first edition)
Publication date: 2003 (second edition)
Place published: Lanham and Oxford
Publisher(s): University Press of America
ISBN: 0 7618 2524 X
LOC call number: ML410.W13 A22 2003
Abstract:
As its sub-title indicates, this book examines and analyses the wide range of ideas that Wagner absorbed, developed and in many cases made his own. The author presents these ideas largely in Wagner's own words, as expressed in his prose works and letters. Unlike the authors of some of the books listed here, Aberbach provides generous, relevant and revealing quotations, rather than just phrases, from Wagner himself, in the best translations available.
The book might be considered a biographical supplement, since it traces the development of Wagner's thoughts from optimistic youth through pessimistic middle-age to irascible old-age. The book contains three sections, entitled respectively: 'The Political Stage', 'The Spiritual and Religious Stage' and 'The Artistic Stage'. With bibliography.

Title: In Search of Wagner
Original title: Versuch über Wagner
Original language:German
Author(s): Theodor Adorno
Translator(s): Rodney Livingstone
First publication:1952 (German)
Publication date: 1981
Place published: London
Publisher(s): Verso Books
ISBN: 0 8609 1796 7
LOC call number: ML410.W1 A5953 1981
Abstract:
A Marxist viewpoint on Wagner and his works. As far as the editor has been able to establish, Adorno was the first writer to suggest that Beckmesser and Klingsor might be Jewish caricatures. Michael Tanner writes: important because of its author, showing how a thinker of genius can be led by reacting to Wagner's art into wild postures of rejection, and sneaking admiration.
Adorno's writing on Wagner betrays an ideological obsessiveness to wrap Wagner up into a Marxist framework. He thus searches for both progressive and regressive tendencies in Wagner to fit his dialectical metaphor, relates the atomization of the musical materials to factory production methods and even recasts Wagner's assumed dual roles of poet and composer as a reaction against capitalist division of labour.
Other remarks:
This translation was last reprinted in 1991. For an assessment of Adorno's reaction to Wagner, see the book Musica Ficta by Lacoue-Labarthe, above.


Title: Wagner and the Reform of the Opera
Author(s): Edward Dannreuther
Publication date: 1904 (2nd edition)
Place published: London
Publisher(s): Augener and Co.
LOC call number: ML410.W13 D18
Abstract:
Dannreuther was the founder of the London Wagner Society in 1872. He assisted Wagner in obtaining a dragon and other properties for the 1876 Bayreuth Ring and with his London tour a year later. This book is an expanded version of his earlier pamphlet; see below.

Title: Richard Wagner : His Tendencies and Theories
Author(s): Edward Dannreuther
Publication date: 1873
Place published: London
Publisher(s): Augener and Co.
LOC call number: ML55.T2 vol. 6
Abstract:
A collection of essays, originally published in the Monthly Musical Review, in which the author discusses Wagner's aesthetic theories. Dannreuther emphasised the inspiration that Wagner found in Greek tragedy, which he believed that Wagner had tried to revitalise under the guidance of the spirit of music.

Title: The Fertilizing Seed : Wagner's Concept of Poetic Intent
Author(s): Frank W. Glass
Publication date: 1982
Place published: Ann Arbor MI
Publisher(s): UMI Research Press
Series: Studies in Musicology
Volume: No.63
ISBN: 0 8357 1561 2
LOC call number: ML410.W19 G46 1983
Abstract:
Discusses Wagner's theories as presented in his most extensive treatise Oper und Drama and examines how his ideas developed subsequently. The majority of writers about Wagner's theory and practise have concluded that his ideas underwent a reversal between 1851 and 1870. Glass prefers to see this as a change of emphasis. He argues that Wagner consistently held on to one idea: that the "poetic intent" stimulates a musical response and calls it forth as drama. Glass calls this the fundamental idea of Oper und Drama and finds it still present, although with a different emphasis, in the later theoretical writings.

Title: Wagner's Musical Prose : Texts and Contexts
Author(s): Thomas S. Grey
Publication date: 1995
Place published: Cambridge UK
Publisher(s): Cambridge University Press
Series: New Perspectives in Music History and Criticism
ISBN: 0 5214 1738 4
LOC call number: ML410.W19 G83 1995
Abstract:
A study of the prose writings of Richard Wagner and their relevance to an understanding of his music and drama, as well as their relation to music criticism and aesthetics in the 19th century in general. Grey considers Wagner's ambivalence concerning the idea of absolute music and the capacity of music to project meaning or drama; Wagner's appropriation of a Beethoven legacy, the metaphors of musical gender and biology in Opera and Drama, and the critical background to ideas of motive and leitmotif in theory and practice.
Other remarks: Table of contents

Title: Richard Wagner and the Music of the Future : History and Aesthetics
Alternative title:Richard Wagner und die Musik der Zukunft
Author(s): Francis Hueffer
First publication:1874
Publication date: 1971 (reprint)
Place published: Freeport, NY
Publisher(s): Books for Libraries Press
Series: The Great Musicians
ISBN: 0 8369 2508 4
LOC call number: ML390 .H88 (1874)
Abstract:
According to Hueffer, Schopenhauer's doctrine that music is an immediate and direct copy of the Will led Wagner to believe that only music could express the inner life of mankind.
Other remarks:
Originally published by Chapman and Hall, London. German version published by F.E.C. Leuckart, Leipzig, in 1877.


Title: A Wagnerian's Midsummer Madness
Author(s): David Irvine
Publication date: 1899
Place published: London
Publisher(s): H. Grevel and Co.
LOC call number:
Abstract:
Essays by a Scottish evangelist for Wagner and Schopenhauer, who appropriated their ideas for his own philosophical and political ends. Unlike G.B. Shaw, whose Wagnerism was closely related to his Fabianism, Irvine's Wagnerism is metaphysical.

Title: Pro and Contra Wagner
Original title: Wagner und unsere Zeit
Original language:German
Author(s): Thomas Mann
Translator(s): Allan Blunden
Publication date: 1985
Place published: London and Chicago
Publisher(s): Faber
ISBN: 0 5711 3150 6 (hbk), 0 5711 3636 2 (pbk)
LOC call number: ML410.W1 M253 1985
Abstract:
Includes Mann's 1933 lecture, The Sorrows and Grandeur of Richard Wagner. There is a clear tendency in much recent writing about Wagner and his works to regard Mann as an authority. Although he was often perceptive, Mann was often wrong on these matters, and many later writers have been unwise to rely on Mann's judgements. For example, his claim, made in the above-mentioned essay, that in his Dresden years Wagner had seen his whole career carefully mapped out in advance. In fact, many of the projects that were "mapped out" in those years, such as Wieland der Schmied, were never carried out, while the romances of Tristan and Parzival respectively were (at most) two among many possible subjects that Wagner was considering for operatic treatment.
Other remarks:
With an introduction by Erich Heller and a preface by Patrick Carnegy.


Title: Wagner in Thought and Practice
Author(s): Geoffrey Skelton
Publication date: 1992
Place published: Portland, OR
Publisher(s): Amadeus Press
ISBN: 0 9313 4058 6
LOC call number: ML410.W13 S54 1992
Abstract:

Title: Richard Wagner and the Synthesis of the Arts
Author(s): Jack M. Stein
First published: 1960
Publication date: 1973
Place published: Detroit
Publisher(s): Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc.
ISBN: 0 8371 6806 6
LOC call number: ML410.W1 S83
Abstract:
Professor Stein considers the development of Wagner's ideas about the synthesis of poetry, music, dance and drama from the writings of his Paris years through to the Beethoven essay of 1870 and the lecture On the Destiny of Opera in 1871. Stein examines how the stage- works from Rienzi to Parsifal reflect the development of Wagner's theoretical ideas.
Other remarks:
Originally published by Wayne Univ. Press, Detroit.


Title: Interpreting Wagner
Author(s): James Treadwell
Publication date: 2003
Place published: New Haven and London
Publisher(s): Yale University Press
ISBN: 0 3000 9815 4
LOC call number: ML410.W13 T73 2003
Abstract:
It is not entirely clear why this book was written, except that the author obviously wanted to write it. He declares at the outset that it was not intended as an interpretation of Wagner, nor as a guide to how Wagner ought to be interpreted. On page 133 he confides, this is not a book about what Wagner's work means but how it means; by which he might mean, how those works work. Much of what Treadwell writes (and he writes well) is insightful. He finds an appropriate balance of discussion between concepts, words and (without being too technical) music; and care has been taken with translations. On the other hand, too much of the book is derivative, repeating analysis to be found in earlier books listed in this bibliography. Some might find this book too much influenced by Adorno, or too conventional, or question some of Treadwell's judgements (for example, that Tristan is formless). The author has little to say that has not been said before.
The text is sometimes inaccurate (e.g. his unqualified assertion that the Parsifal material was mentioned several times by Wagner in 1856) or misleading (e.g. when he refers to Parsifal as a "holy fool"), and the reflective reader will not agree with all of the author's sweeping generalizations. The best part is a concise analysis of Meistersinger; the weakest parts are those in which the author reveals a limited grasp of Wagner's ideas about religion.
Other remarks: Table of contents

D. Wagner as Poet
Title: Wagnerian Drama : an Attempt to Inspire a Better Appreciation of Wagner as a Dramatic Poet
Author(s): Houston Stewart Chamberlain
Publication date: 1923
Place published: London
Publisher(s): John Lane
LOC call number: ML410.W13 C54
Abstract:
A look at Wagner as a dramatic poet instead of Wagner, the musician.

Title: Richard Wagner as Poet
Original language:German
Author(s): Wolfgang Golther
Translator(s): Jessie Haynes
Publication date: 1905
Place published: London
Publisher(s): W. Heinemann
LOC call number: ML410.W18 G72
Abstract:
Wolfgang Golther is best known as the editor of the correspondence between Richard Wagner and Mathilde Wesendonck. He also wrote a series of books that explore Wagner's source material.

E. Wagner as Musician
Title: Wagner Werk-Verzeichnis : Verzeichnis der musikalischen Werke Richard Wagners und ihrer Quellen : Erarbeitet im Rahmen der Richard Wagner-Gesamtausgabe
Author(s): John Deathridge (ed), Martin Geck, Egon Voss, Isolde Vetter (ass.ed)
Language: German
Publication date: 1986
Place published: Mainz
Publisher(s): Schott
ISBN: 3 7957 2201 2
LOC call number: ML134.W1 A15 1986
Abstract:
The (almost) complete catalogue of Wagner's musical and dramatic works, including sketches, unfinished and lost works, and even some works for which text, but no music, was written. For each of the works included, the catalogue lists its title, subtitle, genre and, where appropriate, an indication of key and the musical forces for which it was written. For the stage works, it gives the locations of the action and role lists as they appear in printed editions. Musical incipits are given for each work for which any music has survived. Manuscripts are listed both for text (sketches, prose drafts and poems) and for music (drafts, complete drafts and facsimiles). Early printed editions of the full text and of scores (full, vocal and extracts) are listed for each of the published works.

F. Essay Collections
Title: The Wagner Companion
Author(s): Peter Burbidge (ed), Richard Sutton (ed)
Publication date: 1979
Place published: London
Publisher(s): Faber
ISBN: 0 5711 0471 1
LOC call number: ML410.W13 W12 1979
Abstract:
J.K. Holman writes, This is a collection of essays covering Wagner's life and work, arranged by subject and covering a wide range of significant issues. The chapters on the German intellectual and literary background, rarely explored in English, are particularly useful. The gem is Deryck Cooke on Wagner's development of revolutionary harmonic techniques to articulate a coherent musical language.
Other remarks:
Cooke's analysis of the musical motives of the Ring has been reissued on a CD set, Decca/London 443 581-2.


Title: Re-reading Wagner
Author(s): Reinhold Grimm (ed), Jost Hermand (ed)
Publication date: 1993
Publisher(s): Univ of Wisconsin Press
ISBN: 0 2999 7076 0
LOC call number: ML410.W131 R3 1993
Abstract:
A collection of diverse essays about Wagner and his influence.

Title: Richard Wagner for the New Millenium
Author(s): Alex Lubet, Matthew Bribitzer-Stull, Gottfried Wagner
Publication date: 2007
Place published: Tel Aviv
Publisher(s): Palgrave Macmillan
ISBN: 1 4039 7321 0
Series: Studies in European Culture and History
Abstract:
A diverse collection of essays: some of them are musicological and the others are hate-mail from Gottfried Wagner (the self-appointed conscience of the Wagner family), Marc Weiner and Paul Lawrence Rose. If you believe that Richard Wagner wrote the blueprint for the Holocaust -- or that the underlying theme of his operas is a call for the destruction of the Jews -- then these essays will confirm your ignorant prejudices. It is a pity that Warren Darcy (who has contributed an essay on 'Die Meistersinger') allowed himself to be taken hostage by this bunch of rabid Wagner-haters.


Title: Aspects of Wagner
Author(s): Bryan Magee
First publication:1968 (first edition)
Publication date: 1988 (revised edition)
Place published: Oxford
Publisher(s): Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0 1928 4012 6
LOC call number: ML410.W13 M105 1988
Abstract:
Laon writes: "This is not a comprehensive overview of Wagner's life, work and thought, but a collection of essays on different Wagner topics. 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 infamous essay Das Judentum in der Musik into perspective, as considerably less inflammatory than many people, who have perhaps only heard the title, believe. It is also interesting on Wagner's influence in literature, poetry, painting, and so on. A short book, just over 100 pages, written in absolutely plain English. 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."

Title: The Wagner Compendium : A Guide to Wagner's Life and Music
Author(s): Barry Millington (ed)
Publication date: 1992
Place published: London
Publisher(s): Thames and Hudson, Macmillan
ISBN: 0 0287 1359 1
LOC call number: ML410.W13 W122 1992
Abstract:
Includes a detailed list of Wagner's writings and a general bibliography. Millington takes the opportunity to ride his favourite hobby-horses. Other contributors are Stewart Spencer, Thomas Grey, David Large, Konrad Bund, Roger Hollinrake, Warren Darcy, Raymond Furness, David Breckbill, William Weber, Hugh Lloyd-Jones, Joachim Thierry, Ulrich Tröhler, Arnold Whittall, Michael Hall, and Christopher Wintle.

Title: Wagner Handbook
Original language:German
Author(s): Ulrich Müller, Peter Wapnewski
Translator(s): John Deathridge (ed)
Publication date: 1992
Place published: Cambridge MA
Publisher(s): Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0 6749 4530 1
LOC call number: ML410.W131 R41613 1992
Abstract:
An extensive collection of essays on Richard Wagner's career, cultural relationships, and psychology. In addition to essays and reference material provided by Müller, Wapnewski and Deathridge, the Handbook contains contributed essays by Carl Dahlhaus, Isolde Vetter, Rüdiger Krohn, Dieter Borchmeyer, Ernst Hanisch, Volker Mertens, Peter Branscombe, Hartmut Reinhart, Manfred Eger, Erwin Koppen, Günter Metkin, Werner Breig, Oswald Bauer, Jens Malte Fischer, and Jürgen Kühnel. Michael Tanner writes: Whether you want to know about Wagner in Literature and Film, Wagner's Middle Ages, the Operas as Literary Works, or to consult a large bibliography, or read on any of the central areas of 'Wagner research', you will find at least one substantial chapter here.

Title: On Opera
Author(s): Bernard Williams, Patricia Williams (ed)
Publication date: 2006
Place published: New Haven and London
Publisher(s): Yale University Press
ISBN: 0 3000 8976 7
LOC call number: ML1700.W48 2006
Abstract:
This collection of short essays by a philosopher with a life-long interest in opera contains three about Wagner. They consider, respectively, Tristan and time; the shift from optimism to pessimism during Wagner's composition of the Ring; and, most substantially, Wagner and politics (first published in the New York Review of Books).

Other remarks: With bibliography and index. Foreword by Michael Tanner.




IV. Books about Wagner's Works
Each of these titles is either devoted to a specific work, or to a set of works, by Richard Wagner. For books about the staging of the dramas and about specific productions, see section IX below.





A. Der fliegende Holländer
WWV 63 in the catalogue of Wagner's musical and dramatic works. Modern critical edition of the score published as volume 4 (ed. Isolde Vetter) of the Sämtliche Werke. Documents relating to the development and initial reception of the work are to be published in volume 24.


Title: The Flying Dutchman : a Guide to the Opera
Author(s): Frank Granville Barker
Publication date: 1979
Place published: London
Publisher(s): Barrie and Jenkins
Series: Masterworks of Opera
ISBN: 0 2142 0655 6
LOC call number: ML410.W132 B4
Abstract:
With a background to the opera and the legend, a synopsis of the plot, Wagner's advice to the players, and its music. With a survey of perfomances and recordings.
Other remarks: Foreword by Norman Bailey.

Title: Richard Wagner : 'Der Fliegende Holländer'
Author(s): Thomas S. Grey (ed)
Publication date: 2000
Place published: Cambridge UK
Publisher(s): Cambridge Univ Press
Series: Cambridge Opera Handbooks
ISBN: 0 5215 8285 7
LOC call number: ML410.W132 .R48 2000
Abstract:
Contributors include Barry Millington on the sources and genesis of the libretto, Patrick Carnegy and David Breckbill on the history of the work in performance, and Stephen McClatchie on the belated arrival of the Dutchman in Bayreuth. Appendices include: a translation by Stewart Spencer of the relevant part of Heine's short story; a translation by Peter Bloom of Wagner's original (French) scenario; Spencer's translation of the surviving fragment of the (German) Prose Draft; and selected passages from Wagner's prose writings and correspondence concerning the work.
Other remarks: There is a contents page and a sample chapter of the book here.




B. Tannhäuser
WWV 70 in the catalogue of Wagner's musical and dramatic works. Modern critical edition of the score published as volume 5 (stages 1 and 2, ed. Reinhard Strohm) and volume 6 (stages 3 and 4, ed. Peter Jost) of the Sämtliche Werke. Documents relating to the development and initial reception of the work are to be published in volume 25. Wagner's own piano and vocal arrangements of the various stages of the score are included in volume 20.


Title: Wagner's Tannhäuser and its Literary Sources
Author(s): Mary A. Cicora
Publication date: 1992
Place published: Frankfurt a.M. and New York
Publisher(s): Peter Lang Publishing
Series: Germanic Studies in America
Volume: No.63
ISBN: 3 2610 4408 X
LOC call number: ML410.W135 C5 1992
Abstract:
Cicora discusses Wagner's usage of Tieck, Hoffmann, Heine, Lucas, Bechstein and of medieval sources concerning Tanhusære or Danheüser, the legend of the Venusberg, Heinrich von Ofterdingen and the song contest on the Wartburg.
Other remarks: There is a considerable literature concerning the Tannhäuser legend, apart from the use Wagner made of it. See for example Dietz-Rüdiger Moser, Die Tannhäuser-Legende: Eine Studie über Intentionalität und Rezeption katechistischer Volkerzählungen zum Buss-Sakrament, Berlin and NY, 1977.

Title: 'Tannhäuser' and 'The Mastersingers of Nuremberg' : Described and Interpreted in Accordance with Wagner's Own Writings
Author(s): Alice Leighton Cleather and Basil Crump
First published:
Publication date: 1912
Place published: London
Publisher(s): Methuen and Co.
Abstract:
A discussion of the two operas, with musical notation of important themes.

Title: 'Tannhäuser' : An Examination of Thirty-Six Editions
Author(s): Cecil Hopkinson
Publication date: 1973
Place published: Tutzing
Publisher(s): Schneider
ISBN: 3 7952 0122 5
LOC call number: ML410.W135 H66
Abstract:

Title: 'Tannhäuser', a Dramatic Poem
Author(s): Thomas William Rolleston, Willy Pogàny (illustrator)
Publication date: 1911
Place published: London
Publisher(s): G.G. Harrap and Co.
LOC call number: ML50.W14 T22 1911b
Abstract:
See the entry for the related book on Lohengrin.




C. Lohengrin
WWV 75 in the catalogue of Wagner's musical and dramatic works. Modern critical edition of the score published as volume 7 (ed. John Deathridge and Klaus Döge) of the Sämtliche Werke. Documents relating to the development and initial reception of the work are to be published in volume 26.


Some of these books about Wagner's swan knight are probably of more interest for their illustrations than for their texts.


Title: 'Lohengrin' : The Story of Wagner's Opera
Author(s): Alan Blyth, Maria A. Gambaro (illustrator)
Publication date: 1981-82
Place published: London and New York
Publisher(s): Julia MacRae Books, Franklin Watts
ISBN: 0 8620 3068 4 hbk
LOC call number: MT100.W23 B6 1981
Abstract:
The story of Wagner's opera retold for younger readers, with full page colour illustrations.

Title: Parsifal, Lohengrin and the Legend of the Holy Grail : Described and Interpreted in Accordance with Wagner's Own Writings.
Author(s): Alice Leighton Cleather, Basil Crump
Publication date: 1904
Place published: London
Publisher(s): Methuen and Co.
Abstract:
Mrs. Cleather was a member of the Theosophical Society. Her writings include a biography of Madame Blavatsky and studies of Buddhism from a Theosophist viewpoint.

Title: 'Lohengrin' : The Story of Wagner's Opera
Author(s): Robert Lawrence, Alexander Serebriakoff (illustrator)
Publication date: 1938
Place published: New York
Publisher(s): Silver, Burdett and Co., Grosset and Dunlap
LOC call number: MT100.W23 L3
Abstract:
From a series intended to acquaint children with opera.
Organization: Metropolitan Opera Guild

Title: Lohengrin
Author(s): Hans Ferdinand Redlich
Publication date: 1949
Place published: London
Publisher(s): Boosey and Hawkes
Series: Covent Garden Opera
LOC call number: MT100.W23 R4
Abstract:
Brief history of the opera, analysis (basic), with information on Wagner and some suggested reading material.

Title: Tale of Lohengrin, Knight of the Swan after the Drama of Richard Wagner
Author(s): T.W. Rolleston, Willy Pogàny (illustrator)
Publication date: 1913
Place published: London
Publisher(s): G.G. Harrap and Co.
LOC call number: PR5236.R3 A77 1913
Abstract:
Similar books were produced on the subjects of Tannhäuser and Parsifal respectively. The Hungarian-born Pogàny (1882-1955) studied in Budapest, Munich and Paris, then migrated first to London, where he designed these volumes; one year later (1914), he went on to America, where he achieved renown for the design of stage sets for the Metropolitan Opera and for Broadway productions, for institutional and theatrical murals, for architectural design, for Hollywood art direction and for his book design and illustration.

Title: The Story of Wagner's 'Lohengrin'
Author(s): Frederick Colin Tilney (text and illustrations)
Publication date: 1911?
Place published: London
Publisher(s): George Routledge and Sons, Ltd.
Abstract:
With six colour illustrations.




D. Der Ring des Nibelungen
WWV 86 in the catalogue of Wagner's musical and dramatic works. Modern critical edition of the score published as volumes 10-13 (ed. Egon Voss and Hartmut Fladt) of the Sämtliche Werke. Documents relating to the development and initial reception of the work published in volume 29 (ed. Werner Breig and Hartmut Fladt). For translations of the libretto with commentaries, see subsection K below.
D1. Wagner's sources
Title: Wagner and the Volsungs : Icelandic sources of 'Der Ring des Nibelungen'
Original title: Wagner og Völsungar : Niflungahringurinn og islenskar fornbókmenntir
Original language:Icelandic
Author(s): Árni Björnsson
Translator(s): Anna Yates, Anthony Faulkes
Publication date: 2003
Place published: London
Publisher(s): Viking Society for Northern Research, University College London
ISBN: 0 9035 2155 5
LOC call number: ML410.W15 A76 2000 (Icelandic)
Abstract:
Originally written for an Icelandic readership, this important new study of Wagner's primary sources asserts that 80% of the literary motives that Wagner adapted to his own purposes in Der Ring des Nibelungen originated in Old Icelandic literature. The book begins with a brief biography of Richard Wagner, followed by a chronological table of his lifetime. It then gets down to business with chapters on the development of German national consciousness and on the growing interest in Icelandic literature in 18th and 19th century Germany. The author then describes the literary development of Wagner's text, with particular reference to his indirect and direct use of Icelandic literature as a source of inspiration. This brings us to a point about one-third of the way through the book. The remaining two thirds present a detailed analysis of Wagner's use of primary sources, which goes well beyond anything previously attempted; such as the studies respectively published by Wolfgang Golther, Deryck Cooke (see below) and Elizabeth Magee (see below). Together with Magee's research, which it extends and complements, Björnsson's book is indispensable for all students of the Ring.
Other remarks: Dr. Golther's seminal analysis of Wagner's sources appeared in 1902, as Sagengeschichtliche Grundlagen der Ringdichtung Richard Wagners.

Title: The Teutonic Mythology of Richard Wagner's 'The Ring of the Nibelung'
Author(s): William O. Cord
Publication date: 1989-1991
Place published: New York, Queenstown Ontario and Lampeter Wales
Publisher(s): Edwin Mellen Press
ISBN: 0 8894 6441 3 (vol.I), 0 8894 6442 1 (vol.II), 0 8894 6443 X (vol.III)
LOC call number: ML410.W15 C7 1989
Volume: 3 vols.
Abstract:
An examination of the Nordic and Germanic sources of the Ring. Volume I, 'Nine Dramatic Properties' (178p), includes extensive treatments of: the World Ash, the Rainbow Bridge, Donner's Golden Hammer, Valhalla, and the ring itself. Volume II, 'The Family of Gods' (225p), presents each god in rich detail and coverage. Volume III, 'The Natural and Supernatural Worlds' (606p), is in two parts and in encyclopedic format. It includes a supplement on the names detailed, with specific examination of every person, thing, or object given a proper name in the drama. In a review of this book Elizabeth Magee drew attention to a number of factual errors. None of the sources of the Ring are, strictly speaking, Teutonic; see the book by Björnsson, listed above.

Title: Wagner and Aeschylus : The 'Ring' and the 'Oresteia'
Author(s): Michael Ewans
Publication date: 1982
Place published: London
Publisher(s): Faber and Faber
ISBN: 0 5711 1808 9
LOC call number: ML410.W15 E9 1983
Abstract:
Wagner read Aeschylus' trilogy shortly before beginning work on his Ring. In his autobiography Wagner wrote that his ideas about the significance of drama and of the theatre had been moulded by his response to this classical masterpiece. Ewans shows how it influenced Wagner at many levels, from the basic idea of developing a festival drama, as Aeschylus had done, from mythical materials, through to the selection and treatment of the subject matter in the Ring. Ewans argues for a broad correspondence between the opening chorus of the Agamemnon and Wagner's "preliminary evening", between the remainder of that first play and Die Walküre and between Choephori and Siegfried. Where the respective concluding dramas are concerned, the contrasts between Eumenides and Götterdämmerung are at least as significant as their affinities. In an appendix Ewans dismisses the argument that Prometheus Bound (previously attributed to Aeschylus, possibly by Euphorion) was an influence on Wagner's Ring, despite the obvious allusions in Wagner's text.
Other remarks: Barry Millington in his Wagner, page 194, characterises Ewans' book as tendentious. It is not, however, as tendentious as many things that Mr. Millington has written. Those who live in glass houses ...

Title: Richard Wagner and the Nibelungs
Author(s): Elizabeth Magee
Publication date: 1990
Place published: Oxford and New York
Publisher(s): Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0 1981 6190 5
LOC call number: ML410.W15 M3 1991
Abstract:
A comprehensive account of Wagner's reading and research during the creation of his texts for the Ring, developed from the author's doctoral thesis. In addition to the catalogue of Wagner's personal library at Dresden, Magee studied the loan records of the Royal Library there, to develop a chronology of Wagner's reading during the last years before his exile. The author is on less certain ground when she asserts that Wagner could not have known Völsungasaga when he wrote his sketch Der Nibelungen Mythus in 1848, since internal evidence strongly suggests that he was familiar with the saga. Anyone who has read Cooke's I Saw the World End and wants to know more about the background to the Ring should obtain this book.
Magee's discussion of solar myth (pages 138-152), an aspect of the Ring and its sources neglected by other commentators, throws sunlight on several passages that are otherwise difficult to explain.
Other remarks: See also the later book by Björnsson, Wagner and the Volsungs.

Title: Legends of the Ring
Author(s): Elizabeth Magee (ed), Simon Brett (illustrator)
Translator(s): Selections variously translated by Elizabeth Magee, R.G. Finch, Patricia Terry, Jean I. Young, A.T. Hatto, Edward R. Haymes
Publication date: 2004
Place published: London
Publisher(s): The Folio Society
Abstract:
In his Communication, Wagner wrote that his literary studies had taken him through the legends of the Middle Ages, right down to their foundation in old-Germanic myth; stripping away one layer of legend and poetry after another, he discovered beneath them the type of the true human being. This type was Siegfried. Now for the first time did I recognise the possibility of making him the hero of a drama; a possibility that had not occurred to me while I only knew him from the medieval Nibelungenlied. This collection of source materials contains not only that epic poem, in A.T. Hatto's prose translation, but also literature from the other layers studied by Wagner before he completed his Ring poems in 1852.
Elizabeth Magee has selected and ordered items from Wagner's reading material, which she had described in the book listed above. For those readers who have not read the latter, Magee has provided a General Introduction that summarises its most important information in a mere 24 pages. This is followed by two books, containing respectively Scandinavian (what Wagner called, "old-Germanic") and German sources. Each book is in four parts, each part containing a set of translated material. Each book begins with an introduction divided in two: the first section discusses the stuff itself and the second considers how Wagner reacted to and made use of that stuff. The same structure is used for the introduction to each part within the book, and where appropriate for each chapter.
Book One (The Ring Legends of Scandinavia) begins, sensibly, with the Saga of the Volsungs (Völsungasaga). Since this is a complete narrative, the Saga provides a framework to which the reader should be able to relate the poems that follow. As a supplement to Magee's structured introductions, the reader will find Björnsson's book (see above) invaluable as a guide to Wagner's use of these sources. Book One contains the following:
Part 1: The Saga of the Volsungs (tr. R.G. Finch)
Part 2: The Heroic Poems of the Elder Edda (tr. Patricia Terry)
o Ch.1: Of Heroes, Swanmaidens and Valkyries
o Ch.2: Sigurd Ascendant
o Ch.3: Sigurd's Death
o Ch.4: Death of the Niflungs
o Ch.5: End of the Line
Part 3: From the Prose Edda by Snorri Sturluson (tr. Jean I. Young)
o Ch.1: The Deluding of Gylfi (Gylfaginning)
o Ch.2: Selections from Poetic Diction
Part 4: The Mythological Poems of the Elder Edda (tr. Patricia Terry*)
o Ch.1: Wisdom and Knowledge
o Ch.2: Comedy and Insult
o Ch.3: Quest and Prophecy
Dr. Magee has supplemented the work of other translators with a few translations of her own. The first of these is a poem, The Lay of Haakon, taken from Snorri's Heimskringla, included in Part 2. It relates how two of Odin's valkyries came to take the Christian king Haakon to Valhalla; rather surprisingly, he accepts. Otherwise the heroic poems are supplemented by Magee's translations of connecting prose passages from the Elder Edda. Part 4 includes the poem Balder's Dreams, generally considered to be part of the Elder Edda although it does not appear in the most important manuscript, the Codex Regius. Dr. Magee provides a translation of a spurious work, Odin's Raven Magic, that seems to have been written, much later, as an introduction to Balder's Dreams. The former is relevant because, when Wagner read these poems, they were thought to be contemporary.
As well as the complete Nibelungenlied, Book Two (The Ring Legends of Germany) contains three items that are likely to be less familiar:
Part 1: The Nibelungenlied (tr. A.T. Hatto)
Part 2: From The Saga of Dietrich of Bern (tr. E.R. Haymes)
Part 3: The Lay of Horn-Skinned Siegfried
Part 4: The Tragedy of Horn-Skinned Siegfried, by Hans Sachs
In Part 2 Dr. Magee has selected from Thidrekssaga those passages that concern Young Siegfried and one (ch.6) that tells how Hagen lost an eye. The last two parts are Magee's own translations. The poem of Part 3 is a splendidly inconsistent and amusing patchwork of doggerel. That it was known to Wagner is revealed by it being the only Siegfried poem in which the hero's mother was called Sieglinde. Whether Wagner read Hans Sachs' play about Siegfried (from 1557) is less certain; if he did, it might have shown him what a dramatist could achieve by manipulating the older material.
With 16 engravings. There is a glossary of names but no index.
Other remarks: *In some of these poems there are minor differences between Terry's translation (1990 edition) and the one published here. The last of the poems, Völuspá (The Sibyl's Prophecy) is a less accurate translation (it confuses first and second person narrative) of this complex poem about Ragnarök than the one by Paul Schach that was selected by Terry. For the background to this poem, the student might consult the notes following Schach's translation in Terry's 1990 edition. Those who "seek wisdom still" should consult the extended analysis and in-depth commentary accompanying Ursula Dronke's parallel-text translation (The Poetic Edda: Volume II, Mythological Poems, OUP 1997).

D2. Wagner's drama
As well as the books listed in this subsection, many other books in this list contain discussion of the tetralogy. Concise introductions to the cycle can be found in Millington's Wagner and in Newman's Wagner Nights. A readable and informative guide to the Ring is the fifth volume of Sabor's set, a companion to his libretto translations (see subsection K below). Also worth reading are the four guides, one for each of the operas, in the ROH/ENO series (see subsection J below).
Title: A Guide to The Ring of the Nibelung: The Trilogy of Richard Wagner : Its Origin, Story, and Music
Author(s): Richard Aldrich
Publication date: 1905
Place published: Boston MA and New York
Publisher(s): Oliver Ditson Company
LOC call number: MT100.W25 A4
Abstract:

Title: The Nibelung's Ring : A Guide to Wagner's 'Der Ring des Nibelungen'
Author(s): Peter Bassett
Publication date: 2004
Place published: Kent Town, South Australia
Publisher(s): Wakefield Press
ISBN: 1 8625 4624 X, 1 8625 4471 9
LOC call number: MT100.W25 B2 1998
Abstract:
A revised version of the book that was first issued in 1998, in conjunction with the first 'Ring' production in Adelaide.

Title: Treacherous Bonds and Laughing Fire: politics and religion in Wagner's 'Ring'
Author(s): Mark Berry
Publication date: 2005
Place published: Aldershot and Burlington VT
Publisher(s): Ashgate Publishing Group
ISBN: 0 7546 5356 0
LOC call number: ML410.W15B58 2005
Abstract:
The author brings a historian's perspective to the events and intellectual currents that affected Wagner in his Paris and Dresden years, before and during his conception of the Ring. In particular the first chapter, with its treatment of the Vormärz Hegelians and their philosophical, theological and literary developments, should be mandatory reading for all students of the Ring.

Title: Wagner's 'Ring' : an Introduction
Author(s): Alan Blyth
Publication date: 1980
Place published: London
Publisher(s): Hutchinson
ISBN: 0 0914 2011 3
LOC call number: MT100.W25 B4 1980
Abstract:

Title: Richard Wagner: 'The Nibelung's Ring': An Act by Act Guide to the Plot and Music
Author(s): Aylmer Buesst
First publication:1932
Publication date: 1952
Place published: London
Publisher(s): Newman Neame
LOC call number: MT100.W25 B9 (1932), MT100.W25 B9 1952
Abstract:
Other remarks: Originally published by Bell, London.

Title: Classically Romantic : Classical Form and Meaning in Wagner's Ring
Author(s): Jeffrey L. Buller
Publication date: 2001
Place published:
Publisher(s): Xlibris Corporation
ISBN: 0 7388 5107 8 (hbk), 0 7388 5108 6 (pbk)
LOC call number:
Abstract:
What did Richard Wagner know about ancient Greece? More importantly, what did he think he knew? How did his attitudes shape the Ring cycle? This book explores how Wagner's ideas about the past were shaped, not by the classical world itself, but by the Romantic Age's select view of antiquity.
Other remarks: See also the book by Michael Ewans listed in this section and those by Pearl Wilson and M Owen Lee in section V.

Title: Mythology as Metaphor : Romantic Irony, Critical Theory, and Wagner's 'Ring'
Author(s): Mary A. Cicora
Publication date: 1998
Place published: Westport, CT
Publisher(s): Greenwood Publishing Group
ISBN: 0 3133 0528 5
LOC call number: ML410.W15 C53 1998
Abstract:
An original interpretation of the Ring tetralogy that challenges the standard political analyses of the work.

Title: Wagner's 'Ring' and German Drama : Comparative Studies in Mythology and History in Drama
Author(s): Mary A. Cicora
Publication date: 1999
Place published: Westport, CT
Publisher(s): Greenwood Publishing Group
ISBN: 0 3133 0529 3
LOC call number: ML410.W15 C54 1999
Abstract:
The relationships of the Ring to the German literary and dramatic tradition, from Goethe and Schiller to von Hofmannsthal.

Title: The Ring of the Nibelung : An Interpretation Embodying Wagner's Own Explanations
Author(s): Alice Leighton Cleather and Basil Crump
First publication:1904 (first edition)
Publication date: 1977 (reprint)
Place published:
Publisher(s): Folcroft Library Editions
ISBN: 0 8414 1844 6
LOC call number: MT100.W25 C6 1977
Abstract:
Other remarks:
Second edition published by Methuen and Co., London, in 1924.

Title: I Saw the World End : A Study of Wagner's 'Ring'
Author(s): Deryck Cooke, Jacqueline Cooke (ed)
Publication date: 1979
Place published: Oxford
Publisher(s): Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0 1931 5318 1
LOC call number: ML410.W15 C67
Abstract:
Sadly, Deryck Cooke died without completing this fascinating study, which is widely considered to be essential reading for anyone interested in the Ring cycle. J.K. Holman writes: "Cooke intended to refute the Jungian Robert Donington and other Ring analyses that Cooke considered nonobjective. After all, he wrote, the question is not, "What meaning can we find in The Ring?", but "What did Wagner really mean by The Ring? Cooke believed that the overt meaning of each element in the drama must be accepted as what it is (and what Wagner intended it to be), and not explained away or made to mean something else."
Other remarks: Cooke's analysis of the musical motives of the Ring has been reissued on a CD set, Decca/London 443 581-2.

Title: An Introduction to Richard Wagner's 'Der Ring des Nibelungen' : A Handbook
Author(s): William O. Cord
First publication:1983
Publication date: 1995
Place published: Athens OH
Publisher(s): Ohio University Press
ISBN: 0 8214 1112 8
LOC call number: ML410.W22 C67 1983, ML410.W22 C67 1995
Abstract:
An overview of the mythology, of the history of Bayreuth, a list of related characters in mythology, a bibliography, a discography, biographies of the 1876 cast, a diagram of the relationships between the characters and more.

Title: Wagner and the New Consciousness : Language and Love in the 'Ring'
Author(s): Sandra Corse
Publication date: 1990
Place published: Cranbury, NJ
Publisher(s): Fairleigh Dickinson Univ Press
ISBN: 0 8386 3378 1
LOC call number: ML410.W15 C73 1990
Abstract:
Sandra Corse's book is fascinating but also frustrating. Fascinating because Dr. Corse sets out to explore the influence of the ideas of Hegel and Feuerbach on Wagner before and during the creation of the Ring. If anyone doubts that these thinkers provided key ingredients of the mix from which the tetralogy was baked, then little doubt will remain after reading this book. Frustrating because Dr. Corse does not deliver everything that she promises. Although she relates Wagner's thinking to key ideas in books that he is known to have read (or at least tackled), it is not entirely clear that she understands either the originals or Wagner's understanding of them. This does not mean that we should reject her ideas, e.g. concerning Wagner's creative reworking of Hegel's phenomenology. The book might have been better without the digressions into Marxist theories about language and society, which the author apparently thinks relevant because Marx, even more so than Wagner, was influenced by Feuerbach and Hegel. Finally it is a little disturbing that an English teacher makes so many grammatical mistakes and that she persistently spells the name of a noted Wagner scholar as "Dalhouse"!

Title: Reflections on Wagner's 'Ring'
Author(s): John Culshaw, Frank Dunand (photographs)
Publication date: 1976
Place published: New York and London
Publisher(s): Viking Press, Secker and Warburg
ISBN: 0 6705 9301 X
LOC call number: MT100.W25 C9
Abstract:
The first four chapters are based on a series of intermission features on the Texaco Met Opera radio broadcasts of the Ring during the 1974-5 season. The last chapter was expanded from an article that appeared in Opera News. With bibliography.

Title: Penetrating Wagner's 'Ring' : An Anthology
Author(s): John Louis DiGaetani (ed)
First publication:1978
Publication date: 1991
Place published: Cranbury NJ and London
Publisher(s): Da Capo Press
ISBN: 0 3068 0437 9 (pbk)
LOC call number: ML410.W15 P46 1983
Abstract:
J.K. Holman writes: A compendium of short pieces on a broad range of Ring topics by many of its most gifted analysts and performers, such as Georg Solti, Adolphe Appia, Wieland Wagner, Culshaw, Donington, Porter, and G.B. Shaw. Some participants in hmcw find the title of this book an endless source of mirth.
Other remarks: Originally published by Fairleigh Dickinson Univ. Press.

Title: Inside the 'Ring': Essays on Wagner's Opera Cycle
Author(s): John Louis DiGaetani (ed)
Publication date: 2005
Place published:
Publisher(s): McFarland & Co Inc
ISBN: ISBN10: 0 7864 2330 7, ISBN13: 9 7807 8642 3309
LOC call number:
Abstract:
Essays. With discography, bibliography and video listing.

Title: The Ring of the Nibelung
Author(s): Burton D. Fisher
Publication date: 2001
Place published:
Publisher(s): Opera Journeys Publishing
Series: Opera Classics Library
ISBN: 1 9308 4139 6 (pbk)
LOC call number:
Abstract:
With musical examples, discography, videography and dictionary of musical and operatic terms. One of a large series of opera guides.

Title: Wagner's 'Ring' : A Listener's Companion and Concordance
Author(s): J.K. Holman
Publication date: 1996 and 2001
Place published: Portland OR
Publisher(s): Amadeus Press
ISBN: 1 5746 7014 X (hbk), 1 5746 7070 0 (pbk)
LOC call number: ML410.W22 H65 1996
Abstract:
Some of the most interesting material in this useful and wide-ranging guide to the Ring is to be found in the appendices. Holman reviews production approaches to the cycle during the 20th century, with a portfolio of photographs. Strangely the name of Appia is not mentioned. For more information the reader is directed (in the short but informative bibliography) to Bauer and Osborne. Other appendices provide (a) a survey of the (43) occurrences of one leitmotif, Woman's Worth, which reveals that Wagner's technique is subtler than many have realised; (b) a summary of the possession of the ring; and (c) a description of the fate, if known, of each of 25 characters or groups who appear in the cycle.
The more substantial chapters respectively are concerned with background, story, music, characters and words. All of them are fascinating, although a few errors have crept in. The chapter on background begins by considering, all too briefly, Wagner's source material. Here Holman draws on Deryck Cooke and on Elizabeth Magee for his information; he has misread the latter, however, concerning Fouqué's trilogy Held des Nordens; it is not possible to say for certain (as Holman does, on pages 26 and 200) that Wagner had read these plays. Holman then provides an overview and a chronology of Wagner's life, with particular reference to the Ring. He gets at least two dates wrong: Opera and Drama could not have been published in February 1850, since Wagner only began writing it the following October! It was finished in late January 1851 and first published in November that year. Also, it was a prose version of Parsifal that Wagner completed in August 1865, not the poem. The chronology also omits to make any mention of Wagner's drafts for the music of Siegfried's Tod.
The chapter on story is more than a scene by scene synopsis; it amounts almost to a prose version of Wagner's Ring poems. Those who do not understand German will find it useful, although it is not a complete substitute for reading a good English translation. When Holman nods, it is probably the result either of relying too much upon the condensed stage directions given in the Schirmer vocal scores, or of confusing the ideas of producers with Wagner's own directions. Thus in the introduction to W-1-i (p.58), it is not the great World Ash Tree that stands at the centre of Hunding's dwelling but simply an ash-tree (der Stamm einer mächtigen Esche); and in S-2-i Erda does not say, as Holman claims (p.81), that the Wanderer is no longer who he once was.
The chapter on the music consists of a brief introduction -- strongly influenced by Gutman and perpetuating his wrong-headed ideas about Wagner's Leitmotiven -- followed by a discussion of each of 145 motives or complexes. This discussion is interesting, although it does not add very much to what the reader can find in Deryck Cooke's articles and recordings. As well as being, like many American writers, influenced by Gutman's dreadful book, Holman is also keen on Donington's Jungian interpretations of the Ring. As a result the chapter on the music should be treated with more caution than the other chapters.
The chapter on the major characters and groups is readable and accurate, although Holman might have said more about the influence of Greek mythology. For example, Wagner's Fricka owes more to the Greek Hera, who is not mentioned by Holman, than to the Norse Frigg. The concordance lists the occurrences of 160 "principal words". It is based on the "literal" English translations by Lionel Salter and William Mann, presumably because these can be found in the booklets accompanying major studio recordings. It is not a concordance of the German poems. One might question the selection of "principal words"; Holman ignores key words such as "eternal" (Ewig), "distress" (Noth) and "envy" (Neid) but includes words such as "eel", which appears once in the cycle. It might be objected that this book only engages with Wagner's text on a surface level of trivia, leaving its depths untouched.
Other remarks: With bibliography and discography.

Title: Wagner's 'Ring of the Nibelung' and the Condition of Ideal Manhood
Author(s): David Irvine
Publication date: 1897
Place published: London
Publisher(s): H. Grevel and Co.
LOC call number: ML410 .W15172
Abstract:

Title: Richard Wagner's 'Ring of the Nibelung' : An Illustrated Handbook
Author(s): J.P. Jackson
Publication date: 1882
Place published:
Publisher(s):
ISBN: David Bogue
LOC call number:
Abstract:
With six woodcut illustrations and musical examples.

Title: Finding an Ending : Reflections on Wagner's 'Ring'
Author(s): Philip Kitcher, Richard Schacht
Publication date: 2004
Place published: Oxford
Publisher(s): Oxford Univ. Press
ISBN: 0 1951 7359 7
LOC call number:
Abstract:
Two professional philosophers, who are also amateur singers, offer their views on the Ring. The book does not, as its title might suggest, discuss the ending of the Ring; nor does it examine the difficulties that Wagner experienced in deciding on an ending for the cycle. The ending referred to in the book's title is "das Ende", the outcome that Wotan seeks, even after he has given up all other objectives and ambitions. Kitcher and Schacht do not presume to present a full-blown philosophical interpretation of the tetralogy but rather a philosophical excursion through it. They argue that the Ring is a work of philosophical substance and depth, even though Wagner was by his own admission not a philosopher. Although their discussion of the work is mainly concerned with ideas and concepts, it is illustrated by references to the words and music, and clearly based on a close study of Wagner's scores.
Michael Tanner writes: ... Kitcher and Schacht break free from the contemporary clichés of producers determined to show Wotan as nothing more than a capitalist crook, and of commentators more interested in Wagner's political and ideological opinions than in his surpassing artistic achievement. It is the latter that they are exclusively concerned with, and they argue their case with style and passion.
Lucy Beckett, reviewing this book in the Times Literary Supplement, writes: The organization of the book, in short and coherent chapters which nevertheless take us through the complicated course of four operas, is exemplary; there is a helpful, detailed synopsis of the whole work; the discussion is concerned with profound questions, yet is readily comprehensible to a reader without specialist knowledge. It is difficult to imagine anyone interested in the Ring, from old Wagner hands to beginners attracted by bits of music, who would not gain much from reading this book.
This book would have been improved if the authors (or their editor) had gone through it deleting every other adjective.

Title: How to Understand Wagner's 'Ring of the Nibelung' : the Story and Descriptive Analysis, with Musical Examples of the Leading Motives of each Drama (UK title)
Alternative title: Wagner's 'Ring Of The Nibelung' : A Descriptive Analysis Containing all the Leading Motives (US title)
Author(s): Gustav Kobbé
First publication:1895, 1897
Publication date: 1991 (reprint)
Publisher(s): Reprint Services Corporation
ISBN: 0 7812 9341 3
LOC call number: MT100.W25 K6 1976
Abstract:
Also contains a sketch of Wagner's life by N. Kilburn.
Other remarks: Originally published by William Reeves in London, and by Schirmer in New York.

Title: Wagner's 'Ring' : Turning the Sky Round
Author(s): M. Owen Lee
Publication date: 1994
Place published: New York
Publisher(s): Limelight Editions
ISBN: 0 8791 0186 5
LOC call number: ML410.W15 L3 1994
Abstract:
An edited transcript of interval talks. J.K. Holman writes: Lee views The Ring as evolutionary, both inwardly in terms of a soul in crisis and outwardly as the prevailing religious cosmos gives way to a higher level of ethical consciousness. This may be a doctrinal interpretation, but it is made as elegantly and persuasively as any Ring analysis. Includes a discography.
Other remarks: Originally published by Summit Books, 1990.

Title: Wagner's Music Drama of the 'Ring'
Author(s): L. Archier Leroy
Publication date: 1925
Place published: London
Publisher(s): Noel Douglas
LOC call number: ML410.W15 L34
Abstract:
Other remarks: Wood-cut illustrations by Paul Nash.

Title: Beyond the Tragic Vision : The quest for identity in the nineteenth century
Author(s): Morse Peckham
Publication date: 1962
Place published: New York
Publisher(s): G. Braziller; W.W. Norton
ISBN: ISBN 0 8076 0461 5 ; B803 .P4
Abstract:

Title: Rackham's Color Illustrations for Wagner's 'Ring'
Author(s): Arthur Rackham, James Spero (introduction and captions)
First publication:1911-12
Publication date: 1979
Place published: New York
Publisher(s): Dover
ISBN: 0 4862 3779 6
LOC call number: ND1942.R32 A4 1979
Abstract:
The 64 watercolour illustrations of scenes from the Ring that were first published with an English translation of the poems.
Other remarks: Originally published by Heinemann in London, and by Doubleday, Page and Co. in New York.

Title: The Dream of Self-Destruction : Wagner's 'Ring' and the Modern World
Author(s): Lelland Joseph Rather
Publication date: 1979
Place published: Baton Rouge and London
Publisher(s): Louisiana University State Press
LOC call number: ML410.W15 R4
Abstract:
The author examines the historical origins of 19th century European interest in "Northern" myth, the relationship of the Ring to Sophocles' Oedipus, and the Ring as an allegory of the course of European history in the 18th and 19th centuries.

Title: New Studies in Richard Wagner's 'The Ring of the Nibelung'
Author(s): Herbert Warren Richardson
Publication date: 1991
Place published: Seattle WA
Publisher(s): Edwin Mellen Press
ISBN: 0 8894 6445 6
LOC call number: ML410.W15 N48 1991
Abstract:
Papers presented at the 1988 Wagner conference in Seattle exploring this cycle as music, myth, theatre art, and literature, including such topics as dialectical materialism in the Ring, the psychological development of Brünnhilde and the influence of Wagner's cycle on Eliot and Hitler respectively.

Title: Alberich and Friends : a Novel of Wagner's Ring Cycle
Author(s): Ian Runcie
Publication date: 2004
Place published: Victoria BC
Place published: Trafford
ISBN: 1 4120 2628 8 pbk
LOC call number: PS3618
Abstract:
Character studies in the dramatis personae of the tetralogy. Each of the eleven chapters discusses a single character, starting with Alberich and ending with Wotan. With three appendices, dealing the sources of the cycle, the operas and the philosophy behind them; and a bibliography.

Title: The Perfect Wagnerite : A Commentary on the Niblung's Ring
Alternative title:The Perfect Wagnerite : A Commentary on the Ring of the Niblung
Author(s): George Bernard Shaw
First publication:1898
Publication date: 1967 (reprint)
Place published: New York
Publisher(s): Dover Publications
ISBN: 0 4862 1707 8 (pbk)
LOC call number: MT100.W25 S5 1905
Abstract:
An idiosyncratic interpretation of the Ring. J.K. Holman writes: Shaw's interpretation seems more misguided today than ever. This is a little harsh. In at least two respects, Shaw was right. First, in drawing attention to the political dimension of the work. Although the Ring is not exactly the socialist parable that Shaw would have us believe it, in its initial conception the tetralogy was very much political. At the end of his Dresden years Wagner was preoccupied with revolution, not just affecting art and the theatre but society in general. His world-view, although it was coloured by utopian socialism, was essentially anarchistic. This is reflected in the Ring by the rejection of laws and commandments, troubled treaties' treacherous bonds and custom's stern decree, as it was expressed by Wagner in the 1852 ending. Shaw played down the anarchism because he wanted us to see Wagner as a socialist; in reality his political outlook was both more naive and more complex than Shaw was willing to acknowledge. Secondly, Shaw was largely justified in his characterization of Götterdämmerung as grand opera. Compared to Das Rheingold, the last part of the cycle is indeed closer, in structure and forms, to operatic conventions than to the prescriptions of Opera and Drama. This might be because Götterdämmerung was based upon the original, single opera Siegfried's Tod, which was drafted before Wagner had developed the theoretical principles that he tried to implement in the first three operas of the tetralogy.
Other remarks: Available as an etext.

Title: Redemption or Annihilation? : Love versus Power in Wagner's 'Ring'
Author(s): John Tietz
Publication date: 1999
Place published: New York
Publisher(s): Peter Lang Publishing
ISBN: 0 8204 4148 1
LOC call number: ML410.W15 T64 1999
Abstract:
An interpretation is presented in which Nietzsche's criticisms form the basis of a positive reading of The Ring.

D3. Musical analysis of the Ring
Title: Wagner's 'Das Rheingold'
Author(s): Warren Darcy
Publication date: 1993, 1996
Place published: Oxford
Publisher(s): Oxford University Press, Clarendon Press
ISBN: 0 1981 6603 6 (hbk), 0 1981 6603 6 (pbk)
LOC call number: MT100.W26 D33 1993
Abstract:
A musical analysis of Das Rheingold, drawing on Lorenz and Schenker. Darcy proves, at least to his own satisfaction, the unity of the Lorentzian periods (which he calls "episodes") by demonstrating that they make Schenkerian sense.

Title: The Musical Design of the 'Ring'
Author(s): A.E.F. Dickinson
Publication date: 1926
Place published: Oxford
Publisher(s): Oxford University Press
LOC call number: MT100.W25 D4
Abstract:
Other remarks: Paperback

Title: A Musical Guide to Richard Wagner's 'Ring of the Nibelung'
Author(s): Ernest Hutcheson
First publication:1940
Publication date: recent (reprint)
Place published:
Publisher(s): AMS Press, Inc.
ISBN: 0 4040 3462 4
LOC call number: MT100.W25 H8
Abstract:
A concise introduction to the music of the 'Ring'. With booklet "Table of Themes".
Other remarks: Originally published by Simon and Schuster, NY.

Title: Wagner's 'Siegfried' : Its Drama, History and Music
Author(s): Patrick McCreless
Publication date: 1982
Place published: Ann Arbor MI
Publisher(s): UMI Research Press
Series: Studies in Musicology
Volume: No. 59
LOC call number: ML410.W15 M35 1982
Abstract:
A musical analysis of Siegfried, using Schenkerian techniques.

Title: The Forging of the 'Ring'
Original title: Die Entstehung des 'Ring'
Original language:German
Author(s): Curt von Westernhagen
Translator(s): Arnold Whittall
Author(s): Mary Whittall (ed)
First publication:1973 (German)
Publication date: 1976
Place published: Cambridge UK
Publisher(s): Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 0 5212 1293 6
LOC call number: ML410.W15 W1853
Abstract:
The first systematic investigation of Wagner's sketches for the Ring. Von Westernhagen, taking each of the four dramas in turn, compares the sketches with the finished score. He shows how far the original inspirations were preserved, clarified or modified in the process of forging the Ring.

Title: Guide through the Music of R. Wagner's 'The Ring of the Nibelung'
Title: Thematischer Leitfaden durch die Musik zu Rich. Wagners Festspiel 'Der Ring des Nibelungen'
Original language:German
Author(s): Baron Hans von Wolzogen
Translator(s): Ernst von Wolzogen; Nathan Haskell Dole
First publication:1876
Publication date: 1882
Place published: Leipzig and London, New York
Publisher(s): Senf Brothers, G. Schirmer
LOC call number: MT100.W25 W7 1898
Abstract:
Wolzogen is credited with inventing the term "Leitmotiv" and his analysis of Wagner's works is largely a guide to the Leitmotiven and their evolution. Many of the names given to these 'musical calling cards' by Wolzogen (such as Inheritance of the World or Sea-motif) have stuck, whether we like it or not. Its title varied as the Guide was republished.
Other remarks: First published in German by Schloemp, Leipzig.

D4. Legal and ethical studies
Title: The Turning Wheel : A Study of Contracts and Oaths in Wagner's 'Ring'
Author(s): David A. White
Publication date: 1988
Place published: Selinsgrove, London and Toronto
Publisher(s): Susquehanna University Press and Associated University Presses
ISBN: 0 9416 6489 9
LOC call number: ML410.W15 W19 1988
Abstract:
For the legally minded.
Other remarks: Related (in German): Richard Wagners Ring des Nibelungen im Lichte des deutschen Strafrechts, 1979, by Ernst von Pidde, alias Jörg von Uthmann.

Title: Speaking to Our Condition : Moral Frameworks in Wagner's 'Ring of the Nibelung'
Author(s): Anthony Winterbourne
Publication date: 2000
Place published: Cranbury, NJ
Publisher(s): Fairleigh Dickinson Univ Press
ISBN: 0 8386 3847
LOC call number: ML410.W15 W28 2000
Abstract:

Title: The Ethics of Wagner's 'The Ring of the Nibelung'
Author(s): Mary Elizabeth Lewis
First publication:1906
Publication date: 2001
Place published:
Publisher(s): Best Books
ISBN: 0 7222 5588 8
LOC call number: ML410.W15 L4 (1906)
Abstract:
Lewis looks at the ethics portrayed in the Ring by studying each portion scene by scene and expounding upon each point as it is presented throughout the cycle.
Other remarks: Originally published by Putnam, NY.

D5. Psychological perspectives
Title: Ring of Power : The Abandoned Child, the Authoritarian Father, and the Disempowered Feminine
Alternative title:Ring of Power : Symbols and Themes, Love vs. Power in Wagner's 'Ring' Cycle and in Us : a Jungian-feminist Perspective
Author(s): Jean Shinoda Bolen
Publication date: 1992
Place published: San Francisco
Publisher(s): Harper Collins
ISBN: 0 0625 0086 4 (pbk)
LOC call number: ML410.W15 B64 1992
Abstract:
A Jungian understanding of Wagner's Ring cycle. Bolen uses the characters and situations of the Ring as a starting point to discuss Jungian ideas, without casting much light on the Ring in the process.

Title: Women Characters in Richard Wagner: A Study in the 'Ring of the Nibelung'
Author(s): Louise Brink
First publication:1924
Publication date: 2001
Place published:
Publisher(s): Best Books
ISBN: 0 7222 5563 2
LOC call number: ML410.W15 B9 (1924)
Abstract:
A Freudian viewpoint on the female characters in the 'Ring'.
Other remarks: Originally published by the Nervous and Mental Disease Publishing Company, New York.

Title: Wagner's 'Ring' and its Symbols : The Music and the Myth
Author(s): Robert Donington
Publication date: 1963
Place published: London
Publisher(s): Faber and Faber Ltd
ISBN: 0 5710 4818 8
LOC call number: ML410.W15 D6 1969
Abstract:
Laon writes: "Jungian analysis can be interesting when it is applied to myth. It is, after all, largely based on Jung's ideas about myth, which makes Jungian ideas fairly apt for reading a myth-based work like the Ring. Robert Donington is a Jungian true believer, who applies Jung's ideas with considerable ingenuity and interest. Sometimes he will do anything to fit Wagner into the Jungian framework. For example, he reads the very male dragon Fafner as the mother in her devouring aspect. That is a pretty desperate reading: Fafner is nobody's female principle, and only someone with a strongly pre-determined agenda could try to make him one. Still, Donington is often insightful. Why is there a brief reminiscence of Erda's theme when Fricka appears in Walküre Act II? Because, says Donington, Fricka is somehow representing Erda's wisdom in this appearance. Fricka may not seem wise but on this occasion she is right. This and a hundred other small insights makes this a worthwhile and constantly interesting book, which is also very good on Wagner's mythological sources. Donington is right in thinking that the Ring is an endlessly complex and profound work; but probably wrong in thinking that Jung holds the key. While Donington's overall reading is eccentric and not entirely reliable, this is a very enjoyable and often an insightful book."

Title: Symposium on the Threat to the Cosmic Order: Psychological, Social, and Health Implications of Richard Wagner's 'Ring of the Nibelung'
Author(s): Peter Ostwald and Leonard S. Zegans (eds.)
Publication date: 1997
Place published: Madison CT
Publisher(s): International Universities Press Inc.
LOC call number: 0 8236 6528 3
Series: Mental Health Library
Abstract:
Symposium on Wagner's opera held June 8-9, 1990 on a college campus.

D6. Performing the Ring
Title: A Memoir of Bayreuth 1876 related by Carl Emil Doeppler
Author(s): Peter Cook
Publication date: 1979
Place published: London
ISBN: 0 9504 3601 1
LOC call number: ML410.W2 C65 1979
Abstract:
Including colour illustrations of his costume designs for the first production of the Ring.

Title: Ring Resounding : the Recording in Stereo of 'Der Ring des Nibelungen'
Author(s): John Culshaw
Publication date: 1967
Place published: London, New York
Publisher(s): Secker and Warburg, Viking Press
ISBN: 0 6705 9889 5
LOC call number: ML410.W15 C8
Abstract:
J.K. Holman writes: A good behind-the-scenes account of an artistic collaboration, this book documents with wit and charm the successes and trials of the immense effort. Moreover, by showing us how musical problems were faced and solved, Culshaw sheds much light on the meaning of The Ring itself.
Other remarks: FAQ: The singer referred to as our Siegfried was Ernst Kosub.

Title: The Centenary 'Ring' in Bayreuth : a Critical Examination of the Tetralogy which Marked the 100th Anniversary of the Bayreuth Festival
Original title: Der Jubiläums-Ring in Bayreuth 1976 : e. krit. Auseinandersetzung mit d. Neu-Inszenierung d. Tetralogie zum 100jährigen Bestehen d. Bayreuther Festspiele
Original language:German
Author(s): Uwe Faerbe
Translator(s): Stewart Spencer
Publication date: 1977
Place published: Berlin
Publisher(s): Bote und Bock
Abstract:

Title: The 'Ring' : Anatomy of an Opera
Author(s): Stephen Fay, Roger Wood (photographer)
Publication date: 1984
Place published: London
Publisher(s): Secker and Warburg
ISBN: 0 4361 5180 4
LOC call number: ML410.W15 F4 1984
Abstract:
An account of the Hall and Solti production of the 'Ring' in Bayreuth. With 32 pages of photographs.


Title: Wagner in Rehearsal 1875-1876 : The Diaries of Richard Fricke
Original title: 1876, Richard Wagner auf der Probe : das Bayreuther Tagebuch des Ballettmeisters und Hilfregisseurs Richard Fricke
Original language:German
Author(s): Richard Fricke, James Andrew Deaville (ed), Evan Baker (ass.)
Translator(s): George Fricke
Publication date: 1998
Publisher(s): Pendragon Press
ISBN: 0 9451 9386 6
LOC call number: ML410.W2 F713 1998
Series: Franz Liszt Studies Series
Volume: No.7
Abstract:
Notes by one of the Wagner's production team.

Title: Wagner Rehearsing the 'Ring' : An Eye-Witness Account of the Stage Rehearsals of the First Bayreuth Festival
Original title: Die Bühnenproben zu den Bayreuther Festspielen des Jahres 1876
Author(s): Heinrich Porges
Translator(s): Robert L. Jacobs
First publication:1881-1896 (four installments)
Publication date: 1983
Place published: Cambridge UK
Publisher(s): Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 0 5212 3722 X
LOC call number: ML410.W2 P853 1983
Abstract:
Notes taken in the Festspielhaus while Wagner directed his Ring.

D7. For younger readers
Title: Wagner's 'Ring of the Nibelung'
Author(s): Robert Lawrence, Alexander Serebriakoff (illustrator)
Publication date: 1939
Place published: New York
Publisher(s): Grosset and Dunlap
Volume: 4 vols.
LOC call number: MT100.W25 L28
Abstract:
From a series intended to acquaint children with opera.
Organization: Metropolitan Opera Guild




E. Tristan und Isolde
WWV 90 in the catalogue of Wagner's musical and dramatic works. Modern critical edition of the score published as volume 8 (ed. Isolde Vetter) of the Sämtliche Werke. Documents relating to the development and initial reception of the work are to be published in volume 27.

A facsimile of the autograph full score was published in 1923, Munich.
Students of Tristan who understand German will also benefit from reading Lorenz's analysis of the score (1926) and Ernst Kurth's seminal study, Romantische Harmonik und ihre Krise in Wagner's Tristan (1920).

For overviews of the Tristan romances, see Newman's Wagner Nights or Jessie Weston's Legends of the Wagner Drama. Those who read German might prefer Wolfgang Golther's Tristan und Isolde in der Dichtungen des Mittelalters und der neuen Zeit, 1907.


Title: Richard Wagner : Prelude and Transfiguration from 'Tristan und Isolde' : Authoritative Scores, Historical Background, Sketches and Drafts, Views and Comments, Analytical Essays
Author(s): Robert Bailey
Publication date: 1985
Place published: New York
Publisher(s): Norton
Series: Norton Critical Scores
ISBN: 0 3939 5405 6
LOC call number: M1505.W13 T83 1985
Abstract:
For a "critical score" there are too many misprints in the music. Compare with one of the recent critical scores. Some of the essays (from various commentators including Donald Tovey and Alfred Lorenz) are valuable.

Title: The Tragic and the Ecstatic : The Musical Revolution of Wagner's 'Tristan und Isolde'
Author(s): Eric Chafe
Publication date: 2005
Place published: Oxford
Publisher(s): Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0 1951 7647 2
Abstract:
Chafe argues that Wagner's Tristan und Isolde is a musical and dramatic exposition of metaphysical ideas inspired by Schopenhauer. The book is a critical account of Tristan, in which the drama is shown to develop through the music.

Title: Tristan and Isolde : An Interpretation Embodying Wagner's Own Explanations
Author(s): Alice Leighton Cleather, Basil Crump
Publication date: 1905
Place published: London
Publisher(s): Methuen & Co.
LOC call number:
Abstract:

Title: Wagner's 'Tristan und Isolde' : an Essay on the Wagnerian Drama
Author(s): George Ainslie Hight
First publication:1912
Publication date: 2001 (reprint)
Place published:
Publisher(s): Indypublish.com, Best Books
ISBN: 1 4043 7915 0 (pbk), 0 7222 5580 2 (hbk)
LOC call number: ML410.W14 H6 (1912)
Abstract:
Other remarks: Originally published by S. Swift and Co. Ltd., London.
Also available as an Ebook from Project Gutenberg: online edition.

Title: Wagner's Most Subtle Art : An Analytic Study of 'Tristan und Isolde'
Author(s): Roger North
First publication:1996 (first edition)
Publication date: 1999 (second edition)
Place published: London
Publisher(s): Roger North
ISBN: 0 9527 9751 8
Abstract:
This 700-page study of Wagner's score is surely the most thorough analysis ever attempted of any of Wagner's works. North shows that behind the Leitmotiven that dominate the analyses of Wolzogen, Lorenz and others, the musical material of Tristan was developed from three simple figures, all heard in the Prelude. In the first edition there are many misprints in the musical examples; look for the second edition.
Other remarks: URL: < http://www.roger.north.btinternet.co.uk >

Title: Tristan and Isolde
Author(s): Hans Ferdinand Redlich
Publication date: 1948
Place published: London
Publisher(s): Boosey and Hawkes
Series: Covent Garden Operas
LOC call number: MT100.W24 R4 1948
Abstract:
Brief history of the opera, analysis (basic), with information on Wagner and some suggested reading material.

Title: Death-Devoted Heart: Sex and the Sacred in Wagner's 'Tristan and Isolde'
Author(s): Roger Scruton
Publication date: 2003
Place published: Oxford
Publisher(s): Oxford Univ. Press
ISBN: 0 1951 6691 4
LOC call number:
Abstract:
Roger Scruton's new book is a thoughtful and perceptive study of a difficult but important work. Scruton aims to vindicate the stature of Tristan, presenting it as more than just a sublimation of the composer's love for Mathilde or a wistful romantic dream. He argues that the drama has profound religious meaning, as relevant today as it was to Wagner's contemporaries. Scruton shows that the governing thought of the drama is a single idea, that of the consummation of love in death.
Both philosophical and musicological, Scruton's analysis touches on the nature of tragedy, the significance of ritual sacrifice, and the meaning of redemption as the concept appears in this drama. He provides a guide to Tristan while offering philosophical insight into the nature of erotic love and the peculiar place of the erotic in our culture.
Reviewing this book for The Spectator, Michael Tanner wrote: This distinguished, characteristically contentious book sets a standard of Wagnerian commentary which it would be a great relief to see other writers attempting to follow.
Other remarks: There are copious notes, a useful "table of motives" and an eclectic bibliography.

Title: Guide to the Legend, Poem and Music of Richard Wagner's 'Tristan und Isolde'
Original title: Richard Wagners Tristan und Isolde : ein Leitfaden durch Sage, Dichtung und Musik für das Deutsche Theaterpublikum
Original language:German
Author(s): Baron Hans von Wolzogen
Translator(s):
First publication:1880 (German)
Publication date: 1884
Place published: Leipzig
Publisher(s): Breitkopf and Härtel
LOC call number: ML410.W14 W8 (German)
Abstract:
One of Wolzogen's thematic guides. The book also provides an account of the literary background to the work.

Title: The First Hundred Years of Wagner's 'Tristan'
Author(s): Elliot Zuckermann
Publication date: 1964
Place published: New York and London
Publisher(s): Columbia University Press
LOC call number: ML410.W14 Z8
Abstract:
Relates the genesis and subsequent history of Tristan und Isolde. With three appendices: 1. Major premieres, 2. Swinburne and the Sea, 3. Joyce and Eliot. Michael Tanner writes: The cataclysmic effect of Tristan on musicians, poets, novelists etc. is dealt with in a pioneering piece of intellectual history ... by the hostile Elliot Zuckermann.




Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg

WWV 96 in the catalogue of Wagner's musical and dramatic works. Modern critical edition of the score published as volume 9 (ed. Egon Voss) of the Sämtliche Werke. Documents relating to the development and initial reception of the work are to be published in volume 28.

A facsimile of the autograph full score was published in 1922, Munich, and a facsimile of the 1862 libretto was published in 1983, Mainz.
Title: The Sources and Text of Richard Wagner's Opera 'Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg'
Author(s): Anna Maude Bowen
Publication date: 1897
Place published: Munich
LOC call number: ML410.W16 B6 1977
Abstract:
This is A.M. Bowen's doctoral thesis (Cornell). Bowen examines Wagner's use of his sources, including the technical details of the art of the Mastersingers, i.e. the actual rules of the tablature; the tunes described by David in act one; and the historical Mastersingers and their music. In the process the author explains many of the obscurities and subtleties of Wagner's poem. She also examines the origins of the story in relation to works by a tale by Hoffmann, a drama by Deinhardstein and a comic opera by Lortzing based on the former; and Wagner's quotations from and paraphrases of his main historical source, Wagenseil. There is a short comparison of different versions of Wagner's poem. Finally the author examines the language of the poem, in which she variously identifies archaic words and forms, imitation of Hans Sachs' poetry and hints of Bavarian dialect.
Other remarks: Reprinted by AMS Press in 1977.

Title: Wagner and 'Die Meistersinger'
Author(s): Robert Macey Rayner
Publication date: 1940
Place published: London
Publisher(s): Oxford University Press
LOC call number: ML410.W16 R29
Abstract:
Rayner was one of the first commentators on any of Wagner's dramas to understand the importance of considering the music and words together, and to study the interaction between the poem and the score. The book discusses the origins and development of Die Meistersinger and the final score. Appendices consider Wagner's sources. With 5 black and white plates.

Title: Nuremberg in the Sixteenth Century : City politics and life between Middle Ages and modern times
Author(s): Gerald Strauss
Publication date: 1976
Place published: Bloomington
Publisher(s): Indiana University Press
ISBN: 0 2533 4150 7, 0 2533 4149 3
LOC call number: DD901.N94 S78 1976
Abstract:
Not about Wagner's opera but a useful source of historical information about the real Nuremberg at the time of Hans Sachs.

Title: Wagner and Wagenseil : A Source of Wagner's Opera 'Die Meistersinger'
Author(s): Herbert Thompson
Publication date: 1927
Place published: London
Publisher(s): Humphrey Milford and Oxford Univ. Press
LOC call number: ML410.W16 T39
Abstract:
A concise treatment of Wagner's usage of J.C. Wagenseil's Nuremberg chronicle, Buch von der Meistersinger holdseligen Kunst. According to Sir W.H. Hadow, a book which is indispensable to all students of the subject.

Title: Wagner's 'Meistersinger': Performance, History, Representation
Author(s): Nicholas Vaszonyi (Editor)
Publication date: 2003, 2004
Place published: New York and London
Publisher(s): Univ. of Rochester Press, Boydell & Brewer Ltd
ISBN: 1 5804 6131 X, 1 5804 6168 9
LOC call number: ML410.W1 A286 2002
Abstract:
The first section of this volume, 'Performing Meistersinger', contains three articles commissioned from internationally respected artists - a conductor (Peter Schneider), a stage director (Harry Kupfer) and a singer (Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau). The second section, 'Meistersinger and History', examines both the representation of German history in the opera and the way the opera has functioned in history through political appropriation and staging practice. The third section, 'Representations', is the most eclectic, exploring, among other topics, the problematic question of genre from the perspective of a theatrical historian, the fashionable theory that there is an anti-Semitic subtext in this opera, and the claim that Beckmesser is a caricature of Eduard Hanslick.

Title: Richard Wagner : 'Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg'
Author(s): John Warrack (ed), Michael Tanner, Lucy Beckett, Patrick Carnegy
Publication date: 1994
Place published: Cambridge UK
Publisher(s): Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 0 5214 4444 6 (hbk), 0 5214 4895 6 (pbk)
LOC call number: ML410.W1 A286 1994
Series: Cambridge Opera Handbooks
Abstract:
John Warrack traces the evolution of Die Meistersinger from plans for a light comic opera or "satyr-play", through all the drafts and literary influences on them, into the eventual comedy; he then presents an analysis of the music, and investigates what Wagner found in the historical Mastersingers and their music. Lucy Beckett contributes an insightful essay into the influence of Schopenhauer and the changes that this brought about in the work as it developed. She also explores the complexity of expression in the work. Michael Tanner suggests new ways of interpreting the opera's inner and outer worlds. Patrick Carnegy provides a stage history. Includes a synopsis, bibliography and three appendices: versions of the 'Wahn' monologue, Sachs' final address, and the Prize Song respectively.

Title: The Master-Singers of Wagner
Author(s): Cyril Winn
Publication date: 1925
Place published: Oxford
Publisher(s): Oxford University Press
LOC call number: ML410.W226 W5
Abstract:
Other remarks: Paperback


***************************

Parsifal

"Parsifal" is WWV 111 in the catalogue of Wagner's musical and dramatic works.

Modern critical edition of the score published as volume 14 (ed. Egon Voss and Martin Geck) of the Sämtliche Werke.

Documents relating to the development and initial reception of the work, together with rehearsal notes from the 1882 premiere, published in volume 30.

A facsimile of the autograph full score was published in 1925, Munich.

There is a comprehensive bibliography of the Parsifal literature, listing more than sixty studies, in Mary A. Cicora.

They range from short program notes to extensive studies such as Wolfgang Golther's Parzival und der Gral, which explores the medieval sources behind Wagner's libretto.

A Guide to Parsifal, the Music Drama of Richard Wagner : Its Origin, Story, and Music
 Richard Aldrich
Oliver Ditson Company

Wagner's 'Parsifal' : The Journey of a Soul
Peter Bassett
Wakefield Press

A long-overdue, perceptive study of Wagner's Parsifal.

For Bassett the message of this work is that human salvation is to be achieved not through the satisfaction of worldly desires but through compassion.

Wagner shows Parsifal's inner journey towards enlightenment through compassion, in which he is able to ease the burdens of others.

Bassett has looked at the relationship between Wagner's sources and his text, which is shown to owe more to those sources than many people suspect.

Bassett limits his study to the medieval sources, however, overlooking the allusions in Wagner's text to contemporary literature.

In contrast to the study by Lucy Beckett, Peter Bassett paints a balanced picture of the world-view behind Parsifal, taking into account Wagner's interest in Buddhism and the impact that Buddhist ideas had upon Wagner in general and this work in particular. Includes a synopsis, a prose translation of the libretto, a chronological table and a short bibliography.

Richard Wagner : 'Parsifal'
 Lucy Beckett (ed), Arnold Whittall
Cambridge Opera Handbooks

Since some commentators regard this book as definitive, it needs to be examined in some detail.

The book contains too many errors for them all to be discussed in this review -- but it is most at fault in what it omits and ignores.

Beckett's full account of the reception history of Parsifal and Arnold Whittall's insightful comments on the score are the parts of this book that will be most useful to the reader, whether student, scholar or interested opera-goer.

Some commentators have found Beckett's discussion of Wagner's sources so incomplete as to be misleading, however, and there has been widespread scepticism about her claim that the work is a profoundly and exclusively Christian miracle play.

Commentators on Parsifal are in general agreement that it is a religious drama, or at least that it concerns subjects that are generally considered to lie within the domain of religion, but are less likely to agree with Wagner's claim that his last opera was "Christian", or indeed that it is concerned with any specific religion, despite Wagner's use of religious symbols.

It is only through a highly selective reading of Wagner's text and its background that Beckett was able to make a case to support these claims.

Although Beckett acknowledged the influence of "Schopenhauerian Buddhism" in the early development of Wagner's drama, she concluded that in its final form there are only remnants of Schopenhauer's influence.

She takes literally Wagner's repeated assertion (for example in his letters to Ludwig) that Parsifal is a Christian work.

Wagner's idea of true Christianity was quite different, however, from anything Beckett would recognise as Christian doctrine.

He said that he was a Christian without dogma; he said that he did not believe in God although he did believe in divinity; and he was dismissive both of Christian scripture and of Church tradition.

He wrote to Mathilde about his belief in reincarnation (quoted on p.12), one that is shared by Gurnemanz.

In spite of this, Beckett single-mindedly seeks the Christian message in Wagner's text.

She identifies as the central subject of the work its hero's religious conversion (p.136); where most commentators do not see any conversion other than than of Kundry, and they usually consider the central subject to be a hero who achieves perfect wisdom through experience. She finds in it Wagner's sense of the central importance of incarnation (p.142).

Although she admits that the divine is present in the work only as a physical object, the Grail, which for Beckett represents Christ's continuing presence among men (p.140). Although the noun appearing most frequently in Wagner's libretto is "Heil", Beckett does not describe the work as being primarily about salvation. This might be one reason why Beckett repeats an error of earlier writers by over-emphasising the importance of Parzival -- a work of which Wagner was dismissive -- and other Romances in forming the ideality of Parsifal. It is true that Wagner's hero is like Wolfram's hero to the extent that he is a young man who grows slowly wise but he is more than that: Parsifal is a sheltered youth who appears foolish but who despite appearances is capable of achieving perfect wisdom. Although both are knights errant, where Parzival achieves the chivalric ideal by an unorthodox path, Parsifal finds and follows the path that leads to salvation. Wolfram's Parzival is about fidelity, not about salvation. Wagner's Parsifal is about salvation, or in other words about overcoming the world and the devil; some, although not Beckett, understand this to be his mission in a specifically Schopenhauerian sense (which Tanner called Wagner's anti-transcendental redemptivist vision). It is salvation that the hero offers to Kundry in act 2 and it is, according to Gurnemanz, salvation that he brings to the community in act 3.

Beckett's analysis of Parsifal is inhibited by the incompleteness of her survey of Wagner's literary sources. She mentions none of the Indian texts -- many of them concerning another sheltered youth who achieved perfect wisdom -- that other authors (such as Carl Suneson) consider to have influenced Wagner in the creation of Parsifal. Not only does she overlook the important Indian texts but also a medieval religious work (Barlaam and Josaphat), present in Wagner's Dresden library, that was arguably of far greater importance than Parzival, at least for act 2 of the drama. The characters of this act are not found in Parzival (where although the hidden sorceror is called Clinschor, he has nothing to do with Parzival). According to Wagner in 1861, the nameless maiden who kissed the hero was not originally identified with the servant of the Grail (herself a fusion, as Beckett correctly observed, of several female characters in Parzival, originally called by Wagner "Condrie"), who appeared only in the outer acts. In the final version, of course, the temptress has had (like the hero) many names. There can be little doubt that much of the second act was based upon a passage in Barlaam and Josaphat, supplemented by Indian sources. In addition, the relationship between Barlaam and Josaphat was seen by Suneson as the model for that between Gurnemanz and Parsifal. Beckett missed this text and its significance entirely.

It is not clear what primary sources Beckett had consulted. Obviously she did not examine the Wagner's diary, the Brown Book; if she had done so, then she might have seen the importance of the Ramayana, another literary source that she does not mention at all. Wagner had expressed in his diary his enthusiasm for this Indian poem, which he was reading, a few days before he wrote the first prose draft of Parsifal.

Beckett found Parsifal to be inconsistent because of a perceived uneasy balance between Christian and pagan (non-Christian) elements. If she was thinking of "pagan" elements of the Romances -- such as the Grail, the Spear and the Fisher King -- then the Christianized versions of these elements that are used in Wagner's drama could hardly conflict with any strictly Christian elements that appear in the drama -- indeed, Beckett writes of the Christian force of the Grail (p.132) -- although on closer inspection the elements that at first appear to be Christian turn out to be both more complex and more ambiguous. They can be at the same time both "Christian" and "pagan". One does not have to scratch these symbols hard before "pagan" prototypes appear: the spear is presented as the weapon that wounded Christ but it is obviously also the spear of the Grail procession from the Romances and it only functions as a binding element of Wagner's plot because like the spear of Telephus, it both wounds and heals. In his 1876 revision of the prose draft, the spear was identified by Wagner with the weapon, thrown at the Buddha by Mara, which stopped in the air above the head of the one who was seeking perfect enlightenment; this reference was identified by Heckel in 1896 (Bayreuther Blätter, pages 5-19).

Despite the high visibility of Christian symbols, one does not have to look hard at the libretto to find non-Christian ideas there too: characters, events and types Wagner had found in Buddhist and Vedic religious writings, or in classical myth, and concepts he had learned from Schopenhauer's writings on ethics. Beckett treats them as noise that distracts us from the Christian message. This is the main fault in her analysis, leading to the weakness of her proposed interpretation, in which she fails to address issues such as the references to reincarnation, something that does not fit with her (or Wagner's) description of the drama as truly Christian.

Even the baptism of Kundry, which Beckett claims as a specifically Christian reference, allows of a Buddhist interpretation. For Beckett, her baptism permits Kundry (like Feirefiz in Parzival) to be admitted to the Grail temple; but an alternative reading is that she is admitted to the temple by Parsifal's decision to allow women into the community. This brings "Heil" also in the sense of "wholeness". The sign of the cross that the hero makes in act 2 replaced a gesture (the Bhumisparsa Mudra) made by the Buddha after overcoming Mara (Wagner's Klingsor) and his daughters (Wagner's flower maidens). This is the other component in the origins of act 2, also missed by Beckett, who seems to have failed to understand its origins at all. Although Wagner's adaption of episodes from the life of the Buddha -- with Parsifal rather than Shakyamuni as the spiritual hero -- had been demonstrated over 80 years before Beckett wrote her book, there is no hint in the book about the parallels between scenes in Parsifal and events in the life of the Buddha. Wagner had read many versions of the life of the Buddha; if Beckett had read just one, then she would have seen at least the most obvious of the many references to the Buddha's life and teachings in Wagner's libretto.
Beckett acknowledges that Wagner wanted to write an opera about the Buddha. She addresses, briefly, the common origins of Parsifal (for which Wagner made his first sketch in April 1857) and of Die Sieger, which did not progress much beyond the outline Wagner made in May 1856; and finds in them a common motivation, namely to achieve chastity. A central character in Die Sieger is Shakyamuni, who became the Buddha, although at the time of the action he is not yet fully enlightened. Wagner stated that these dramas were related to each other; he said that the reason for abandoning Die Sieger was the difficulty in finding a dramatic treatment for the Buddha. In search of details for this treatment, Wagner read everything he could find concerning the Buddha, in the year between those dates; therefore it is hardly surprising that events in the life of the Buddha were part of Parsifal from its conception. Having failed to dramatize the Buddha directly and specifically, Wagner found that he could treat the subject in a more general way.

If Beckett had looked at the conclusion of Die Sieger more closely, she might have seen that the future Buddha's acceptance of Prakriti -- the intuitive emotional experience that, in Wagner's treatment, enables Shakyamuni to proceed to the scene of his final enlightenment -- prefigures the admission of Kundry into the Grail temple, at the same time as the Grail and Spear (generally considered to represent the male and female principles) are united by Parsifal. It might even be that Parsifal is not ready to enter the Grail temple or to become the king of the Grail before Kundry's tears have triggered the intuitive emotional experience that brings about his own final enlightenment, in the Good Friday meadow. For an understanding of what actually happens in Parsifal, that must be far more important than the pursuit of chastity that Beckett erroneously considered to be the common motivation of these dramas. Her failure to consider the connections between the principal male characters of the two dramas was a missed opportunity that left a gaping hole in the centre of this book. As in the Romances, the key question was not asked: who is Parsifal?


 'Parsifal' Reception in the Bayreuther Blätter
 Mary A. Cicora
Peter Lang Publishing
Series: American univ. studies series I: Germanic languages and literature

Cicora discusses the significance that Wagner's last major work had for the members of the Bayreuth circle, as revealed by the periodical Bayreuther Blätter. She describes its founding and asks to what extent the periodical reflected, or misrepresented, Richard Wagner's views on art and society as presented in his prose writings. Through a close analysis of articles from the periodical, three of which (one from each of the three phases of the Bayreuth Circle, as it was analyzed by Winfried Schüler) Cicora studies in detail. The first, from 1879 and thus before the first performance of Parsifal, asserts that it is a metaphysical work of art. The second, from 1915, offers a psychological approach, while the third, from 1930, gives a mystical interpretation. Each article, in a different way, discusses the regeneratory effect of the drama.
It might be significant, in view of claims advanced by Zelinsky about an anti-Semitic agenda in Parsifal, that Cicora found no evidence that even the most orthodox Wagnerites had hit on the idea of interpreting it as an anti-Semitic work.
With an extensive bibliography listing the many articles cited, relevant primary literature, literature by or about the Bayreuth Circle, literature dealing specifically with Parsifal and other secondary literature.


Parsifal : the Guileless Fool
Howard Duffield
Dodd, Mead, and Co.

With an afterword by Fiona MacLeod. The description of Parsifal as guileless derives from an unfortunate choice made by Frederick Corder in his English translation of Wagner's libretto: "der reine Tor" became "the guileless fool".

Parsifal and Wagner's Christianity
David Irvine
H. Grevel and Co.

Reviewing this book for The Daily Chronicle (9 June 1899), G.B.Shaw commented on the difficulty of Irvine's arguments and the complexity of his sentences. He hailed him as, our first unquestioning apostle of the faith, calling the world, in greenclad volumes only to be interpreted by strenuous spirit wrestlings, to turn aside from the Jewish Jehovah and all other gods; from belief in creation; from subjection to the illusions of time, space, causation and death; above all, from indelicately wilful methods of perpetuating the species, to ideal manhood in Grail Castles of the fourth dimension. His matter is mystic; but his manner is lively and concrete to the verge of obstruseness and often over it.

Das Weltüberwindungswerk : Wagners 'Parsifal' - ein szenisch- musikalisches Gleichnis der Philosophie Arthur Schopenhauers
Language: German
Author(s): Ulrike Kienzle
Publication date: 1992
Place published: Laaber
Publisher(s): Laaber Verlag
Series: Thurnauer Schrifter zum Musiktheater

Although at present only available in German, this book is essential reading for the student of Parsifal, the "work about overcoming the world"; which Kienzle regards as a parable of the philosophy of Arthur Schopenhauer. While her analysis is persuasive, it is not complete. An understanding of Parsifal, it seems, was almost but not quite within her grasp. Although Kienzle devotes sixteen pages to a discussion of Kundry, she fails to interpret Kundry as a Schopenhauerian metaphor. Therefore Kienzle has not fully understood what Kundry represents. Her references to Schopenhauer are mostly to The World as Will and Representation. The latter book does not, however, contain the whole of Schopenhauer's philosophy, and Kienzle's analysis would have benefited from closer study of one of his essays on ethics, On the Basis of Morality, which holds some of the keys to the parable.

The 'Parsifal' of Richard Wagner: with accounts of the 'Perceval' of Chrétien de Troies and the 'Parzival' of Wolfram von Eschenbach
Original title: Parsifal de Richard Wagner : Légende, drame, partition
Original language:French
Author(s): Maurice Kufferath
Translator(s): Louise M. Henermann
First publication:1890 (French)
Publication date: 1904
Place published: New York
Publisher(s): H. Holt and Co

With the leading motifs in musical notation and illustrations of the scenes at the Metropolitan opera house. In Kufferath's interpretation of the drama, Parsifal is based on the ideas of "Schopenhauerian Buddhism". Thus Kundry represents the Will to Live or Desire, Amfortas is Suffering Born of Desire, and Parsifal the Renunciation of Desire and Peace in Negation of the Will. With 8 black and white plates, showing the scenery of the first production at the Metropolitan Opera, 1903.
Other remarks: Introduction by H.E. Krehbiel.

Parsifal: The Finding of Christ Through Art or Richard Wagner As Theologian
Author(s): Albert Ross Parsons
First publication:1890
Publication date: 1997 (reprint)
Place published:
Publisher(s): Kessinger Publishing Co.
Other remarks: Originally published by G.P. Putnam's sons, London and New York.

Title: Parsifal
Author(s): Hans Redlich
Publication date: 1951
Place published: London
Publisher(s): Boosey and Hawkes
Series: Covent Garden Operas


Brief history of the opera, analysis (basic), with information on Wagner and some suggested reading material.

Parsifal; or, The legend of the Holy Grail, retold from ancient sources with acknowledgement to the 'Parsifal' of Richard Wagner
Author(s): Thomas William Rolleston, Willy Pogàny (illustrator)
G.G. Harrap & Co.
LOC call number: PR5236.R3 A7
Abstract:
See the entry for the related book on Lohengrin.

A Pagan Spoiled: Sex and Character in Wagner's 'Parsifal'
Author(s): Anthony Winterbourne
Publication date: 2003
Place published: Cranbury, NJ
Publisher(s): Fairleigh Dickinson Univ. Press, Associated Univ. Presses

The subtitle refers to Otto Weininger's Geschlecht und Charakter (Vienna, 1903). Winterbourne devotes many pages to the pursuit of this red herring. The reason is to be found in Nike Wagner's assertions, not only that Weininger understood Kundry but also that Parsifal is a staging of Sex and Character, and that the latter explains the former. Although open to Nike Wagner's suggestions that the portrayal of Kundry is misogynistic, Winterbourne is sceptical concerning claims that she is an anti-Semitic figure. He notes that Wolzogen suggested to Wagner that Kundry was a female Ahasverus but overlooks the fact that already in the 1865 Prose Draft, Wagner had written that Kundry wanders in a manner reminiscent of the Wandering Jew. Winterbourne also seems not to be aware that it was Heinrich Heine who first described his Dutchman as the Wandering Jew of the sea (and whose influence on Wagner's dramas, including Parsifal, was more significant than Wagner was prepared to admit or Winterbourne appears to realise). He recognizes, however, that the sympathetic nature of her portrayal rules out any possibility of an anti-Semitic subtext.
The references to paganism must relate to Lucy Beckett's idea that there is in Parsifal a tension between Christian and non-Christian, or "pagan", elements. While not dwelling on the Christian elements, Winterbourne seems to be confused about the nature and importance of the "pagan" elements. He makes some rather dismissive statements about Nirvana, a concept which deserves more serious attention than he is willing to give to it, and he obstinately refuses to see any character other than Kundry as based on Buddhist or Indian ideas. He considers and rejects the possibility that Kundry is a bodhisattva approaching enlightenment. It seems to me that he has misread Carl Suneson, who saw Parsifal, not Kundry, both as a Christ-figure and as one who finds and follows the path of the bodhisattva.

Despite the internal and external references to reincarnation, when Parsifal reveals that he has had many names, Winterbourne comments that this should not be read as a hint that he like Kundry, who also has had many names, has been reincarnated.

Winterbourne's assumption that, in Wagner's original conception, she only appeared in the first act is untenable. The whole point of Wagner's original conception was that the restless Kundry of the first act was to reappear, much changed, in the third act.

A Kundry who only appeared in the first act would have been pointless.

Weininger, however, thought that she should have been allowed to die in the second act, on the grounds that she becomes superfluous when Parsifal is not interested in having sex with her.

This too is untenable since, as Parsifal tells Kundry, he has been sent for her salvation.

Winterbourne would have done better to focus on some of those "pagan" elements in Wagner's redemption drama.

**************************

Guide through the Music of R. Wagner's 'Parsifal'
Author(s): Baron Hans von Wolzogen
Translator(s): J.H. Cornell
First publication:1882
Publication date: 1891
Place published: New York
Publisher(s): G. Schirmer

Another of Wolzogen's thematic guides. The book also provides an account of the mythical and literary background to the work as it was understood (not always accurately) by Wolzogen.
Other remarks: German original published by F. Reinboth, Leipzig.

*********************


H. Other Works
Rienzi appears as WWV 49 in the catalogue of Wagner's musical and dramatic works. Modern critical edition of the score published as volume 3 of the Sämtliche Werke. Documents relating to the development and initial reception of the work are to be published in volume 23. See also chapter 2 in Borchmeyer's Drama and the World of Richard Wagner.
Title: Wagner's 'Rienzi' : A reappraisal based on a study of the sketches and drafts
Author(s): John Deathridge
Publication date: 1977
Place published: Oxford
Publisher(s): Clarendon Press
ISBN:
LOC call number: ML410.W132 D4
Abstract:

The abandoned dramatic project Die Sieger is WWV 89 in the catalogue of Wagner's musical and dramatic works. Documentation related to WWV 89 is to be published in volume 31 of the Sämtliche Werke.
Title: Richard Wagner's Buddha-Project 'Die Sieger' ('The Victors'): Its traces in the ideas and structures of 'The Ring' and 'Parsifal'
Original title: Richard Wagners Buddha-Projekt 'Die Sieger' : Seine ideellen og strukturellen Spuren in 'Ring' und 'Parsifal'
Original language:German
Author(s): Wolfgang Osthoff
Translator(s): William Buchanan
First publication:1983 (German)
Publication date: 1996
Place published: Zürich
Publisher(s): Museum Rietberg
ISBN: 3 9070 7068 2
Abstract:
Lecture for the centenary of Wagner's death, given on 13 February 1983, in the Villa Wesendonck, now the Museum Rietberg. Osthoff identified traces of the ideas associated with Wagner's Buddhist drama The Victors, and in particular his interest in reincarnation, in Siegfried, Götterdämmerung and Parsifal.
Other remarks: The translation is not as accurate as might be wished. The German original was published in 'Arkiv für Musikwissenschaft'.




I. Musical Analysis
Title: Das Geheimnis der Form bei Richard Wagner
Author(s): Alfred Ottokar Lorenz
Language: German
First publication:1924-33
Publication date: 1966 (reprint)
Place published: Tutzing
Publisher(s): Hans Schneider
Volume: 4 volumes (Ring 1924, Tristan 1926, Meistersinger 1930, Parsifal 1933)
LOC call number: ML410.W22 L82
Abstract:
A classic analysis of Wagner's later stage works, in terms of simple forms such as the 'bar' and the 'arch'.
Other remarks: Originally published in Berlin by Hesse Verlag. See below for a book about Lorenz.

Title: Musical Structures in Wagnerian Opera
Author(s): Marshall Tuttle
Publication date: 2001
Place published: New York, Queenstown Ontario and Lampeter Wales
Publisher(s): Edwin Mellen Press
ISBN: 0 7734 7642 3
LOC call number: MT100.W2 T87 2000
Series: Studies in the History and Interpretation of Music
Volume: No.65
Abstract:




J. Other Commentary
See also the books by Dieter Borchmeyer, listed under 'Theatre and Drama' in the next section.


Title: Wagner and his Music-Dramas
Author(s): Robert C. Bagar
First publication:1943
Publication date: 1950
Place published: New York
Publisher(s): Grosset and Dunlap
Publisher(s): NY Philharmonic Symphony Society
LOC call number: ML410.W13 B15
Abstract:
A pocket guide to the composer and his canonical dramas.

Title: Modern Myths and Wagnerian Deconstructions : Hermeneutic Approaches to Wagner's Music-Dramas
Author(s): Mary A. Cicora
Publication date: 2000
Place published: Westport, CT
Publisher(s): Greenwood Publishing Group
Series:
Volume: No.57
ISBN: 0 3133 0539 0
LOC call number: ML410.W13 C6 2000
Abstract:
Poststructural analysis of Wagner's dramas. In particular discussing Wagner's use of mythical material, which he claimed was an inexhaustible source for the creative artist.
Other remarks: With bibliography.

Title: The Good Wagner Guide
Author(s): Sir Denis Forman
First publication:2000
Place published: London
Publisher(s): Weidenfeld & Nicolson
ISBN: 0 2976 4401 7
Abstract:
In 'The Good Opera Guide', former television executive Denis Forman provided an unpretentious and irreverent introduction to the world of opera. This book in the same style -- but perhaps even less reverent -- considers only operas by Wagner (including three early ones). Although Forman's intentions are commendable, the educated reader might find that this author tries too hard to avoid pretension -- and being serious -- and in that attempt writes in an artificially matey style that seems to address primarily those whose IQ is lower than their shoe size, whose vocabulary does not extend beyond the limits of the tabloid press, and whose attention span is no longer than the average TV commercial. Do not rely on this book for profound insights concerning Wagner and his works, for informed judgements or for reliable facts. The book is, in places, quite funny, if only for its howlers ("in his autobiography 'Mein Liebe' Wagner wrote ...").

Title: Wagner the Dramatist
Author(s): Hugh Frederick Garten
First publication:1977
Publication date: 1985
Place published: London, New York, and Totowa, NJ
Publisher(s): John Calder Ltd, Riverrun Press Inc., Rowan Littlefield
ISBN: 0 8476 6058
LOC call number: ML410.W1 G195
Abstract:
An account of Wagner's stage works and their sources.

Title: Richard Wagner, 'Rienzi' to 'Parsifal'
Alternative title:Richard Wagner and his poetical work from 'Rienzi' to 'Parsifal'
Original title: Richard Wagner et son oeuvre poétique depuis Rienzi jusqu'à Parsifal
Original language:French
Author(s): Judith Gautier
First publication:1882 (French)
Publication date: 1983 (reprint)
Place published: New York
Publisher(s): Da Capo Press
ISBN: 0 3067 6172 6
LOC call number: ML410.W13 G23 1983
Abstract:
Other remarks: French original published in 1882 by Charavay frères, Paris. First US edition published by A. Williams, Boston, in 1883.

Title: Wagner's Operas
Author(s): Lawrence Gilman
Publication date: 1937
Place published: New York and Toronto
Publisher(s): Farrar and Rinehart, Inc.
LOC call number: ML410.W1 G3
Abstract:

Title: The Musical Dramas of Richard Wagner
Author(s): Paul H. Grummann
Publication date: 1930
Place published: Lincoln, Nebraska
Publisher(s): University of Nebraska Press
LOC call number: ML410.W21 G7
Abstract:

Title: Studies in the Wagnerian Drama
Author(s): Henry E. Krehbiel
First publication:1891
Publication date: 1977 (reprint)
Place published: New York
Publisher(s): Haskell
LOC call number: ML410.W13 K8 (1891)
Abstract:
A view of Wagner's style and message, discussing each of the major dramas.
Other remarks: Originally published by Harper and Brothers, New York.

Title: The View from Afar
Original title: Le Regard Eloigné
Original language:French
Author(s): Claude Lèvi-Strauss
Translator(s): Joachim Newgroschel
Translator(s): Phoebe Hoss
First publication:1983 (French)
Publication date: 1985
Place published: New York and Oxford
Publisher(s): Basic Books Inc and Basil Blackwell Ltd
ISBN: 0 6311 3966 4
LOC call number: GN362 .L47413 1985
Abstract:
Contains the essays, A Note on the Tetralogy and From Chrétien de Troyes to Richard Wagner. A structuralist view of Wagner's dramas.

Title: Richard Wagner, Fritz Lang, and the Nibelungen : The Dramaturgy of Disavowal
Author(s): David J. Levin
Publication date: 1999
Place published: Princeton NJ
Publisher(s): Princeton Univ Press
ISBN: 0 6910 4971 8
LOC call number: ML410.W22 L48 1998
Abstract:
Levin explores the uses that have been made of the Nibelung legend in shaping German national and cultural identity. He seeks and finds anti-Semitic messages both in Wagner's Ring and in Lang's Nibelungen; but makes no mention of the inconvenient fact that Lang was of Jewish descent or that he fled Germany when his work was banned by the Nazis.
Other remarks: Table of contents.

Title: Who's Who and What's What in Wagner
Author(s): Jonathan Lewsey
Publication date: 1997
Place published: Aldershot; Brookfield VT
Publisher(s): Scolar Press; Ashgate Publishing Company
ISBN: 1 8592 8280 6 (hbk), 1 8592 8285 7 (pbk)
LOC call number: ML410.W19 L43 1997
Abstract:

Title: Analyzing Wagner's Operas : Alfred Lorenz and the German Nationalist Ideology
Author(s): Stephen McClatchie
Publication date: 1998
Place published: Rochester NY
Publisher(s): University of Rochester Press
ISBN: 1 5804 6023 2
LOC call number: ML423.L637 M33 1998
Abstract:
Developed from the author's doctoral thesis, Alfred Lorenz as Theorist and Analyst. McClatchie outlines the origins and development of the expressive aesthetic in writings by Wagner and others, as well as in early twentieth-century theories of musical form, and the book considers Lorenz's work and contributions in this light. It also hopes to show, to the extent possible, where the work by Lorenz acted as a sort of "musical metaphor" for German nationalist ideology during the Nazi era. There are two appendices: a summary of Lorenz's formal types (which are not limited to Bar and Bogen) and a summary of his analysis of the poetic-musical periods of the 'Ring'.
Other remarks: With bibliography.

Title: Opera Guides
Author(s): John Nicholas (ed)
Publication date: 1980-1988
Place published: London and New York
Publisher(s): John Calder Ltd, Riverrun Press Inc.
Series: ENO/ROH Opera Guides
Volume: Nos. 6 (Tristan), 12 (Holländer), 19 (Meistersinger), 21 (Walküre), 28 (Siegfried), 31 (Götterdämmerung), 34 (Parsifal), 35 (Rheingold), 39 (Tannhäuser), 47 (Lohengrin)
Abstract:
Each of these pocket-size books contains a synopsis, essays, a thematic guide, an English translation of the libretto, a discography and a short bibliography, related to the work.

Title: The Complete Operas of Richard Wagner
Author(s): Charles Osborne
Publication date: 1990, 1991
Place published: Cambridge MA and London
Publisher(s): Da Capo Press, Victor Gollancz, Grange
ISBN: 0 3068 0522 7, 0 5750 5380 1
LOC call number: ML410.W13 O8 1991
Abstract:
A guide to Wagner's operas (including the three early ones). Osborne's view of Wagner and his works is heavily influenced by Gutman (see above), and his claim that Wagner was a closet homosexual has not been widely accepted. Although Wagner did spend a lot of time in his closet.

Title: The Sources for the Music Dramas of Richard Wagner : Der Fliegende Holländer, Tannhäuser, Lohengrin, Tristan, and Der Ring des Nibelungen.
Author(s): James Henry Renz
Translator(s):
Publication date: 1956
Place published: Ann Arbor, MI
Publisher(s):
ISBN:
LOC call number:
Abstract:

Title: Wagner and His Operas
Author(s): Stanley Sadie
Publication date: 1999 and 2000
Place published: London
Publisher(s): St Martins Press, Macmillan
Series: New Grove Composers
ISBN: 0 3122 4432 0 (hbk), 0 3337 9021 9 (pbk)
LOC call number: ML410.W13 W124 2000
Abstract:
Contributed articles by among others Arnold Whittall and Barry Millington. Material recycled from the first edition of the New Grove Dictionary of Opera.

Title: The Legends of the Wagner Drama : Studies in Mythology and Romance
Author(s): Jessie Laidlay Weston
First publication:1896, 1900
Publication date: 1978 (reprint)
Place published: New York
Publisher(s): AMS Press
LOC call number: ML410.W13 W4 (1900)
Abstract:
In his Ring and in several other dramas ( Tannhäuser, Lohengrin, Tristan und Isolde and Parsifal) Wagner drew upon the riches of medieval literature. Jessie Weston is remembered mainly for her studies of the Grail legend (in books such as The Quest of the Holy Grail, The Legend of Sir Perceval and From Ritual to Romance) and as a translator into English of Wolfram's epic poem Parzival. Weston was a dedicated Wagnerian, regularly attending the Bayreuth Festival between 1890 and 1926. In this book she reviewed the medieval sources both in their own right and as sources used by Wagner. While some of her ideas have been discarded or modified by later scholars, Weston's account of the medieval romances remains as readable and interesting as it was on its publication a century ago. Her insight into Wagner's use of the sources is intelligent and often enlightening.
Other remarks: Originally published by D. Nutt Ltd. in London, 1896, then by Scribner's Sons Inc., New York, 1900. Reprinted by Longwood Press, Boston, in 1977. For a more detailed treatment of the medieval sources of Tristan und Isolde and Parsifal respectively the reader with sufficient knowledge of German will benefit from the respective studies by Wolfgang Golther (Tristan und Isolde in der Dichtungen des Mittelalters und der neuen Zeit, 1907, Parzival und der Gral in der Dichtungen des Mittelalters und der Neuzeit, 1925). For the Ring, see his Sagengeschichtliche Grundlagen der Ringdichtung Richard Wagners.

Title: Wagner Opera : Plots and Analyses
Author(s): Audrey Williamson
Publication date: 1962
Place published: London and New York
Publisher(s): John Calder Ltd, Riverrun Press Inc.
ISBN: 0 7145 0603 6 (pbk)
LOC call number: MT100.W2 W383
Abstract: A guide to Wagner's stage works with a short biography.




K. Libretto Translations
Some of these translations are accompanied by extensive commentary.


Title: The Ring of the Nibelungen
Translator(s): William Mann
Publication date: 1964
Place published: London
Publisher(s): Centurion Press Ltd
Volume: 4 vols.
Abstract:
An accurate translation of the Ring. Also issued with the Furtwängler RAI recording of the cycle.
Other remarks: Originally published by the Friends of Covent Garden.

Title: Guide des Operas de Wagner
Language: French
Author(s): Michel Pazdro, Jean Cabourg, Dominique Jameux
Publication date: 1988
Place published: Paris
Publisher(s): Fayard
LOC call number: MT100.W2 G93 1988
Abstract:
Libretti with French translation, thematic guide, analysis, discography.

Title: Richard Wagner : 'The Ring'
Translator(s): Andrew Porter, Eric Fraser (illustrations)
Publication date: 1976
Place published: London
Publisher(s): W.W. Norton and Co
ISBN: 0 3930 0867 3
LOC call number: ML50.W14 R32 1976
Abstract:
A singable translation of the Ring. The English text of each the Ring operas was reprinted in the separate ENO/ROH Opera Guides for each of those operas.

Title: 'Der Ring des Nibelungen' : A Companion, Translation and Commentary
Author(s): Rudolph Sabor
Publication date: 1997
Place published: London
Publisher(s): Phaidon
Volume: 5 vols.
ISBN: 0 7148 3650 8
LOC call number: ML410.W15 S33 1997 (vol.5)
Abstract:
Includes a new translation of the Ring, scene-by-scene synopses, explanation of leitmotifs, bibliographies, discographies, and commentary on the action. There is one volume for each part of the tetralogy and a companion volume (available separately) concerning the Ring as a whole. The companion volume is a cornucopia of information about the tetralogy: one that informs, enlightens and occasionally provokes. Sabor's is a poetic translation although it follows the German as closely as possible; if not always in literal meaning then at least in metre and rhyme pattern. Detailed references to the Leitmotiven by "short names" allow the reader to follow the music in relation to the words.

Title: Wagner's 'Ring of the Nibelung' : The Full German Text with a New Translation and Commentaries
Translator(s): Stewart Spencer
Author(s): Barry Millington (ed)
Publication date: 1993
Place published: London
Publisher(s): Thames and Hudson
ISBN: 0 5000 1567 8
LOC call number: ML50.W14 R32 1993
Abstract:
An annotated translation of the Ring including deleted text, with related essays. These include: Spencer on translating the Ring, Elizabeth Magee on Wagner's medieval sources, and studies by Millington, Roger Hollinrake and Warren Darcy. There is a chronology of the composition process, a glossary of names, a bibliography, and a survey of audio and video recordings. With 8 pages of black and white plates.




V. Books about Specialised Topics
The titles in this section of the FAQ are now arranged according to the following subsections: Literature, Philosophy, Politics and Society, Religion, Sex and Gender, Theatre and Drama, Other.
A. Literature
For discussions of the manifold connections between Wagner and European literature, see the books by Dietrich Borchmeyer listed in subsection F below. For a detailed examination of Wagner's impact on Baudelaire and Mallarmé respectively, see Musica Ficta by Lacoue-Labarthe, described in III-B above.


Title: Richard Wagner and the Modern British Novel
Author(s): John Louis DiGaetani
Publication date: 1978
Place published: Cranbury NJ and London
Publisher(s): Associated University Press, Fairleigh Dickinson
ISBN: 0 8386 1955 X (hbk), 0 8386 1795 6 (pbk)
LOC call number: PR888.W34 D5
Abstract:
Examines Wagner's influence on J. Conrad, D.H. Lawrence, E.M. Forster, Virginia Woolf, and James Joyce.

Title: Wagner and Literature
Author(s): Raymond Furness
Publication date: 1982
Place published: Manchester
Publisher(s): Manchester University Press
ISBN: 0 3128 5347 5
LOC call number: ML410.W13 F95 1982
Abstract:

Title: Wagner to 'The Waste Land' : A Study of the Relationship of Wagner to English Literature
Author(s): Stoddard Martin
Publication date: 1982
Place published: London and Basingstoke
Publisher(s): Macmillan, Barnes and Noble
ISBN: 0 3332 8998 6, 0 3892 0250 9
LOC call number: PR468.W34 M37 1982
Abstract:

Title: Joyce and Wagner : A Study of Influence
Author(s): Timothy Peter Martin
Publication date: 1991
Place published: Cambridge UK
Publisher(s): Cambridge Univ. Press
ISBN: 0 5213 9487 2
LOC call number: PR6019.O9 Z7268 1991
Abstract:
Timothy Martin documents Joyce's exposure to Wagner's operas, and finds a pervasive Wagnerian presence in his work. Wagner emerges as an important source in the development of literary modernism, and as one of Joyce's most important influences from the previous century. Exploring such specific themes in Joyce's writings as the artist-hero, the problem of exile, and redemption through a woman's love, Martin demonstrates their origins in Wagner's work. Parallels are drawn between characters: for example, Siegfried in the Ring and Stephen Dedalus in A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man ; the wandering captain in The Flying Dutchman and Leopold Bloom in Ulysses. In a more general sense, Martin finds that Joyce's works are Wagnerian in their underlying mythic structure.




B. Philosophy
Title: The Quest for Voice : Music, Politics and the Limits of Philosophy
Author(s): Lydia Goehr
Publication date: 1998 and 2002
Place published: Oxford
Publisher(s): Oxford Univ. Press
ISBN: 0 1981 6696 6 (pbk)
LOC call number: ML3845 .G64 1998b
Abstract:
Goehr presents five essays that although discrete are interlinked. The argument underlying her book is that music as a metaphor is able to speak to philosophy about its inherent limits. Here she is following a hint given by Barthes: perhaps that is the value of music: to be a good metaphor. Goehr shows how Wagner employed a metaphor of the musical -- life, spirit, breath -- as a cultural and metaphysical yardstick, and that this is a key with which to unlock aspects of his work: (a) his attacks on formalism, (b) his move away from the composition of instrumental music, (c) his commitment to musical performance as an event in which politics is served only if the aesthetic of expression also is served, and (d) his linkage between creativity, expression and national identity.
Wagner claimed that music is the only language that can express the (otherwise) inexpressible; it is, he said, the natural language of immediate feeling. Goehr explores the theme of expressing the inexpressible, which she relates to contemporary concerns (in aesthetics and critical theory) about formalism, autonomy and censorship. She argues that the concept of the purely musical functioned, in the nineteenth century, as a metaphor to capture the silence of philosophy, or to say that which philosophy could not say. She relates this to Wagner's aesthetic ideas, in which the purely musical was related to the purely human, in his words, the essence of humanity as such, freed from all convention and all dogma. Goehr claims that music's freedom from external constraint enables it to express itself in, with and on its own terms, which in turn gives it freedom to express or reflect upon society at a critical distance.
Using the libretto of Die Meistersinger as a basis, Goehr explores the paradoxical relations between rules and creativity, conditions and exemplars, and tradition and innovation. She argues that there are revealed and concealed relations in this libretto between aesthetics, politics and philosophy. Goehr finds four threads or arguments in Die Meistersinger and considers each of them separately: the historical argument, the musical-aesthetic argument, the political argument, and the philosophical argument. In her last three essays, Goehr considers the debate between Wagner and the formalists, the subject of performance practice, the relation between creativity, expression and national identity and the experiences of composers in exile.

Title: Nietzsche, Wagner and the Philosophy of Pessimism
Author(s): Roger Hollinrake
Publication date: 1982
Place published: London
Publisher(s): Allen and Unwin
ISBN: 0 0492 1029 7
LOC call number: B3317 .H56 1982
Abstract:
The author advances the interesting theory that Also Sprach Zarathustra was intended as a response to Wagner's Parsifal. Includes extracts from the Nietzsche-Wagner correspondence.

Title: The Philosophy of Schopenhauer
Author(s): Bryan Magee
Publication date: 1997
Place published: Oxford
Publisher(s): Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0 1982 3722 7
LOC call number: B3148 .M27 1983
Abstract:
Includes a chapter about Schopenhauer's influence on Wagner, one that covers this subject in more depth than he does in his later book (see below). Magee takes Wagner's attempt to correct Schopenhauer more seriously than other commentators have done, explaining Wagner's problem and his attempted solution in relation to Tristan. Magee points out the rather obvious (to anyone who has read Schopenhauer) traces of Schopenhauer's influence on this drama and on Die Meistersinger. In his comments on Parsifal Magee overlooks some Schopenhauerian ideas in this drama that have been examined by more recent writers, notably Ulrike Kienzle in Das Weltüberwindungswerk.

Title: Wagner and Philosophy (UK title)
Alternative title:The Tristan Chord (US title)
Author(s): Bryan Magee
Publication date: 2000, 2001
Place published: Oxford, New York
Publisher(s): Oxford University Press, Metropolitan Books
ISBN: 0 7139 9480 0 (UK), 0 8050 6788 4 (US)
LOC call number: ML410.W19 M14 2001
Abstract:
As Magee remarks at the beginning of this book, Wagner was the only one of the "great composers" to take a serious interest in philosophy. His later works would not be what they are without the ideas that he found in the writings of contemporary philosophers (primarily Feuerbach in the Ring and primarily Schopenhauer in Tristan, Mastersingers and Parsifal). Wagner's name is also closely associated with that of another philosopher, Friedrich Nietzsche, although, as Magee explains, in this case the influence flowed from composer to philosopher. The belief that there was significant influence from Nietzsche to Wagner is one of those that Magee shows to be false, in a chapter entitled 'Wagner's Misleading Reputation'. Another falsehood is the view of Wagner as a proto-Nazi; Magee devotes many pages to Wagner's political beliefs and activities. He also discusses Wagner's attitude to religion and to the common ground of religion and philosophy, i.e. metaphysics and ethics.
In his last chapter, "Wagner and Nietzsche", Magee repeats the theory -- first put forward by von Westernhagen in 1956 -- that the "mortal insult", mentioned in a letter from Nietzsche to Overbeck, was Wagner's correspondence with his doctor and the resulting gossip about Wagner's belief that self-abuse had ruined Nietzsche's health. Magee seems not to be aware that another letter written on the same day to another friend of Nietzsche made it very clear that the mortal insult was something entirely different. This letter was first published in 1980 and it was later included in the critical edition of Nietzsche's correspondence.
In an appendix Magee discusses Wagner's anti-Semitism and the way in which this subject has been discussed in recent decades. This appendix is probably the most balanced assessment of the subject published to date.




C. Politics and Society
Although they are listed in other sections of this bibliography, there are two books which must be highly recommended as an introduction to Richard Wagner's political ideas. One of them is Bryan Magee's Wagner and Philosophy, described in subsection B above, which provides a lucid and accurate account of the development of those ideas in chapters 3 to 5. The other is A.D. Aberbach's The Ideas of Richard Wagner, described in III-C above, which devotes its first hundred pages ("The Political Stage") to that aspect of Wagner's life and thought.


Title: The Political Concepts of Richard Wagner
Original title: Les Idées politiques de Richard Wagner
Original language:French
Author(s): Maurice Boucher
Translator(s): Marcel Honoré
First publication:1948 (French)
Publication date: 1950
Place published: New York
Publisher(s): M&H Publications
ISBN:
LOC call number: ML410.W1 B6412
Abstract:
With a short bibliography.

Title: Richard Wagner : Patriot and Politician
Author(s): Frank B. Josserand
Publication date: 1981
Place published: Washington DC
Publisher(s): Univ. Press of America
ISBN: 0 8191 1418 9
LOC call number: ML410.W19 J67
Abstract:
A study of Wagner's changing political convictions, commitment and activities.
Other remarks: Printed from typescript.

Title: The Twisted Muse : Musicians and their Music in the Third Reich
Author(s): Michael Kater
Publication date: 1997, 1999
Place published: London and New York
Publisher(s): Oxford Univ. Press
ISBN: 0 1950 9620 7 (hbk), 0 1951 3242 4 (pbk)
LOC call number:
Abstract:
Kater provides an example of how an ignorant writer, who does not check his facts and figures, can contribute to the folklore that "everybody knows" about Wagner and his works. He claims (p.35) that Parsifal contains anti-Semitic messages (which, surprisingly, even Barry Millington has been unable to decipher), that Wagner was Hitler's political inspiration (p.37) and that the title of Mein Kampf was a homage to Wagner's 'Mein Leben'. Each of these claims is nonsensical.
Kater quotes selectively from Rosenberg's Mythus to give the false impression that the leading Nazi ideologist approved of Wagner. In fact, as the Mythus itself makes clear, Rosenberg's views on Wagner ranged from scepticism to hostility.
Kater's interpretation of the data on performances of Wagner's operas in the Third Reich arrives at the opposite of the conclusions drawn by other commentators and, on close examination, cannot be reconciled with the numbers. Contrary to Kater, the facts are that Wagner was the most performed opera composer in German opera houses before the Nazis came to power but that total performances of his operas decreased thereafter, Wagner becoming less popular than Verdi by 1938, and continued to decrease throughout the Nazi period.

Title: The Darker Side of Genius : Richard Wagner's Anti-Semitism
Original title: Richard Wagner : Vorbote des Antisemitismus
Alternative title:Rikhard Vagner : bi-sevakh ha-antishemiyut
Original language:German
Author(s): Jacob Katz
Translator(s): Allan Arkush
Publication date: 1986
Place published: Hanover NH
Publisher(s): University Press of New England
ISBN: 0 8745 1368 5
LOC call number: ML410.W19 K3313 1986
Series: Tauber Institute for the study of European Jewry series
Abstract:
Katz considers both the role of Richard Wagner in the history of modern anti-Semitism and the role of anti-Semitism in the life of Richard Wagner. He notes (on page ix) that the assumption that Wagner's anti- Jewish phobia left traces in his artistic creation is one that first arose after Hitler and which, in his view, was clearly a residue of the appropriation of Wagner by the Nazis. In the post-Nazi period some critics chose to see this phobia as the key to interpreting Wagner's art but without forced speculation, very little in the artistic work of Wagner can be related to his attitude towards Jews and Judaism. For examples of such "forced speculation", see the books by Rose and Weiner, below.

Title: Wagner's Hitler : The Prophet and His Disciple
Original title: Wagners Hitler : Der Prophet und sein Vollstrecker
Original language:German
Author(s): Joachim Köhler
Translator(s): Ronald Taylor
Publication date: 2000
Place published: New Haven and London
Publisher(s): Polity Press in association with Blackwell Publishers Ltd
ISBN: 0 7456 2239 9
LOC call number: DD247.H5 K73 2000
Abstract:
A detailed and imaginative study of the relationship between Richard Wagner and Adolf Hitler. Köhler argues that the influence of Richard and Cosima Wagner and their associates played a vital role in shaping the cultural context in which Nazism developed. More controversially, Köhler claims that both Wagner's writings and his music-dramas were a formative influence on Hitler. Also that Hitler's experience of Wagner's stage works (from Rienzi to Parsifal) was the source of his megalomania. Köhler does not help his case by making absurd claims that are easily falsifiable: for example, that Wagner had instructed that Klingsor should be dressed as a rabbi (p.220). The copious footnotes might give the impression that this book is well researched; however, a significant proportion of the references that I checked did not support the author's statements. The reader should also take note of Köhler's sources of information: he has a tendency to make assertions on the basis of unreliable sources, such as memoirs that are largely based on uncorroborated gossip.
The author consistently misrepresents Wagner's attitudes and opinions, in some cases inverting them: thus he claims, for example, that (in his last years) Wagner saw the origin of meat-eating in racial degeneration (p.218) and held that the Germans were racially pure (p.210). In fact, Wagner stated in his "regeneration essays" his opinion that meat-eating had contributed to human degeneration, since man's natural diet was vegetarian, and he noted on several occasions that the Germans were a mongrel nation. This book is an unhappy blend of fact (too little) and fiction (too much).

Title: Chaos and Dancing Star : Wagner's Politics, Wagner's Legacy
Author(s): Roy Pateman
Publication date: 2002
Place published:
Publisher(s): Univ. Press of America
ISBN: 0 7618 2180 5
LOC call number:
Abstract:

Title: Wagner : Race and Revolution
Author(s): Paul Lawrence Rose
Publication date: 1992
Place published: London
Publisher(s): Yale University Press
ISBN: 0 3000 6745 3
LOC call number: ML410.W19 R75 1992
Abstract:
Described by Michael Tanner (in The Spectator) as a prodigious work of hatred-- venom drips from its every page -- this intemperate polemic is also one of considerable ingenuity and astounding dishonesty. Using selective quotation and misquotation from Wagner's writings, correspondence and conversations, Rose attempts to make a case for two theses: (1) that the inspiration, motivation and themes of Wagner's operas, from Holländer onwards, were anti-Semitic; (2) that Wagner invented "racial anti-Semitism".
Wagner's words, however, even when misquoted, were not sufficient for Rose's purposes, so he supplemented them in three ways. First, he takes short phrases from Wagner and uses them to fabricate new "quotations"; in this way he is able to make Wagner say anything. Secondly, Rose claims to be privy to thoughts that Wagner had not expressed in words; he condemns him for those thoughts and then he condemns him for not expressing them. Finally, Rose makes copious use of a spurious work entitled The Work and Mission of My Life (p.150 ff), which he discusses as if written by Wagner. It was not written by him, as Rose must have known.
Rose identifies a linkage between anti-Jewish feeling and German revolutionary and liberal thought in the first half of the 19th century. This does not mean, as Rose appears to think it does, that every revolutionary statement made by Wagner can be read as anti-Semitic. Nor is Rose justified in labelling all of Wagner's outbursts against philistinism as anti-Semitic, on the grounds that in one notorious essay (which as Rose recognises was influenced by the writings of Proudhon and Marx on the "Jewish Question") he accused Jews of turning art into a commodity. Nor is he justified in reading every mention of Judaism or Jews in Wagner's writings as anti-Semitic. In his private terminology, as Rose might have realised if he had studied the primary material thoroughly, Wagner applied the label "Jew" not only to Jewish people but also to anyone whom he saw as mercenary or cosmopolitan, and habitually referred to journalists as Jews and Jesuits.
Rose rightly criticizes Wagner for his anti-Semitic attitude; but he fails to distinguish between Wagner's private anti-Semitic statements (of which many were recorded by Cosima) and his rare public expressions of anti-Semitism, and so gives the impression that Wagner was engaged in a public campaign against the Jews. This is not the case; however many anti-Semitic comments and tasteless jokes Wagner made at the breakfast table, they could not amount to an anti-Semitic campaign. Rose also fails to distinguish between Wagner's anti-Semitism and his criticism of Judaism and its influence on Christianity. He alleges, wrongly, that Judaism in Music ends with a call for the physical destruction of the Jews. In his 1869 "afterword" to the essay, Wagner made it clear that he was arguing for assimilation of the Jews. He claimed that it would benefit both them and the Germans. Wagner later referred to this plan for assimilation as his grand solution of the Jewish problem. Blinded by pathological hatred of Wagner, Rose entirely fails to understand any of this.
Rose's discussion of Wagner's views on, and relations with, Jews and Judaism is both superficial and misleading. Rose sneers at Wagner's Jewish friends and associates (namely Tausig, Porges, Gautier, Neumann and Rubinstein), calling them his "house-Jews" and extending his hatred of Wagner also to them. Since Rose believes that Wagner hated all Jews on racial grounds, he thinks that these people could not be "real" Jews. Like many of Rose's arguments, this one is circular: no "real" Jew could be a friend of Wagner, therefore Wagner had no Jewish friends, which confirms his "racial" selectivity.
Rose observes that the content of Wagner's dramas was influenced by thinkers such as Feuerbach and Schopenhauer, and from this argues that those dramas challenge and reject traditional "Judaeo-Christian" modes of thinking. While this might be true, it cannot be equated, as Rose claims, to an anti-Semitic agenda or motivation. Even if we agree with Rose that the Ring (which was begun under the influence of Feuerbach) contains a rejection of at least some of the ten commandments of Moses, this does not make the Ring anti-Semitic, since it rejects religious commandments in general and not only those of Judaism and Christianity. Rose's claim that Tristan is anti-Semitic because it tolerates adultery and therefore rejects one of the Mosaic commandments is simply ridiculous. This argument for anti- Semitic content in the dramas is, to use Jacob Katz's expression, forced speculation.
Rose is unwise enough to rely upon Robert Gutman's unreliable book. In order to argue that the Ring was conceived as an anti-Semitic work, he cites Gutman's theory that there was a draft of the Judaism essay as early as 1848. This idea is fanciful; in fact there is no evidence whatever of any anti- Semitic sentiment on Wagner's part before August 1850. In other places Rose freely manipulates dates to suit his argument. He expands on Gutman's bizarre interpretation of Parsifal (without considering the false premises on which it was based), as an expression of biological racism. His arguments for a racial basis to Wagner's anti-Semitism are not likely to convince anyone except those who already believe that Wagner was a racist. This book fails to deliver all that it promises: in particular, Rose fails to prove that ideas about race were central, rather than peripheral, to Wagner's thinking, or to demonstrate that racism was an element in his world-view.
Other remarks: This is not a book to be set lightly aside, as Constant Reader once said of a novel, it should be thrown with great force.

Title: Imagined Germany : Richard Wagner's National Utopia
Author(s): Hannu Salmi
Publication date: 1999
Place published: New York
Publisher(s): Peter Lang Publishing
Series: German Life and Civilization
Volume: No.29
ISBN: 0 8204 4416 2
LOC call number: DD210 .S24 1999
Abstract:

Title: The Racial Thinking of Richard Wagner
Author(s): Leon Stein
Publication date: 1950
Place published: New York
Publisher(s): Philosophical Library
LOC call number: ML410.W19 S83
Abstract:
A study of Wagner's anti-Semitism and pan-Germanism. Stein's grave misunderstanding of the prose writings can be excused to some extent by the fact that essential background materials (such as the Gobineau-Wagner correspondence or Cosima's Diaries) were not available to him. It remains the case, unfortunately, that Stein's misconceptions about Wagner's opinions and attitudes have been adopted, uncritically, by several later writers.
Unlike some (but by not means all) recent commentators on the subject, Stein found no manifestations of Wagner's phobia about Jews and Judaism in his artistic creations. Those commentators who have observed that, if there are no such manifestations, then it is incredible, might like to reverse the argument. If there are no racist or anti-Jewish subtexts in the dramas, then, despite Wagner's anti-Semitic attitude, perhaps race and Jewry were not such key threads in his thinking as Stein and others have believed.
Other remarks: Based on a doctoral dissertation.

Title: The Ring of Myths
Original title: Taba`at ha-mitosim : ha-Yi´sre'elim, Vagner veha-Natsizm
Original language:Hebrew
Author(s): Na'ama Sheffi
Translator(s): Martha Grenzeback
Publication date: 2000 (hbk), 2003 (pbk)
Place published: Brighton UK and Portland OR
Publisher(s): Sussex Academic Press
ISBN: 1 9022 1052 2
LOC call number: ML410.W19 S4513 2001
Abstract:
Laon writes: "Na'ama Sheffi's account of the Israeli 'ban' on Wagner's music ranges through 60-odd years of Israeli cultural and political history, and is considerably more subtle and nuanced than this brief outline can reveal. Israeli politics are both labyrinth and minefield, and the clarity of Sheffi's guidance through the twists and turns is something the reader can both admire and be grateful for.
Sheffi reveals that the Israeli ban was a historical accident: in 1938 the Palestine Orchestra (principally made up of Jews from Eastern Europe) protested against Kristallnacht by dropping the Meistersinger overture from their next concert. The gesture was hurried but not unreasonable: the Nazis used Die Meistersinger for propaganda purposes, as they misappropriated other German music and art: Beethoven, Bruckner, Goethe and Rembrandt in particular. Since then Wagner has been made into a symbol of the holocaust and shorthand for Nazism, a symbol with little relationship to the actual historical personage, who, she observes, did not devote his life to denigrating Jews and certainly not to annihilating them. Sheffi argues that using Wagner in this way not only perpetuates a falsehood but also directs attention away from the individuals, political groups and social forces that really created and operated the Holocaust. The Israeli ban endorses the Nazis' malicious misreadings of Wagner; thus it remains a homage to rather than a repudiation of Nazi cultural thought. A genuine rejection of Nazi ideas necessarily involves dismissing their claim to Wagner.
Sheffi does not know her Wagner quite as well as she knows Israel, however. For example she is too credulous in relation to the various readings of anti-Semitic meanings into Wagner's works. She also commits occasional solecisms like, Wagner had been on close terms with his son-in-law. Namely, H.S. Chamberlain, a man who once saw Richard Wagner from a distance but who never met him. Here Sheffi has fallen into the trap of trusting some of the makers of the Ring of Myths of her title, who tend to fudge the distance between Wagner and Chamberlain, a writer who really did contribute to Nazi ideology.
This is a thoughtful, generally well-researched and referenced book, clearly written, and showing alertness to nuances of meaning in a field where attention to nuance is a rare commodity."




D. Religion
Title: Richard Wagner : A Mystic in the Making
Author(s): Alan Aberbach
Publication date: 1991
Publisher(s): Longwood Academic
ISBN: 0 8934 1662 2
LOC call number: ML410.W19 A23 1991
Abstract:

Title: Richard Wagner's Religious Ideas : A Spiritual Journey (hbk)
Alternative title:Richard Wagner's Spiritual Pilgrimage (pbk)
Author(s): Alan Aberbach
Publication date: 1998
Place published: New York, Queenstown Ontario and Lampeter Wales
Publisher(s): Edwin Mellen Press
ISBN: 0 7734 8783 2 (hbk), 0 7734 8348 9 (pbk)
LOC call number: ML410.W19 A24 1996
Abstract:
An in-depth examination of Richard Wagner's religious, spiritual and mystical thoughts, intended to provide the reader with a better understanding of his works. The author presents Richard Wagner as a seeker and a pilgrim, whose thoughts about God, man's place in the universe, and the individual and collective destinies of mankind can be traced both in his writings and in his dramas. In this account particular attention is given to two influences who have been largely overlooked by Wagner biographers: the Sufi poet Hafiz, and the Domenican mystic, Meister Eckhart.

Title: Women and the Changing Concept of Salvation in the Operas of Richard Wagner
Author(s): Jeffrey Peter Bauer
Publication date: 1994
Place published: Anif, Salzburg
Publisher(s): Verlag Ursula Müller-Speiser
ISBN: 3 8514 5020 5
Abstract:

Title: Richard Wagner och den indiska tankevärlden
Alternative title:Richard Wagner und die Indische Geisteswelt (German translation)
Language: Swedish
Author(s): Carl Suneson
Translator(s): Gert Kreutzer (German translation)
Publication date: 1985
Place published: Stockholm; Leiden and New York
Publisher(s): Almqvist and Wiksell International, Brill Academic Publishers Inc.
Series: Stockholm Oriental Studies
Volume: No.13
ISBN: 9 1220 0775 X (S), 9 0040 8859 8 (DE)
LOC call number: ML410.W19 S95 1985, ML410.W19 S9514 1989
Abstract:
The only extended study of Richard Wagner's interest in Indian literature and religions, and their influence on his works, this book is in three parts: 1. Wagner's Impressions of India, 2. Wagnerian Aesthetics and Indian Metaphysics, 3. India in the Music Dramas. The growth of Indian studies in the early nineteenth century was followed with interest by Schopenhauer, who passed on this interest to his disciple Richard Wagner. The Buddhist idea of renunciation in particular appealed to Wagner during his relationship with Mathilde Wesendonck. His use of Indian symbols and motifs in some of his later works reflects, in Suneson's view, the conflict between ascetic and aesthetic strivings. In this respect the unfinished music drama Die Sieger (The Victors) stands alone as a work entirely based on an Indian source. Suneson argues that the Indian elements in these later dramas were introduced by Wagner not as exotic elements but as congenial to his own personality and with his deepest felt artistic needs.
Other remarks: The original is in Swedish but it has been translated into German.

Title: The Buddhist Nirvana and its Western Interpreters
Author(s): Guy Richard Welbon
Publication date: 1968
Place published: Chicago and London
Publisher(s): Univ. of Chicago Press
LOC call number: BL1456.66 .W42
Abstract:
This book traces the history of Western Europe's contact with and evaluation of Buddhism from the first references by Christian writers to the beginning of the 20th century. It concentrates on the reception of the alien concepts of Buddhism (and other religions of Indian origin) after the first translations of Buddhist scriptures into European languages appeared in the middle of the 19th century, with particular reference to the concept of 'Nirvana'. Western scholars had difficulties in interpreting this concept and in reconciling the different meanings with which it appeared in Mahayana scriptures, as well as those found in Theravada scriptures. The author devotes a chapter to three non-specialists who followed the scholarly dispute about the meaning of 'Nirvana' with particular interest, and to their responses to this concept: Arthur Schopenhauer, Richard Wagner and Friedrich Nietzsche.




E. Sex and Gender
Title: The Prodigious Lover : New Aspects in the Life of Richard Wagner
Original title: La vie amoureuse de Richard Wagner
Original language:French
Author(s): Louis Barthou
Translator(s): Henry Irving Brock
Publication date: 1927
Place published: New York
Publisher(s): Duffield & Company
LOC call number: ML410.W19 B181
Abstract:

Title: The Loves of Richard Wagner (UK title)
Alternative title:The Women in Wagner's Life (US title)
Original title: Richard Wagner und die Frauen
Original language:German
Author(s): Julius Kapp
Translator(s): Hannah Waller
Publication date: 1951
Place published: London
Publisher(s): W.H. Allen
LOC call number: ML410.W19 K292
Abstract:

Title: Wagner's Operas and Desire
Author(s): James M. McGlathery
Publication date: 1998
Place published: New York
Publisher(s): Peter Lang Publishing
ISBN: 0 8204 3693 3
LOC call number: ML410.W13 M3 1998
Abstract:
The ten canonical works are examined with special attention to the role of erotic passion. An hmcw participant summed up this book in a single word: "worthless".

Title: Wagner Androgyne : A Study in Interpretation
Original title: Wagner Androgyne : Essai sur l'interpretation
Original language:French
Author(s): Jean-Jacques Nattiez
Translator(s): Stewart Spencer
First published: 1990 (French)
Publication date: 1993
Place published: Princeton NJ
Publisher(s): Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0 6910 4832 0
LOC call number: ML410.W13 N3513 1993
Abstract:
The author's theme is that of androgyny in Wagner and his works. The word androgyne is used here in a broader sense than "hermaphrodite", however. Indeed it might be argued that he was not writing about androgyny at all but about the complementary polarities of male and female, or of the eternal masculine and the eternal feminine. It is beyond doubt that Wagner regarded the union of these polarities as necessary for the psychic health and wholeness both of individuals and of society and that this need is a recurring theme in Wagner's dramas. It also provides a sexual metaphor that dominates his most important theoretical treatise Opera and Drama. From this treatise together with The Art-Work of the Future and other writings, Nattiez develops and presents an interpretation of the Ring cycle as the history of music and related arts, divided by the decline of classical tragedy and reborn united in the total work of art, the art-work of the future. He then returns to the theme of androgyny, attempts to psychoanalyse Wagner and discusses a host of more or less related subjects. Although there is not much in the book that is entirely original, in it Nattiez has drawn together many disparate threads of analysis and interpretation which he examines from a new angle, that of androgyny and gender.
Some readers have made the mistake of taking Nattiez literally and seriously. The author of this entertaining book is not always, I think, entirely serious. Especially in chapter three he has his tongue firmly planted in cheek. In this interpretation of the Ring, Nattiez confuses Wagner's means with his ends but in the process illuminates the relationship between the tetralogy and Wagner's theoretical writings, in a way that is both witty and thought-provoking.
Other remarks: The French edition contains, in an appendix, a translation of the first prose version of Wieland the Smith. This was omitted from the American edition. The original German text of the draft, together with an English translation by Spencer, can be found in the journal Wagner, 1994, vol.10 no.1, pp.3-23. Table of contents.




F. Theatre and Drama
Title: Richard Wagner : Theory and Theatre
Original title: Das Theater Richard Wagners
Original language:German
Author(s): Dieter Borchmeyer
Translator(s): Stewart Spencer
First publication:1982 (German)
Publication date: 1991
Place published: Oxford UK
Publisher(s): Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0 1931 5322 X
LOC call number: ML410.W13 B6913 1991
Abstract:
Discusses Richard Wagner's aesthetic theory, examining his prose writings and his ideas on music drawn from various standpoints of literature, the linking of ideas and the sociology of art. Also examines the importance for Wagner of Greek art, drama and mythology, and his links with major figures in world theatre. Borchmeyer communicates his many insights with lucidity and directness.
The twenty essays in this collection are arranged under three headings: "the artist and his public", "opera -- spoken theatre -- musical drama", and "Wagner's dramatic poetry". The first of these sections deals with Wagner's ideas about audiences and performances, the second with his ideas about opera and drama, and the third with his poems or libretti and their literary resonances. There is a short appendix addressing the subject of Wagner's anti-Semitism and those who have become obsessed with it. Borchmeyer is adamant that there is no anti-Semitism in the dramas and that there cannot be any, given Wagner's intention that they should have a redemptive function for all mankind.
The English edition is not simply a translation of the German edition; Borchmeyer's ideas on some of the subjects discussed had developed in the decade since it appeared, so that some of the essays were substantially rewritten for the English edition.
Dieter Borchmeyer is Professor of German and Theatre Studies at the University of Heidelberg.

Title: Drama and the World of Richard Wagner
Original title: Richard Wagner: Ahasvers Wandlungen
Original language:German
Author(s): Dieter Borchmeyer
Translator(s): Daphne Ellis
First publication:2002 (German)
Publication date: 2003
Place published: Princeton
Publisher(s): Princeton University Press
ISBN: 0 6911 1497 8
LOC call number:
Abstract:
The reader of this collection of articles and essays might experience feelings of "déjà vu" since most of the material has appeared elsewhere. It has been reworked, however, and in some cases corrected for this book. Some of the chapters have been assembled from several pre-existing essays or articles. Most of them could be described as reviews of the latest scholarship on specific aspects of Wagner's life or works.
Two of the chapters -- "The Transformations of Ahasuerus", mainly about Dutchman, and "Venus in Exile", a fascinating study of the literary manifestations of the Tannhäuser legend both before, contemporary with and after Wagner's opera -- are substantially rewritten and improved versions of essays that appeared in Theory and Theatre (see above). The chapter on Parsifal revisits aspects of that work which Borchmeyer discussed in that earlier collection of essays.
The well-read Wagnerian might find the first two chapters in this book the most interesting, since they concern Wagner's early stage works, which have been relatively little discussed elsewhere. First Die Hochzeit, Die Feen and Das Liebesverbot; then the grand opera projects, Die hohe Braut and Rienzi. Borchmeyer has compiled some interesting and mostly new material concerning these operas and their literary background. There follow seven essays, one for each of the canonical dramas. The latter part of the book contains essays on Wagner's relationships with Ludwig, Bismarck and Nietzsche respectively, on Thomas Mann's response to Wagner, and on Wagner's grandson Franz Biedler.
Other remarks: With detailed notes but no bibliography. It is regrettable that some of the essays in the German edition have not been included in the English translation. These include an important essay on Wagner and Heine, which appears on pages 371-91 of Ahasvers Wandlungen. Fortunately an English translation by Daphne Ellis has been published in the journal Wagner, vol.24, no.2, 2003, p.55-72.

Title: Leitmotiv and Drama : Wagner, Brecht and the Limits of Epic Theatre
Author(s): Hilda Meldrum Brown
Publication date: 1991
Place published: Oxford
Publisher(s): Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0 1981 6227 8 hbk
LOC call number: PT2603.R397 Z58113 1991
Abstract:

Title: Athena Sings : Wagner and the Greeks
Author(s): M Owen Lee
Publication date: 2003
Place published: Toronto
Publisher(s): Univ. of Toronto Press
ISBN: 0 8020 8580 6 (pbk), 0 8020 8795 7 (hbk)
LOC call number: ML410.W19 L4 2003
Abstract:
The author gives us the benefit of his informed perspective, as an Emeritus Professor of Classics, on Richard Wagner and the Greeks. In doing so he draws on three classicists who had already written about this subject: Sir Hugh Lloyd Jones, Wolfgang Schadewaldt and Michael Ewans (see above). Lee takes into account that his readers might not be familiar with Greek literature; so he begins not with Wagnerian drama but with Athenian tragedy. About one third of his book is devoted to an account of a performance of Aeschylus' Oresteia, as it might have been experienced by one of the playwright's contemporaries. In the remainder of the book, Father Lee considers Wagner's relationship with classical Greece and the traces of Greek influence in Wagner's dramas. Lee draws attention to an Homeric allusion, one that is not mentioned by Lloyd Jones or Schadewaldt: the dream-like apparitions respectively of Nestor to Agamemnon, of Patroclus to Achilles and of Athena, in the likeness of Iphthime, to Penelope. The apparition always begins by asking: Are you sleeping ...? Hence, Schläfts du, Hagen mein Sohn?
It has been said that the best books about Wagner are the shortest. Father Lee's book has one hundred pages, including bibliography and notes, and provides an excellent introduction to the subject.
Other remarks: In addition to the books by Michael Ewans and Pearl Wilson mentioned in this FAQ, further information can be found in: Wagner and the Greeks by Hugh Lloyd-Jones, in the Times Literary Supplement, 9 Jan 1976, pp. 37-9; reprinted in Wagner, vol. 11 no.2, pp. 62-74, 1990; Wagner und die Griechen by Wolfgang Schadewaldt, originally published in the program book for the Bayreuth Festival, 1963 (?); revised and republished in Hellas und Hesperien, vol. 2 pp. 341-405, Zürich: Artemis Verlag, 1970.

Title: Richard Wagner and Festival Theater
Author(s): Simon Williams
Publication date: 1994
Place published: Westport CT and London
Publisher(s): Praeger
ISBN: 0 2759 3608 2 (pbk), 0 3132 7435 5 (hbk)
LOC call number: ML410.W13 W43 1994
Abstract:
This biographical study focuses primarily on Wagner as an important figure in the development of European theatre, in particular through his founding of the Bayreuth Festival.

Title: Wagner's Dramas and Greek Tragedy
Author(s): Pearl Cleveland Wilson
Publication date: 1919
Place published: New York
Publisher(s): Columbia University Press
LOC call number: ML410.W13 W43
Abstract:
On the basis of Wagner's theoretical writings, Wilson explored the parallels between the Ring and Greek tragedy, especially with reference to the Oresteia of Aeschylus. See the later study of the same subject by Michael Ewans.
Other remarks: Originally a dissertation.




G. Other
Title: Wagner and Suicide
Author(s): John Louis diGaetani
Publication date: 2003
Place published: New York
Publisher(s): McFarland and Company
LOC call number: ML410.W13 D45 2003
ISBN: 0 7864 1477 4
Abstract:
According to diGaetani, Wagner suffered from a manic-depressive disorder, which found expression in his work.

Title: Wagner Moments
Author(s): J. K. Holman
Publication date: 2007
Place published: New Jersey
Publisher(s): Amadeus Press
LOC call number:
ISBN: ISBN10: 1 5746 7159 6, ISBN13: 9 7815 7467 1599
Abstract:
A highly entertaining collection of short items about the "Wagner moments" of more than one hundred performers and audience members. Some of them are deeply moving and some are quite hilarious.

Title: Richard Wagner: A Guide to Research
Author(s): Michael Saffle
Publication date: 2001
Place published: London
Publisher(s): Routledge
ISBN: 0 8240 5695 7
LOC call number: ML134.W1 S24 2002
Abstract:
It must be assumed that the enormity of the task, and his lack of qualifications to execute it, had not dawned on the author before he was too far into this project to abandon it. Despite his best intentions, the result is simply a mess: some of the 1175 items cited in this Guide are derivative or trivial contributions to the vast literature, while seminal contributions to it have been overlooked. Most of the entries contain errors, suggesting that the book or article cited has received no more than a cursory examination. In many cases Saffle's description of the book or article bears no resemblence to its contents. For example, Saffle tells us that Nietzsche's Richard Wagner in Bayreuth contains impressions of the 1876 Bayreuth Festival, despite the fact that it was published before that Festival was held. In other cases the book or article is correctly described but information that might be needed by a scholar is omitted. For example, Saffle describes the study by Max Unger, The Cradle of the Parsifal Legend (1932), which was based on research by Suhtscheck-Hauschka, but fails to tell the reader that this research was misguided. Saffle is no better at informing his reader of the quality of translations: although Saffle does not mention this fact (the kind of information that would be helpful to a researcher), items 257, 279, 280 and 286 are notoriously inaccurate.
It is hard to understand how the publishers could leave the preparation of this book in the hands of an author who knew so little about Wagner that he could not even get the titles of the composer's major works right, either in the original language or in translation -- he believes for example that Wagner wrote Die Liebesverbot, Le hollandaise Volant and The Valkyries -- or why an individual who believes that the libretto of Die Zauberflöte was written by Da Ponte and that the Altenberg Lieder are the work of Anton von Webern, is writing about opera and music. The author's evident confusion about the Wagner family is hard to excuse, when several of the books cited (such as Wolfgang Wagner's autobiography) contain a diagram of the family tree.
The scholar will find little guidance here. The book in its present form and with its present quality is worthless, except perhaps as a source of unintended humour.

Title: Richard Wagner and the Anti-Semitic Imagination
Author(s): Marc A. Weiner
Publication date: 1995
Place published: Lincoln NE
Publisher(s): University of Nebraska Press
ISBN: 0 8032 4775 3
LOC call number: ML410.W19 W23 1997
Abstract:
Weiner tries very hard to find anti-Semitism in Wagner's operas. In the process he reads much between the lines of Wagner's text (especially into his stage directions) that more objective readers might not find there, and Weiner cites many other writers in support of his theories which, if the reader cares to examine the books cited, do not support -- and more often contradict -- those theories. Although Weiner clearly knows nothing about music, he advances arguments supposedly based on analysis of Wagner's music, and succeeds only in exposing his own ignorance and stupidity.
Weiner's claim that the characterisation of Beckmesser draws on a common stock of anti-Semitic stereotypes, which he alleges would have been obvious to a late 19th century or early 20th century audience although not to a modern one, has been discussed at length by David B. Dennis in his article, Most German of all German Operas: 'Die Meistersinger' through the Lens of the Third Reich, in Wagner's 'Meistersinger': Performance, History, Representation, pages 98-119. Like Millington, Weiner fails to realise that no 19th century audience could have conceived the notion that the Town Clerk of Nuremberg could be Jewish; since this was not only impossible in the 16th century but still a legal impossibility at the time of the opera's first performance.
This book is beautifully produced and it is a pity that the contents do not achieve the same level of quality as the binding. The real tragedy of the book is that, inside this long rant about Wagner's anti-Semitism and its supposed manifestations in the operas, there is a readable book about Wagner and the body, struggling to get out.
Other remarks: Reprinted in 1997 with a new postscript.

Title: Richard Wagners Dresdener Bibliothek 1842-1849 : Neue Dokumente zur Geschichte seines Schaffens. Mit 6 Abbildungen und Kundstdrucktafeln.
Language: German
Author(s): Curt von Westernhagen
Publication date: 1966
Place published: Wiesbaden
Publisher(s): Brockhaus
LOC call number: ML410.W19 W35
Abstract:
For a long time it was believed that the books which Richard Wagner had abandoned in Dresden when he escaped into exile had been dispersed after they fell into the hands of his creditors. In fact they had been bought from them by his brother-in-law, Hermann Brockhaus, but for reasons which are not entirely clear they were never returned to Wagner. It was not until early in the 1960s that (most of) these books were discovered in a storeroom of the Brockhaus publishing company. The books can now be seen in a display cabinet at Haus Wahnfried. This is the catalogue of Wagner's "Dresden library", compiled by von Westernhagen soon after the books were rediscovered. An appendix lists books that Wagner is believed to have owned while in Dresden but which are not in the surviving collection.




VI. Wagner's Own Writings and Correspondence
For a general overview of Wagner's prose and poetry, or for an overview of editions of his correspondence, please see the relevant sections of the general Wagner FAQ. Unless otherwise stated, each of the following books is in one volume.


A. Correspondence
Title: Letters of Richard Wagner
Original title: Richard Wagners Briefe
Author(s): William Altmann (ed)
Translator(s): Mildred Mary Bozman
First publication:1925 (German)
Publication date: 1927
Place published: London and Toronto
Publisher(s): J. M. Dent and Co.
Volume: 2 vols.
LOC call number: ML410.W1 A3105
Abstract:
Translations of 738 letters written by Wagner.

Title: Letters of Hans Von Bülow to Richard Wagner, Cosima Wagner, his Daughter Daniela, Luise Von Bülow, Karl Klindworth, and Carl Bechstein
Original language:German
Author(s): Richard Maria Ferdinand Graf Du Moulin-Eckart (ed)
Translator(s): Hannah Walter
Publication date: 1979 (reprint)
Place published: New York
Publisher(s): Da Capo Press
ISBN: 0 8443 0051 9, 0 3067 9539 6
LOC call number: ML422.B9 B963 (1931)
Abstract:
Later editions with a preface and notes by Scott Goddard.
Other remarks: See also: Richard Wagners Briefe an Hans von Bülow, ed. Daniela Thode, Jena, 1916.

Title: Letters of Richard Wagner : The Burrell Collection
Alternative title:Richard Wagner Briefe : Die Sammlung Burrell
Author(s): John Naglee Burk (ed)
Publication date: 1950, 1951
Place published: New York and London
Publisher(s): Macmillan, Victor Gollancz Ltd
ISBN: 0 8443 0031 4
LOC call number: ML410.W1 A3125 1972
Abstract:
Translations of 435 letters written by Wagner and collected by Mary Banks Burrell. This collection contains many documents that Minna's illegitimate daughter Natalie inherited after her mother's death in 1866 and which were bought from her by Mrs Burrell.
Other remarks: Originally published in English, this book later appeared in German.

Title: Friedrich Nietzsche: Sämtliche Briefe: Kritische Studienausgabe
Language: German
Author(s): eds. Giorgio Colli, Mazzino Montinari
Publication date: 1977-1986 (hbk), 1992 (pbk)
Place published: Munich
Publisher(s): Deutsche Taschenbuch Verlag
Volume(s): 8 vols.
ISBN: 3 4235 9063 7
LOC call number:
Abstract:
Six years after their critical edition of Nietzsche's collected writings, Colli and Montinari completed this edition of his letters in which they corrected many of the errors and distortions introduced by Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche (see below), and restored her deletions. This edition also included recently discovered letters, some of which, following on the revelations of the Sämtliche Werke, have radically changed our understanding of the relationships between Nietzsche and the Wagners. In particular the accounts of those relationships by von Westernhagen and Gutman respectively now appear, as Nietzsche himself might have said, to be no more than misunderstandings.
Other remarks: Originally published by de Gruyter, Berlin.

Title: Friedrich Nietzsche: Sämtliche Briefe: Kritische Gesamtausgabe
Language: German
Author(s): eds. Giorgio Colli, Mazzino Montinari, Norbert Miller, Annemarie Piper
Publication date: 1975-
Place published: Berlin
Publisher(s): Walter de Gruyter
Volume(s): 20 vols. (projected)
ISBN: 3 1100 2400 4
LOC call number: B3316 .A4 1975
Abstract:
This annotated, critical, complete edition of Nietzsche's correspondence (including postcards and telegrams) extends and completes the Kritische Studienausgabe. It aims to make obsolete all previous editions, correcting their errors, omissions and distortions.

Title: Family Letters of Richard Wagner
Original title: Familienbriefe von Richard Wagner
Translator(s): William Ashton Ellis
Author(s): Carl Friedrich Glasenapp (ed. first German edition), John Deathridge (ed. revised English edition)
First publication:1907 (German), 1911 (English)
Publication date: 1991
Place published: Basingstoke
Publisher(s): Univ of Michigan Press, Macmillan Reference
ISBN: 0 4721 0292 3, 0 3334 4438 8
LOC call number: ML410.W1 A31285 1991
Abstract:
A collection of letters from Richard Wagner to his family, containing material on his early years. This volume includes notes which comment on this historical translation in the light of modern scholarship.
Other remarks: For the electronic edition of the German text, see section XII below.

Title: Letters of Richard Wagner to Emil Heckel : With a brief account of the Bayreuth Festivals
Translator(s): William Ashton Ellis
Author(s): Carl Heckel (ed)
Publication date: 1899
Place published: London
Publisher(s): Grant Richards
LOC call number: ML410.W1 A342
Abstract:
Also includes reminiscences of Wagner by Emil Heckel. He was a music dealer in Mannheim, where he founded a Wagner Society. Heckel conceived the idea of a network of Wagner Societies to raise funds for the Bayreuth Festival. For the electronic edition of the German text, see section XII below.

Title: Richard to Minna Wagner : Letters to his First Wife
Original title: Richard Wagner an Minna Wagner
Author(s): Baron Hans von Wolzogen (ed)
Translator(s): William Ashton Ellis
First publication:1908 (German), 1909 (English)
Publication date: 2001 (reprint)
Place published:
Publisher(s): Best Books
Volume: 2 vols.
ISBN: 0 7222 5560 8
LOC call number: ML410.W1 A387 1972
Abstract:
See also the Burrell Collection, above. Minna's letters to Richard were destroyed by Cosima.
Other remarks: English translation was first published by H. Grevel & Co., London.

Title: Richard Wagner to Mathilde Wesendonck
Original title: Richard Wagner an Mathilde Wesendonk : Tagebuchblätter und Briefe 1853-1871
Original language:German
Author(s): Wolfgang Golther (ed)
Translator(s): William Ashton Ellis
First publication:1904 (German), 1905 (English)
Publication date: 1972 (reprint)
Place published: London
Publisher(s): Vienna House Inc, Milford House
ISBN: 0 8443 0010 1, 0 8782 1020 2
LOC call number: ML410.W1 A392 (1905)
Abstract:
Essential background on Tristan, Parsifal and Die Sieger. Unfortunately Golther chose the spelling Wesendonk, although Mathilde herself had spelled the name Wesendonck.
Other remarks: Originally published by Grant Richards, London, based on Wolfgang Golther's German edition. For the electronic edition of the German text, see section XII below.

Title: Richard Wagner to Otto Wesendonck
Original title: Briefe Richard Wagners an Otto Wesendonk
Original language:German
Author(s): ed. Wolfgang Golther (2nd German edn.)
Translator(s): William Ashton Ellis
Publication date: 1899
Place published: London
Publisher(s):
ISBN:
LOC call number:
Abstract:
Other remarks: Wolfgang Golther's German edition of 1905, Berlin, is more complete than Ellis' translation, which was based on an earlier edition by Albert Heintz. For the electronic edition of the German text, see section XII below.

Title: Richard et Cosima Wagner - Arthur Gobineau Correspondance
Language: French
Author(s): Eric Eugène (ed)
Publication date: 2000
Place published: Saint-Genouph
Publisher(s): Librairie Nizet
ISBN: 2 7078 1258 7
LOC call number: L410.W1 A339 2000
Abstract:
Correspondence between the Wagners and the self-styled 'Count' Arthur Gobineau, in 1880-82, the last years of the lives of Richard Wagner (d.1883) and Gobineau (d.1882). The correspondence consists of 79 letters, of which 49 are by Gobineau (43 to Cosima, 4 to Richard and 2 to Eva Wagner), 28 are by Cosima and only 2 by Richard Wagner. These letters, taken together with entries in Cosima's Diaries, present a very different picture of the relationship between Gobineau and the Wagners from that described by Gutman and Rose. It puts the supposed 'influence' of Gobineau on Wagner (who began to read Gobineau's books in November 1880, when he took up La Renaissance) in its proper perspective.
By publishing a critical edition of these new letters, I present for my readers Gobineau's response to Wagner. Deferent but without conceding an inch, Gobineau rejected Wagner's accusations and stood his ground. This correspondence is essential to an understanding of how these two men could have maintained rather friendly relations while they were in total opposition on the intellectual level. It also confirms the determination of Wagner to see "the unity of mankind". (From the editor's introduction)
Other remarks: See also below.

Title: Wagner et Gobineau : Existe-t-il un racisme wagnérien?
Language: French
Author(s): Eric Eugène and Serge Karlsfeld
Publication date: 1998
Place published: Paris
Place published: Le Cherche midi
ISBN: 2 8627 4556 1
LOC call number: ML410.W1 E86 1998
Abstract:
Other remarks: See also above.

Title: The Nietzsche-Wagner Correspondence
Original title: Wagner und Nietzsche der Zeit ihrer Freundschaft : Erinnerungsgabe zu Friedrich Nietzsches 70. Geburtstag den 15. Oktober 1914
Original language:German
Author(s): Elisabeth Förster-Nietzsche (ed)
Translator(s): Caroline V. Kerr
First publication:1915 (German)
Publication date: 1921, reprinted 1949
Place published: London
LOC call number: B3316 .A35 (1921), B3316 .A47 1970
Abstract:
Nietzsche's sister Elisabeth partly suppressed and altered some of these letters, apparently in order to support her claims that her brother had broken with Richard Wagner as a result of the latter's "betrayal". With an introduction by H.L. Mencken. For a more complete picture of this correspondence, see the edition by Giorgio Colli and Mazzino Montinari: Sämtliche Briefe.

Title: Correspondence of Wagner and Liszt
Alternative title:Briefwechsel zwischen Wagner und Liszt
Original language:German
Author(s): Erich Kloss (ed. 2nd German edition)
Translator(s): Francis Hueffer
First publication:1897
Publication date: 2006 (reprint)
Place published: New York; Westport, Conn.; McLean, Virginia
Publisher(s): Haskell Houser; Greenwood Press; IndyPublish; Echo Books
Volume: 2 vols.
ISBN: 0 8383 0316 1, 0 8371 2743 2, 1 58827 295 8 (hbk), 1 58827 296 6 (pbk)
LOC call number: ML410.W1 A365 1969
Abstract:
Much reprinted and therefore easy to find. Some editions include a brief, anonymous and ill-informed biographical sketch. The translator's preface is rather better written and, most important of all, the letters are translated into readable English. They leave a more favourable impression of Franz Liszt, as a tolerant and forgiving friend, than the picture they paint of Richard Wagner.
Other remarks: Hueffer first published, in 1887, an incomplete German edition. His English translation was published by H. Grevel & Co., London, in 1897, indexed and revised by William Ashton Ellis. Complete German edition 1910, Leipzig.
Also available as an Ebook from Project Gutenberg: volume one and volume two.

Title: The Story of Bayreuth as Told in the Bayreuth Letters of Richard Wagner
Original title: Bayreuther Briefe von Richard Wagner (1871-1883)
Original language:German
Author(s): Carl Friedrich Glasenapp (ed)
Translator(s): Caroline V. Kerr
First publication:1912
Publication date: 2001 (reprint)
Place published:
Publisher(s): Best Books
ISBN: 0 7222 5559 4
LOC call number: ML410.W1 A325 (1912)
Abstract:
The first of two volumes of Bayreuth Letters. The other one was given the title, Richard Wagner an seine Künstler, ed. Erich Kloss, 1910.
Other remarks: Originally published by Small, Maynard and Co. in Boston and by James Nisbet and Co. in London. For the electronic edition of the German text, see section XII below.

Title: The Letters of Richard Wagner to Anton Pusinelli
Translator(s): Elbert Lenrow
First publication:1932
Publication date: 1983 (reprint)
Place published: New York
Publisher(s): Horizon Press
ISBN: 0 8443 0104 3
LOC call number: ML410.W1 A4 1972
Abstract:
Also includes letters from Pusinelli to Wagner. Pusinelli had been the family doctor of Richard and Minna while they lived in Dresden, and later acted as an intermediary.
Other remarks: Originally published by Knopf.

Title: Richard Wagner's Letters to August Roeckel
Original title: Richard Wagners Briefe an August Röckel
Original language:German
Author(s): Marie Lipsius (ed)
Translator(s): Eleanor C. Sellar
First publication:1894 (German)
Publication date: 2001 (reprint)
Place published:
Publisher(s): Best Books
LOC call number: ML410.W1 A376
Abstract:
With an introduction by Houston Stewart Chamberlain. August Röckel was Wagner's assistant conductor in Dresden and the editor of the revolutionary newspaper Volksblätter. Röckel did not, like Wagner, escape from Dresden after the failure of the revolution. He was imprisoned for thirteen years. Wagner's letters written to Röckel during these years are important background material concerning the development of the Ring.
Other remarks: Translation first published by J.W. Arrowsmith, Bristol, in 1897. For the electronic edition of the German text, see section XII below.

Title: Richard Wagner's Letters to his Dresden Friends : Theodor Uhlig, Wilhelm Fischer and Ferdinand Heine
Original title: Richard Wagner's Briefe an Theodor Uhlig, Wilhelm Fischer, Ferdinand Heine
Original language:German
Author(s): Baron Hans von Wolzogen (ed)
Translator(s): J.S. Shedlock
First publication:1888 (German)
Publication date: 2001 (reprint)
Place published:
Publisher(s): Best Books
ISBN: 0 7222 5556 X
LOC call number: ML410.W1 A38 (1890)
Abstract:
Theodor Uhlig was a violinist and composer, and the illegitimate son of Friedrich August II of Saxony. He became a friend of Wagner when he played in the Dresden Court Orchestra. They shared a common political outlook, which is revealed in these letters. Ferdinand Heine was costume designer and wardrobe manager at the Dresden Court Theatre from 1819 to 1850. Earlier he had been an actor and he had known Wagner's stepfather Geyer. Heine became an enthusiastic advocate of Wagner's works.
Other remarks: Translation first published by H. Grevel and Co., London, in 1890.

Title: Selected Letters of Richard Wagner
Translator(s): Stewart Spencer
Author(s): Barry Millington (ed)
Publication date: 1987, 1988
Place published: London, New York
Publisher(s): J.M.Dent and Sons Ltd
ISBN: 0 4600 4643 8
LOC call number: ML410.W1 A317 1988
Abstract:
A critical edition of 500 of Wagner's letters in English translation. Michael Tanner writes: Many thousands of Wagner's letters survive, but many of the most significant for an understanding of his dramas are to be found in this large, compulsively readable volume. Appendices provide translations of important letters from Minna Wagner, Franz Liszt and King Ludwig respectively, and the original texts of passages omitted from earlier printed editions of letters. With a select bibliography and an informative biographical glossary.

Title: Richard Wagner and the Seamstress : First Publication in the English Language of a Collection of Letters by Richard Wagner
Original title: Zu den Briefen Richard Wagners an eine Putzmacherin
Alternative title:Richard Wagner und die Putzmacherin : oder Die Macht der Verleumdung
Original language:German
Author(s): ed. Daniel Spitzer, Leonard Liebling (intro. and epilogue)
Translator(s): Sophie Prombaum
Publication date: 1941
Place published: New York
Publisher(s): F. Ungar
LOC call number: ML410.W1 A3992
Abstract:
Revelations about Wagner's soft furnishings and those silk dressing gowns. These letters were first published in 1877, after Wagner had, allegedly, refused to be blackmailed into paying for them to be suppressed.
Other remarks: Later German edition ed. Ludwig Kusche, Wilhelmshaven, 1967.

Title: Richard Wagner : Sämtliche Briefe
Author(s): Werner Breig, Andreas Mielke, Gertrud Strobel, Werner Wolf, Hans-Joachim Bauer, Johannes Forner, Isabel Kraft
Publication date: 1967-
Place published: Leipzig, Wiesbaden and Paris
Publisher(s): Originally VEB Deutscher Verlag für Musik, now Breitkopf und Härtel
Volume: Fourteen volumes have been published in an edition that might eventually contain thirty volumes.
LOC call number: ML410.W1 A3016 1967
Abstract:
All of Wagner's surviving letters in their original languages. The letters so far published were all written before the end of 1862.
Other remarks: For the electronic edition of the German text, see section XII below.




B. Diaries of Richard and Cosima Wagner
For an overview of the diaries, see the main FAQ, section IV subsection A-iv. The little that survives of the Red Pocketbook was published in volume I of the Sämtliche Briefe, pages 81-84.


Title: The Diary of Richard Wagner 1865-1882 : The Brown Book
Original title: Das Braune Buch : Tagebuchaufzeichningen 1865-1882
Original language:German
Author(s): Richard Wagner, Joachim Bergfeld (ed)
Translator(s): George Bird
First publication:1975 (German)
Publication date: 1980
Place published: London
Publisher(s): Victor Gollancz Ltd
ISBN: 0 5750 2628 6
LOC call number: ML410.W11 W122
Abstract:
Wagner's occasional diary and notebook.
Other remarks: German original published by Atlantis Verlag, Zürich, in 1975. For the electronic edition of the German text, see section XII below.

Title: Cosima Wagner's Diaries
Original title: Cosima Wagner : Die Tagebücher 1869-1883
Original language:German
Author(s): Cosima Wagner, Martin Gregor-Dellin (ed), Dieter Mack (ed)
Translator(s): Geoffrey Skelton
First publication:1976-77 (German)
Publication date: 1978-1980
Place published: London and New York
Publisher(s): William Collins Sons and Co Ltd
Volume: 2 vols.
ISBN: 0 0021 6130 3 (vol. 1), 0 0021 6189 3 (vol. 2)
LOC call number: ML429.W133 A373 1978
Abstract:
After being suppressed for many years, the surviving text of the Diaries was published in German in 1976-77 and in English from 1978. There is a widespread belief that these Diaries contain an objective record of the last 14 years of Richard Wagner's life. This is far from being the case: what the Diaries actually contain is a subjective record of those years, written by Cosima for her children. When reading or quoting from the Diaries, you should take into account Cosima's own interests, concerns and prejudices.
Other remarks: For the electronic edition of the German text, see section XII below.

Title: Cosima Wagner's Diaries : An Abridgement
Author(s): Cosima Wagner
Translator(s): Geoffrey Skelton
Publication date: 1994
Place published: London and New York
Publisher(s): Pimlico Press, Yale Univ Press, Rider and Co.
ISBN: 0 3000 6904 9, 0 7126 5952 8
LOC call number: ML429.W133 A3 1997
Abstract:
Selected entries from Cosima's Diaries in English translation.




C. Prose Writings
This section lists the various editions of the Collected Works followed by translations of Wagner's prose and poetry.


Title: Gesammelte Schriften und Dichtungen
Alternative title:Richard Wagner's Schriften und Dichtungen
Language: German
Author(s): Richard Wagner
Publication date: Original (vols.1-9) 1871-3, vol.10 1883, reprint 1976
Place published: Leipzig
Publisher(s): E.W. Fritzsch
Volume: 10 vols.
LOC call number: ML410.W1 A1 1871
Abstract:
Wagner's own edition of his prose and poetry. In some cases the items were revised for the nine volumes that were prepared under his direct supervision. According to the publisher's preface to the posthumous volume, it fulfils a wish expressed by Wagner shortly before his death, that the writings of his last years should be published in chronological order. An exception was made for the poem of Parsifal, which was placed at the end of the volume, although it had been completed in April 1877. The preface also notes that the (relatively few and mostly insignificant) changes made to the poem during the composition of the music were not incorporated.

Title: Sämtliche Schriften und Dichtungen
Language: German
Author(s): Richard Wagner, Baron Hans von Wolzogen (ed), Richard Sternfeld (ed)
Publication date: 1911-1916
Place published: Leipzig
Publisher(s):
Volume: 16 vols.
LOC call number: ML410.W1 A1 1912
Abstract:
Volumes 1-10 are the same as the edition listed above. The remaining six volumes contain the public edition of Mein Leben and other writings by Wagner (although in some cases the authorship is uncertain and in others the text is not as Wagner left it, e.g. the libretto for Die Hohe Braut). Currently the most complete edition of Wagner's writings available.
Other remarks: Selected items from volumes 11-16 were translated by Ashton Ellis and included in volume 8 of the Prose Works (see below). For the electronic edition of the German text, see section XII below.

Title: Richard Wagner: Dichtungen und Schriften : Jubiläumsausgaben
Language: German
Author(s): Richard Wagner, Dieter Borchmeyer (ed)
Publication date: 1983
Place published: Frankfurt a.M.
Publisher(s): Insel Verlag
Volume: 10 vols.
LOC call number: ML410.W1 A1 1983
Abstract:
It should be noted that this selection from Wagner's prose and poetry omits all of his anti-Semitic writings. Those who believe that Wagner wrote nothing but anti-Semitic tracts will be surprised to find that, with these removed, there remained enough material to fill ten thick volumes.

Title: Wagner's Aesthetics
Author(s): Carl Dahlhaus (ed)
Translator(s): Derek Fogg and Jim Ford
Publication date: 1972
Place published: Bayreuth
Publisher(s): Edition Musica
LOC call number: ML410.W1 A1373
Abstract:
A selection of eight items from Wagner's writings, which had appeared in Bayreuth Festival programme books during the 1970's.
Other remarks: Also published in German and in French.

Title: Beethoven
Original language:German
Author(s): Richard Wagner
Translator(s): Edward Dannreuther
Publication date: 2001 (reprint)
Place published:
Publisher(s): Best Books, Messageries du Livre
ISBN: 0 7222 5350 8 (hbk), 2 0702 6595 1 (pbk)
LOC call number:
Abstract:

Title: On Conducting : A Treatise on Style in the Execution of Classical Music
Original language:German
Author(s): Richard Wagner
Translator(s): Edward Dannreuther
First publication:1897
Publication date: 2006 (reprint)
Place published:
Publisher(s): The Echo Library; Kessinger Publishing
ISBN: 1 8463 7501 0 pbk, 1 4191 3837 5 pbk
LOC call number: MT85.W13 D3 (1897)
Abstract:
Almost continually in print since it was written, Dannreuther's translation is available as an alternative to those by Ellis and Jacobs. This book has also been published by Dover Books, NY, amongst other editions.
Other remarks: Originally published by W. Reeves, London.
Also available as an Ebook from Project Gutenberg.

Title: Richard Wagner's Prose Works
Original language:German and French
Author(s): Richard Wagner
Translator(s): William Ashton Ellis
First publication:1892-99
Publication date: 1993-96 (paperback reprint)
Place published: Lincoln and London
Publisher(s): Bison Books, Univ. of Nebraska
Volume: 8 vols.
ISBN: 0 8032 9763 N
LOC call number: ML410.W1 A127 (1899)
Abstract:
Ellis' translation is not always easy to read, but then neither is the German original. Nor is the translation always accurate. Michael Tanner writes: This translation, made by the bizarre William Ashton Ellis, is into a language only remotely related to English as anyone else knows it. At least some of the widespread misunderstandings about Wagner's ideas originated in Ellis' translations.
Other remarks: Originally published by Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner and Co., London.

Title: Wagner on Music and Drama : A Compendium of Richard Wagner's Prose Works
Author(s): Richard Wagner, Albert Harry Goldman (ed), Evert Sprinchorn (ed)
Translator(s): William Ashton Ellis
First publication:1964
Publication date: 1988
Place published: New York
Publisher(s): Da Capo Press
ISBN: 0 3068 0319 4
LOC call number: ML410.W1 A134
Abstract:
Selections from Wagner's prose writings, grouped under the following headings: Cultural Decadence of the Nineteenth Century; The Greek Ideal; The Origins of Modern Opera, Drama, and Music; The Artwork of the Future; Wagner's Development; Bayreuth; Politics. J.K. Holman writes: This book, recently reissued, is a necessary reference tool for those who wish to read Wagner as well as hear him.
Other remarks: Previously published by E.P. Dutton.

Title: Three Wagner Essays
Author(s): Richard Wagner
Translator(s): Robert Jacobs
Publication date: 1979
Place published: London
Publisher(s): St Martins Press
ISBN: 0 3122 2696 9
LOC call number: ML410.W1 A1277
Abstract:
Music of the Future; On Conducting (slightly abridged) and On Performing Beethoven's Ninth Symphony.

Title: Wagner Writes from Paris : Stories, Essays and Articles by the Young Composer Richard Wagner
Author(s): Richard Wagner
Translator(s): Robert Jacobs, Geoffrey Skelton
Publication date: 1973
Place published: London
Publisher(s): John Day and Co.
ISBN: 0 0478 0022 4
LOC call number: ML410.W1 A1283 1973b
Abstract:

Title: Richard Wagner : Stories and Essays
Author(s): Richard Wagner
Translator(s): Charles Osborne
First publication:1973
Publication date: 1991
Place published: La Salle IL
Publisher(s): Open Court
LOC call number: ML410.W1 A135 1973b
Abstract:
Paperback reissue. Includes The Wibelungen and Judaism in Music.
Other remarks: Previously published by The Library Press, NY, and Peter Owen, London.

Title: Reading Wagner : A Study in the History of Ideas
Author(s): Lelland Joseph Rather
Publication date: 1990
Place published: Baton Rouge and London
Publisher(s): Louisiana University State Press
ISBN: 0 8071 1557 6
LOC call number: ML410.W19 R25 1990
Abstract:
Consists mostly of extracts from Wagner's writings.




VII. Wagner Family and Bayreuth
The following books are, wholly or partly, concerned with topics such as the Festival Theatre, the Bayreuth Festival after 1883, and the "royal family of Bayreuth".





A. Family
Title: The Wagner Clan
Author(s): Jonathan Carr
Publication date: 2007
Place published: London ; New York
Publisher(s): Faber and Faber Ltd; Atlantic Monthly Press
ISBN: ISBN-10 0 8711 3975 8 ; ISBN-13 9780 8711 3975 7
Abstract:

Title: Winifred Wagner : A Life at the Heart of Hitler’s Bayreuth
Original title: Winifred Wagner, oder, Hitlers Bayreuth
Original language: German
Author(s): Brigitte Hamann
Translator(s): Alan Bance
Publication date: 2005
Place published: Cambridge UK
Publisher(s): Granta
ISBN: 1 8620 7671 5
LOC call number:
Abstract:
Hugh Canning, reviewing this book for The Sunday Times, wrote: Brigitte Hamann’s book is the riveting narrative - 'the kind of life story you only find in novels', she writes with justice in her preface - of the rise and fall of a young orphan, adopted at the age of nine by German relatives close to the circle of Wagner’s widow, Cosima, and his only son, Siegfried... Hamann is remarkably even-handed in her judgment: Winifred was certainly not a criminal, but she learnt nothing from her experiences... At the end, Hamann convicts Winifred of 'punishable stupidity', which may seem lenient, but it is hard not to concede a flicker of admiration for this indomitable, deluded woman whose honesty - in contrast to that of her no less ardently Nazi son Wieland, who behaved as if he had been a Hitler opponent - indelibly tarnished that of the composer to whom she dedicated her life.
Other remarks:
The German original was published in 2002. About a quarter of the content is not included in the English edition, which corrects some passages in the German text.

Title: Wieland Wagner : The Positive Sceptic
Author(s): Geoffrey Skelton
Publication date: 1971
Place published: London
Publisher(s): Victor Gollancz Ltd
ISBN: 0 5750 0709 5
LOC call number: ML429.W135 S6 1971b
Abstract:
When the Bayreuth Festival re-opened in 1951, Wieland Wagner, then 34, sprang like Pallas Athene fully formed and fully armed on a surprised world with a radically new style of production. Before he died only fifteen years later Wieland had revolutionised production approaches to his grandfather's stage works, not only in Bayreuth but throughout the world. In this book the author surveys Wieland's life and achievement, his theory and practise.

Title: Heritage of Fire : The Story of Richard Wagner's Granddaughter (US title)
Alternative title:The Royal Family of Bayreuth (UK title)
Original title: Nacht über Bayreuth: die Geschichte der Enkelin Richard Wagners
Original language:German?
Author(s): Friedelind Wagner
Author(s): Page Cooper
Publication date: 1945 and 1948
Place published: New York and London
Publisher(s): Harper and brothers, Eyre and Spottiswoode
LOC call number: DD247.W3 A3
Abstract:
The story of Friedelind Wagner's growing opposition to her family's Nazi sympathies and her emigration to the United States in 1941 through the patronage of Arturo Toscanini. With 8 illustrations and a diagram of the family tree.

Title: He who does not howl with the wolf : the Wagner legacy, an autobiography
Alternative title:Twilight of the Wagners : the unveiling of a family's legacy (pbk)
Original title: Wer nicht mit dem Wolf heult : autobiographische Aufzeichnungen eines Wagner- Urenkels
Original language:German
Author(s): Gottfried Wagner
Translator(s): Della Couling
Publication date: 1998
Place published: London
Publisher(s): Sanctuary
ISBN: 1 8607 4228 9 (hbk), 1 8607 4251 3 (pbk), 0 3122 6404 6 (pbk)
LOC call number: ML429.W134 A3 1999
Abstract:
Gottfried explains at great length how his family have prevented him from achieving anything with his life.

Title: The Wagners : The Dramas of a Musical Dynasty
Original title: Wagner Theatre
Original language:German
Author(s): Nike Wagner
Translator(s): Ewald Osers, Michael Downes
First publication:1998 (German)
Publication date: 2000 and 2001
Place published: London
Publisher(s): Weidenfeld and Nicolson, Phoenix
ISBN: 0 2976 4315 0 (hbk), 0 7538 1280 0 (pbk)
LOC call number: ML410.W13 W11213 2000
Abstract:
Nike Wagner draws on history, biography, and psychoanalysis to interpret both her family's history and her great-grandfather's operas. Her comments on the latter are not particularly insightful, and in the case of Parsifal she is particularly confused. Nike Wagner claims that Parsifal, or at least that part of the drama concerning Kundry, is explained by the ultimate study in misogyny, Otto Weininger's Sex and Character (Geschlecht und Charakter, Vienna, 1903). In Weininger's view of women, their existence was only meaningful while men wanted to have sex with them. Thus he attempted to correct Wagner with the suggestion that Kundry should die in the second act, after her rejection by Parsifal. That Nike Wagner takes this nonsense seriously, says more about her than it does about Parsifal.

Title: The Wagner Family Albums : Bayreuth 1876-1976
Original title: Die Geschichte unserer Familie in Bildern : Bayreuth 1876-1976
Original language:German
Author(s): Wolf Siegfried Wagner
Publication date: 1976
Place published: London
Publisher(s): Thames and Hudson
LOC call number: ML410.W196 G473
Abstract:
With contributions by Winifred Wagner, Gertrud Wagner and Nike Wagner.

Title: Richard Wagner und das neue Bayreuth : Zur Diskussion um den neuen Führungsstil.
Author(s): Wieland Wagner (ed)
Language: German
Publication date: 1962
Place published: Munich
Publisher(s): P. List
LOC call number: ML410.W2 W23
Abstract:

Title: Acts : The Autobiography of Wolfgang Wagner
Original title: Lebens-Akte
Original language:German
Author(s): Wolfgang Wagner
Translator(s): John Brownjohn
Publication date: 1994
Place published: London
Publisher(s): Weidenfeld and Nicolson
ISBN: 0 2978 1349 8
LOC call number: ML429.W137 A3 1994
Abstract:
Wolfgang tells his version of the history of the Wagner family.




B. Festival
Title: Richard Wagner : Life, Work, Festspielhaus
Author(s): Herbert Barth
Publication date: 1952
Place published: Bayreuth
Publisher(s): Verlag der Festspielleitung Bayreuth
LOC call number: ML410.W2 B25
Abstract:
Organization: Festspielleitung Bayreuth

Title: Wagner, Bayreuth, and the Festival Plays
Author(s): Frances Gerard
Publication date: 1901
Place published: London
Publisher(s): Jarrold and sons
LOC call number: ML410.W2 G3
Abstract:
With illustrations and specially engraved portrait of Wagner.

Title: Bayreuth : The Early Years : an account of the Early Decades of the Wagner Festival as seen by the Celebrated Visitors and Participants
Author(s): Robert Hartford (ed)
Publication date: 1980
Place published: Cambridge and New York
Publisher(s): Cambridge Univ. Press
ISBN: 0 5750 2865 3
LOC call number: ML410.W2 B265 1980
Abstract:
The most important and interesting eye-witness accounts of the early Bayreuth festivals, by such musical luminaries as Tchaikovsky and Grieg, and a host of other interested observers.

Title: Studien zur Geschichte der Bayreuther Festspiele
Language: German
Author(s): Michael Karbaum
Publication date: 1976
Place published: Regensburg
Publisher(s): Bosse Verlag
ISBN: 3 7649 2060 2
Series: 100 Jahre Bayreuther Festspiele
Volume: Vol.3
Abstract:

Title: The Music Dramas of Richard Wagner and his Festival Theatre in Bayreuth
Original title: Le voyage artistique à Bayreuth
Original language:French
Author(s): Albert Lavignac
Translator(s): Esther Singleton
First publication:1898
Publication date: 1969 (reprint)
Place published: New York and London
Publisher(s): Haskell House Publishers
LOC call number: MT100.W2 L4 1904
Abstract:
Lavignac's book was written for French-speaking visitors to Bayreuth. It contains an introduction to the town of Bayreuth, the Festival and its theatre; a brief and rather inaccurate biography of Wagner (which is of interest, however, as a document of the "official version" promoted by Wahnfried some 25 years after Wagner's death); an analysis of the poems; a separate analysis of the music (drawing on Wolzogen) and finally some notes on performances of the music-dramas at the Bayreuth Festival from 1876 to 1896. An appendix provides the motives that are played before the commencement of each act in Bayreuth performances.
Other remarks: Reprinted 1917, 1921 and 1924.

Title: Bayreuth in 1912
Author(s): Algernon Bertram Freeman Mitford, Lord Redesdale
Publication date: 1912
Place published: London
Publisher(s): Ballantyne Press
LOC call number:
Abstract:

Title: Wagner at Bayreuth : Experiment and Tradition
Author(s): Geoffrey Skelton
First publication:1965 (first edition)
Publication date: 1976 (second edition)
Place published: London, New York
Publisher(s): Barrie and Rockliff, White Lion Publishers
ISBN: 0 8561 7068 2
LOC call number: ML410.W2 S55 1976
Abstract:
Foreword by Wieland Wagner.

Title: Das Bayreuther Festspielorchester : Geschichte und Gegenwart
Language: German
Author(s): Alfred Sous
Publication date: 1988
Place published: Hof
Publisher(s): Ansporn Verlag
ISBN:
LOC call number:
Abstract:
A history of the Festival Orchestra. Appendices give full details of players and conductors from 1876.

Title: Bayreuth : A History of the Wagner Festival
Author(s): Frederic Spotts
Publication date: 1994
Place published: New Haven and London
Publisher(s): Yale University Press
ISBN: 0 3000 5777 6
LOC call number: ML410.W2 S6 1994
Abstract:
A history of the festival and a chronicle of the Wagner family, those "eccentric, feuding, scandalous descendants" of Richard and Cosima Wagner.

Title: New Bayreuth
Author(s): Penelope Turing
Publication date: 1969
Place published: St. Martin, Jersey, C.I.
Publisher(s): Jersey Artists (distributed by Spearman)
LOC call number: ML410.W2 T9
Abstract:
Turing first attended the Bayreuth Festival in 1952. This book contains her reminiscences of that Festival and each subsequent Festival up to and including that of 1968. Although her advice on travel arrangements is of limited value today, Turing's suggestions for excursions on "spielfrei" days during the Festival are worthy of consideration by modern pilgrims.




C. Theatre
Title: Theater Design : with two essays on the room acoustics of multiple-use
Author(s): George C. Izenour, Vern O. Knudsen, Robert B. Newman
Publication date: 1977
Place published: New York
Publisher(s): McGraw-Hill
ISBN: 0 0703 2086 1
LOC call number: NA6821 .I94
Abstract:
Contains a chapter about the design of the Festspielhaus.

Title: The Richard Wagner Festival Theatre Bayreuth - The Book
Author(s): Markus Kiesel (ed), Dietmar Schuth (text), Jens Willebrand (photography)
Translator(s): K. Scott Witmer
Publication date: 2007
Place published: Düsseldorf
Publisher(s): netpress
ISBN: 978-3-00-020809-6
Abstract:
For the first time in its history, the Bayreuther Festspielhaus has been photographed to record both its exterior and its innermost interior. This fascinating photo documentary thus presents an aesthetic impression of a very special building and its history. Breathtaking pictures reveal perspectives never seen before. Commentaries, historical plans and photographs reinforce this visual impression, augmenting it with an art-historical dimension. Includes contributions by Wolfgang Wagner, Harry Kupfer and Pierre Boulez.

Title: Theatre and Playhouse : An Illustrated History of Theatre Building from Ancient Greece to the Present Day
Author(s): Richard Leacroft and Helen Leacroft
Publication date: 1984
Place published: London
Publisher(s): Methuen
ISBN: 0 4135 2940 1 (pbk), 0 4135 2930 4 (hbk)
LOC call number: NA6821 .L43 1984
Abstract:




VIII. Wagnerism and Wagnerites
Wagnerism was a phenomenon of the decades following Wagner's death. It took significantly different forms in different countries.


Title: Wagner and Russia
Author(s): Rosamund Bartlett
Publication date: 1994
Place published: Cambridge UK
Publisher(s): Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 0 5214 4071 8
LOC call number: ML410.W13 B195 1995
Series: Cambridge Studies in Russian Literature
Abstract:
Describes the influence of Wagner on nineteenth- and twentieth-century Russian writers, musicians and artists. It contains a history of the production of Wagner's works in Russia and the Soviet Union (by directors including Meyerhold and Eisenstein), an account of Wagner's visit to Russia in 1863, and a detailed investigation of the impact of his music and ideas on the Russian Modernist movement. The last two chapters explore the fate of Wagner's works after the 1917 Revolution, when he was first hailed but then reviled, and finally rehabilitated during the years of glasnost.
Other remarks: Table of contents

Title: Wagnerism : A Protest
Author(s): H.W.L. Hime
Publication date: 1882
Place published: London
Publisher(s): Kegan, Paul, Trench and Co.
LOC call number: ML410.W13 H36
Abstract:
A protest against Wagner, his works and the Wagner phenomenon, in the wake of the Bayreuth Festivals of 1876 and 1882.

Title: Wagner Nights : An American History
Author(s): Joseph Horowitz
Publication date: 1994 and 1998
Publisher(s): Univ. of California Press
ISBN: 0 5200 8394 6 (hbk), 0 5202 1375 0 (pbk)
LOC call number: ML410.W13 H7 1994
Abstract:
A fascinating and entertaining study of early American Wagnerism. The central character in the book is Anton Seidl (1850-1898), who arrived in the USA with experience from Bayreuth. Enthusiastic New York ladies formed a Seidl Society, which supported his Wagner concerts. These included a concert performance of substantial extracts from Parsifal, although Seidl would not defy the Bayreuth monopoly by participating in a staged performance.
Other remarks: Not to be confused with Newman's book of similar title. A shorter account of American Wagnerism can be found in the compilation Wagner in Performance, under the title, 'Anton Seidl and America's Wagner Cult'.

Title: Wagnerism in European Culture and Politics
Author(s): David C. Large, William Weber, Anne Dzamba Sessa (eds.)
Publication date: 1984
Place published: Ithaca
Publisher(s): Cornell University Press
ISBN: 0 8014 9283 1
LOC call number: ML410.W1 W18 1984
Abstract:
Wagner's influence on European and American culture, in such areas as aesthetics, politics, theology and literature.

Title: A Descriptive Study of the Periodical 'Revue wagnérienne' Concerning Richard Wagner
Author(s): Drewry Hampton Morris
Publication date: 2002
Place published: Lewiston, NY
Publisher(s): The Edwin Mellen Press
ISBN: 0 7734 7082 4
LOC call number: ML410.W13 M72 2002
Abstract:
An exhaustive listing of the features, columns, special articles, authors, and topics that appeared in the Revue, followed with a short description of each. In addition, Morris includes lists (with the issue and page where they appeared) of everyone named in the Revue, Wagnerian singers, principal works by or about Wagner, and premiere performances of his works.

Title: Wagner and Wagnerism in Nineteenth-Century Sweden, Finland, and the Baltics : Reception, Enthusiasm, Cult
Author(s): Hannu Salmi
Publication date: 2005
Place published: Rochester NY
Publisher(s): Univ. Rochester Press
ISBN: 1 5804 6207 3
Series: Eastman Studies in Music
Abstract:
This book explores how Wagner's operas were performed and received in the theaters of Stockholm and other cities of the region, and how excerpts from them were arranged for amateur performances in private homes. Wagner's music and his polemical writings aroused lively discussion around the Baltic, as it did everywhere else in the western world. Thanks to detailed accounts in newspapers, journals, contemporary literature, and writings of music historians we are privileged, in this book, to "listen in" on these debates, which often deal with crucial questions of national self-determination and of cultural independence from Europe and imperial Russia. Finally, this text reveals the surprising extent to which music lovers and opera- goers from the various countries traveled to Wagner's Bayreuth Festival. It also reconstructs the imaginative and patient efforts by which confirmed Wagnerians established Wagner societies in order to promote an understanding of the composer's work.

Title: Der Bayreuther Kreis : Wagnerkult und Kulturreform im Geiste völkischer Weltanschauung
Language: German
Author(s): Winfried Schüler
Publication date: 1971
Place published: Munster
Publisher(s): Aschendorff
ISBN:
LOC call number:
Abstract:
A study of the Bayreuth Circle.

Title: Richard Wagner and the English
Author(s): Anne Dzamba Sessa
Publication date: 1979
Place published: Madison and London
Publisher(s): Associated Univ Press, Fairleigh Dickinson Univ.
ISBN: 0 8386 2055 8
LOC call number: ML410.W12 E57
Abstract:
Examines 19th century English Wagnerism, isolating specific elements of Wagner's appeal in the period.

Title: Aubrey Beardsley and British Wagnerism in the 1890s
Author(s): Emma Sutton
Publication date: 2002
Place published: Oxford
Publisher(s): Oxford Univ. Press
ISBN: 0 1981 8732 7
LOC call number:
Abstract:
An interdisciplinary study of the influence of Richard Wagner on the work of Aubrey Beardsley (1872-1898). The study considers Beardsley's pictorial and literary versions -- or perversions -- of Wagner's operas. It explores the role of Wagnerism within British culture of the 1890s, in particular the relations between Wagnerism and the decadent movement.




IX. Staging Wagnerian Drama
Title: Adolphe Appia : Oevres complètes
Language: French
Author(s): Adolphe Appia, Marie L. Bablet-Hahn (ed)
Original language:French
Publication date: 1983-1992
Place published: Lausanne
Publisher(s): L'Age d'Homme
Volume: 4 vols.
LOC call number: PN2808.A6 A2 1983
Abstract:
With an introduction by Denis Bablet.

Title: Adolphe Appia : Essays, Scenarios and Designs
Original language:French
Author(s): Adolphe Appia
Translator(s): Richard C. Beacham (ed), Walther R. Volbach
Publication date: 1989
Place published: Ann Arbor, Michigan
Publisher(s): UMI Research Press
ISBN: 0 8357 1945 6
LOC call number: PN2096.A6 A25 1989
Abstract:

Title: Adolphe Appia : Texts on Theatre
Original language:French
Author(s): Adolphe Appia
Translator(s): Richard C. Beacham
Publication date: 1983-1992
Place published: London and New York
Publisher(s): Routledge
LOC call number: PN2039 .A5913 1993
Abstract:
Selections from Appia's writings on theatre.

Title: The Work of Living Art and Man is the Measure of all Things
Original language:French
Author(s): Adolphe Appia
Translator(s): Barnard Hewitt (ed), H.D.Albright
Publication date: 1960
Place published: Coral Gables, FL
Publisher(s): Univ. of Miami Press
ISBN:
LOC call number: PN2039 .A613
Abstract:

Title: Staging Wagnerian drama
Original title: Mise en scène du drame Wagnérien
Original language:French
Author(s): Adolphe Appia
Translator(s): Peter Loeffler
Publication date: 1982
Place published: Basel and Boston
Publisher(s): Birkhäuser
LOC call number: ML3862 .A6613 1982
Abstract:

Title: Music and the art of the theatre
Published title: Die Musik und die Inscenierung
Manuscript title: La Musique et la Mise en Scène
Original language:Written in French but first published in German.
Author(s): Adolphe Appia
Translator(s): Barnard Hewitt (ed), Robert W. Corrigan, Mary Douglas Dirks
First publication:1899 (German)
Publication date: 1962
Place published: Coral Gables, FL
Publisher(s): Univ. of Miami Press
ISBN: 0 8702 4306 3
LOC call number: ML3862 .A673
Abstract:
The book in which Appia (1862-1928)presented his theories about the staging of Wagner's "word-tone dramas". Appia dared to criticise Wagner: while recognising his genius as musician and poet, Appia thought Wagner to have been limited in his concepts of staging. Appia proposed an hierarchy of scenic elements, with the actor at the top of this hierarchy. All inessentials were to be removed from the staging and, since the actor was a three-dimensional creature, also the elements of the staging should be three-dimensional with the possible exception of the backdrop (although his ideal stage would have no back wall, just extend away into the landscape). Appia was one of the first designers to understand the potential of stage lighting to do more than merely illuminate actors and painted scenery. At the end of the book are appendices in which Appia showed how his techniques could be applied to Tristan und Isolde and to the Ring respectively. Appia's text is often obscure and in the earlier chapters he deals mostly in abstractions, which only in the later chapters become more concrete as he supplies examples of present and future stage techniques. It can sometimes appear that he contradicts himself. There are many digressions, including comparisons between the German and "Latin" spectators, artists and theatres.

Title: Richard Wagner : The Stage Designs and Productions from the Premieres to the Present
Original title: Richard Wagner : Die Bühnenwerke von der Uraufführing bis heute
Original language:German
Author(s): Oswald Georg Bauer
First publication:1982 (German)
Publication date: 1983
Place published: New York
Publisher(s): Rizzoli
ISBN: 0 8478 0478 X
LOC call number: ML410.W13 B223 1983
Abstract:
An illustrated survey of productions of Wagner's stage works. J.K. Holman writes: Bauer provides a pictorial history of all Wagner's operas, even Die Feen and Das Liebesverbot, and he includes a large number of striking color and black-and-white photos and sketches of sets and costumes. Bauer also provides an extensive background on the staging of each opera, paying particular attention to the problems posed by the original productions and the solutions favored by Wagner himself.
Other remarks: With a foreword by Wolfgang Wagner.

Title: Svoboda, Wagner: Josef Svoboda's Scenography for Richard Wagner's Operas
Author(s): Jarka Burian
Publication date: 1983
Place published: CT
Publisher(s): Wesleyan Univ. Press
LOC call number: ML410.W19 B9 1983
Abstract:
Scene designs and lighting designs for Wagner's operas focusing on the work of Joseph Svoboda.

Title: Wagner and the Art of Theatre
Author(s): Patrick Carnegy
Publication date: 2006
Place published: Yale
Publisher(s): Yale Univ. Press
ISBN: 0 3001 0695 5
LOC call number: ML410.W13C37 2006
Abstract:
The author vividly evokes the (often scandalous) great productions that have left their mark not only on our understanding of Wagner but on modern theatre as a whole. He examines the way in which Wagner staged his own works, showing that the composer remained dissatisfied with many of his productions. After Wagner’s death the scenic challenge was taken up by the Swiss visionary Adolphe Appia, by Gustav Mahler and Alfred Roller in Vienna, and by Otto Klemperer and Ewald Dülberg in Berlin. In Russia the Bolsheviks reinvented Wagner as a social revolutionary, while cinema left its indelible imprint on the Wagnerian stage with Eisenstein’s Die Walküre in Moscow in 1940. In the aftermath of the Nazi appropriation of Wagner, post- war German directors sought a way to bury the uncomfortable past. The book concludes with a critique of the iconoclastic interpretations by Patrice Chéreau, Ruth Berghaus, and Hans-Jürgen Syberberg. Carnegy demonstrates a detailed knowledge of Wagnerian performance traditions but his knowledge of operatic production before Wagner is flawed, and this devalues his treatment of Wagner's innovations.

Title: Wagner in Performance
Author(s): Barry Millington (ed), Stewart Spencer (ed)
Publication date: 1992
Place published: Yale and London
Publisher(s): Yale University Press
ISBN: 0 3000 5718 0
LOC call number: ML410.W19 W12 1992
Abstract:
A collection of essays by ten different authors. This book, addressed to both specialists and the opera-going public, brings together a team of acknowledged authorities from round the world to examine the performance history and reception of Wagner's works in Europe and America. A connected sequence of essays on conducting, singing, production and stage design explores the nature of Wagner's demands on his interpreters. The book raises questions about the realization of opera on the stage: about the authority of the composer vis-a-vis the director and the audience: about the sanctity of the text, score and stage directions; and about the role of art itself in society. The volume also considers the explosion in popularity of Wagner's music dramas and their ability to assume new meanings, on stage and in recordings, for successive generations. It looks at the debate over vocal and conducting styles, at the origins of Bayreuth, and at the impact of Wagner on the musical life of New York and Vienna.
The contributors are: Christopher Fifield ("Conducting Wagner"), Desmond Shawe-Taylor ("Wagner and his Singers"), Mike Ashman ("Producing Wagner"), Patrick Carnegy ("Designing Wagner"), Jean-Jacques Nattiez ("'Fidelity' to Wagner"), Clive Brown ("Performance Practice"), Amanda Glauert ("The Reception of Wagner in Vienna, 1860-1900"), Mattias T. Vogt ("Taking the Waters at Bayreuth"), David Breckhill ("Wagner on Record"), and Joseph Horowitz ("Anton Seidl and America's Wagner Cult").

Title: The World Theatre of Wagner : A Celebration of 150 Years of Wagner Productions
Author(s): Charles Osborne
Publication date: 1982
Place published: Oxford, New York
Publisher(s): Phaidon, Macmillan
ISBN: 0 7148 2258 2, 0 0259 4050 3 (hbk), 0 9439 5533 5 (pbk)
LOC call number: MT100.W2 O8 1982
Abstract:
A profusely illustrated (in b&w and colour) history of productions (from the 1830s to 1980s) of Wagner's stage works with a commentary and biographical dictionary of the main performers, conductors, designers and producers.
Other remarks: With a preface by Sir Colin Davis.

Title: The Ring at Bayreuth : And Some Thoughts on Operatic Production
Author(s): Victor Gollancz
Publication date: 1966
Place published: London and New York
Publisher(s): Victor Gollancz Ltd., E.P. Dutton and Co. Inc.
LOC call number: ML410.W15 G67
Abstract:
Gollancz was less than enthusiastic about some aspects of New Bayreuth. Replying to these criticisms in his 'Afterword', Wieland Wagner states that Richard Wagner's stage directions are now only of historical interest and therefore do not constrain the modern stage director.




X. Discographies
Title: 'Tristan and Isolde' on Record : A Comprehensive Discography of Wagner's Music Drama With a Critical Introduction to the Recordings
Author(s): Jonathan Brown
Publication date: 2000
Place published: Westport, CT, and London
Publisher(s): Greenwood Publishing Group
ISBN: 0 3133 1489 6
LOC call number:
Abstract:
Lists recordings of complete performances, major selections, and excerpts, both vocal and instrumental, with excerpts identified by musical incipits. Precise information is given on date and place of recording, record numbers, performers, and performing groups.
Other remarks: See website.

Title: 'Parsifal' on Record : A Discography of Complete Recordings, Selections, and Excerpts of Wagner's Music Drama
Author(s): Jonathan Brown
Publication date: 1992
Place published: Westport, CT, and London
Publisher(s): Greenwood Publishing Group
ISBN: 0 3132 8541 1
LOC call number:
Abstract:
Lists recordings of complete performances, major selections, and excerpts, both vocal and instrumental, with excerpts identified by musical incipits. Precise information is given on date and place of recording, record numbers, performers, and performing groups.




XI. Comics and Wagnerian Humour
Wagnerians do not have to be serious all the time.





A. Comics
Title: The Ring of the Nibelung
Author(s): Roy Thomas (ed), Gil Kane (art), Jim Woodring (art), John Costanza (art)
Publication date: 1997
Place published: New York
Publisher(s): Express Press
ISBN: 0 9329 5620 3
LOC call number:
Volume: 4 vols.
Abstract:
Suggested for mature readers.
Other remarks: Originally published by DC Comics.

Title: Parsifal
Author(s): P. Craig Russell (art), Patrick C. Mason (ed)
Publication date: 1977-78
Publisher(s): Eclipse Books
ISBN: 0 9130 3556 4 (with Salome and Pelleas)
LOC call number:
Abstract:
Other remarks: 3 parts. Originally published by Star*Reach Publications.




B. Novels
Title: Expecting Someone Taller
Author(s): Tom Holt
Publication date: 1987
Place published: London
Publisher(s): Orbit
ISBN: 1 8572 3218 3
LOC call number: PR6058.O474 E9 1987
Abstract:
All he did was run over a badger - sad, but hardly catastrophic. It wasn't Malcolm Fisher's day, for the badger turned out to be none other than Ingolf, last of the giants. With his dying breath, Ingolf reluctantly handed to Malcolm the ring and the tarnhelm.
Other remarks: Also found in an edition with the 'Beowulf' novel, as Expecting Beowulf.

Title: Flying Dutch
Author(s): Tom Holt
Publication date: 1991
Place published: London
Publisher(s): Orbit
ISBN: 0 3562 0111 2 (hbk), 1 8572 3017 5 (pbk)
LOC call number: PR6058.O474 F58 1992
Abstract:
It's amazing the problems drinking can get you into. One little swig from the wrong bottle and you go from being an ordinary Dutch sea-captain to an unhappy immortal, drifting around the world with your similarly immortal crew, suffering from peculiarly whiffy side effects. Worst of all, Richard Wagner writes an opera about you.

Title: Grailblazers
Author(s): Tom Holt
Publication date: 1994
Place published: London
Publisher(s): Orbit
ISBN: 1 8572 3191 0 (pbk), 1 8572 3192 9 (hbk)
LOC call number:
Abstract:
The Grail knights have fallen to the level of pizza delivery. One of the principal female characters from Wagner's Parsifal is central to this tale of the Holy Grail and the wholly inept.




XII. Publications on Digital Media
Title: Richard Wagner: Werke, Schriften und Briefe
Language: German
Author(s): Sven Friedrich (ed.)
Publication date: 2004
Place published: Berlin
Publisher(s): Direct Media Publishing Gmbh
ISBN: 3 8985 3507 X
Series: Digitale Bibliothek
Volume: No. 107
Abstract:
Not only scholars but also all Wagner fans should be grateful to Dr. Sven Friedrich for making available this electronic edition of key documents about Wagner's life and works. Not least those of us who have spent many hours searching for half-remembered passages in Cosima's Diaries; since now we can use the search function of this well-designed electronic edition. All of these texts are in German, except for a few letters written in other languages:
1. Sämtliche Schriften und Dichtungen, volumes 1-12 and 16
2. Sämtliche Briefe, volumes 1-14 (1842-62)
3. Briefe in Originalausgaben:
a. Familienbriefe von Richard Wagner
b. Richard Wagner an Mathilde Wesendonk
c. Briefe Richard Wagners an Otto Wesendonk
d. Richard Wagners Briefwechsel mit Breitkopf und Härtel
e. Richard Wagners Briefwechsel mit B. Schott's Söhne
f. Richard Wagner an Theodor Apel
g. Richard Wagner an August Röckel
h. Richard Wagner an Ferdinand Praeger
i. Richard Wagner an Eliza Wille
j. Richard Wagner an seine Künstler
k. Richard Wagner: Bayreuther Briefe
l. Richard Wagner an Emil Heckel
m. Richard Wagner an Freunde und Zeitgenossen
4. Briefe und Briefwechsel in Einzelausgaben:
a. König Ludwig II und Richard Wagner: Briefwechsel
b. Richard Wagner: Briefe an Hans v. Bülow
c. Franz Liszt - Richard Wagner Briefwechsel
d. Nietzsche und Wagner: Stationen einer epochalen Begegnung
5. Mein Leben (ed. Martin Gregor-Dellin, 1963)
6. Richard Wagner: Das Braune Buch
7. Cosima Wagner: Die Tagebücher 1869-1883
8. Carl Friedrich Glasenapp: Das Leben Richard Wagners
9. Martin Gregor-Dellin: Richard Wagner: Sein Leben, sein Werk, sein Jahrhundert
10. Martin Gregor-Dellin: Richard Wagner: Eine Biographie in Bildern




XIII. Acknowledgements and Copyright
This FAQ was created by and is maintained by Derrick Everett (parsifal@monsalvat.no). The editor would like to thank the following individuals who have helped or contributed to this document: Joao Pedro Baptista and Laon. The editor welcomes comments and contributions, especially in the form of abstracts or brief reviews either of any of the books listed above or of other books on related topics.
This bibliography was compiled with the assistance of the following online databases, whose assistance is gratefully acknowledged:
Libris: Det nationella biblioteksdatasystemet (Royal Library, Sweden)
Library of Congress Online Catalog (Washington DC, USA)
OPAC-97, British Library (London, UK)
This compilation copyright © 2000-2008 by Derrick Everett. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. Copyright in contributed material is the property of its author. Permission is hereby granted for electronic distribution by non-commercial services such as internet, provided that it is posted in its entirety and includes this copyright statement. This document may not be distributed for financial gain. Any other use, or any commercial use of this document without permission is prohibited by law.
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