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Richard Wagner and his world / edited by Thomas S. Grey.

Contributor(s): Grey, Thomas S | Bard Music Festival.
Material type: materialTypeLabelBookSeries: Bard Music Festival series: Publisher: Princeton : Princeton University Press, c2009Description: xv, 542 p. : ill., music ; 24 cm. + pbk.ISBN: 9780691143651 (hbk.); 069114365X (hbk.); 9780691143668 (pbk.); 0691143668 (pbk.).Subject(s): Wagner, Richard, 1813-1883 -- Criticism and interpretation | Music -- 19th century -- History and criticismDDC classification: 780.92 WAG
Contents:
Essays -- Biographical contexts -- Toward a music of the future: 1840-1860 -- Wagner and Paris -- The Bayreuth era -- The complete program notes of Richard Wagner.
Summary: Equally celebrated and vilified in his own time, Wagner continues to provoke debate today regarding his political legacy as well as his music and aesthetic theories. Examine his works in dialogue with their intellectual and cultural contexts.
Holdings
Item type Current library Call number Copy number Status Barcode
General lending MTU Cork School of Music Library Lending 780.92 WAG (Browse shelf(Opens below)) 1 Available 00150226
Total holds: 0

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

Richard Wagner (1813-1883) aimed to be more than just a composer. He set out to redefine opera as a "total work of art" combining the highest aspirations of drama, poetry, the symphony, the visual arts, even religion and philosophy. Equally celebrated and vilified in his own time, Wagner continues to provoke debate today regarding his political legacy as well as his music and aesthetic theories. Wagner and His World examines his works in their intellectual and cultural contexts.


Seven original essays investigate such topics as music drama in light of rituals of naming in the composer's works and the politics of genre; the role of leitmotif in Wagner's reception; the urge for extinction in Tristan und Isolde as psychology and symbol; Wagner as his own stage director; his conflicted relationship with pianist-composer Franz Liszt; the anti-French satire Eine Kapitulation in the context of the Franco-Prussian War; and responses of Jewish writers and musicians to Wagner's anti-Semitism. In addition to the editor, the contributors are Karol Berger, Leon Botstein, Lydia Goehr, Kenneth Hamilton, Katherine Syer, and Christian Thorau.


This book also includes translations of essays, reviews, and memoirs by champions and detractors of Wagner; glimpses into his domestic sphere in Tribschen and Bayreuth; and all of Wagner's program notes to his own works. Introductions and annotations are provided by the editor and David Breckbill, Mary A. Cicora, James Deaville, Annegret Fauser, Steven Huebner, David Trippett, and Nicholas Vazsonyi.

Published in conjunction with the Bard Music Festival.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Essays -- Biographical contexts -- Toward a music of the future: 1840-1860 -- Wagner and Paris -- The Bayreuth era -- The complete program notes of Richard Wagner.

Equally celebrated and vilified in his own time, Wagner continues to provoke debate today regarding his political legacy as well as his music and aesthetic theories. Examine his works in dialogue with their intellectual and cultural contexts.

Tony Duggan collection.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Library Journal Review

Originally published in 1990, Brahms and His World is being rereleased with Richard Wagner and His World, the 19th title in this prestigious, scholarly series on major composers. Frisch (music, Columbia Univ.; Brahms: The Four Symphonies) and Karnes (music, Emory Univ.; Music, Criticism, and the Challenge of History) have substantially updated and expanded their collection of scholarly essays by leading musicologists in the field of Brahms studies. Several new essays take advantage of more recent scholarship. The contributions cover diverse topics in Brahms scholarship, detailed analyses of specific works, reminiscences by Brahms's contemporaries, and a list of compositions dedicated to the great German master. There are frequent musical examples and occasional photos throughout; all entries are extensively footnoted. As befits Wagner-a composer whose works were massive and epic and about whom more ink has been spilled, in praise and in vitriol, than nearly any other composer-his volume is much heftier than its companions. Grey (music, Stanford Univ.; Wagner's Musical Prose) compiles articles, contributed by an international roster of eminent musicologists, on, e.g., biographical contexts, Wagner's years in Paris, and complete program notes. A significant number of essays are translations of writings by Wagner's contemporaries, such as Franz Liszt and the critic Eduard Hanslick. The book, like all others in the series, is dense with bibliographic references and musical analyses that will be of use primarily to scholars in the field. Verdict Both titles are recommended for enthusiasts, musicologists, upper-level undergraduates, and graduate students. Lay readers interested in the complex world of Wagner should consider that volume essential.-Larry Lipkis, Moravian Coll., Bethlehem, PA (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Author notes provided by Syndetics

Thomas S. Grey is professor of music at Stanford University. His books include Wagner's Musical Prose: Texts and Contexts and The Cambridge Companion to Wagner .