Richard Wagner : A Guide to Research (Composer Resource Manuals)

Rating:
Summary: An Expert's Opinon
Review: In the Book Review section of the September 2003 edition of "Wagner": the journal of the Wagner Society; Stewart Spencer dedicates three pages (44-46) to demonstrating that this book is merely an addition to: "...the mountain of worthless writings on Wagner."

The serious student should be wary therefore, of spending so much on a book considered "worthless" by Spencer: an established authority on the composer.

Rating:
Summary: A source of innocent merriment
Review: It must be assumed that the enormity of the task, and his complete lack of qualifications to execute it, had not dawned on the author before he was too far into this project to abandon it. 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. When such an important resource as Curt von Westernhagen's catalogue of Wagner's Dresden library is incorrectly described, one can only conclude that the author of this Guide was far out of his depth. 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. It is to be regretted that the publishers did not see fit to involve anyone familiar with French or German in this project, since both these languages are obviously unknown to Saffle. The book in its present form and with its present quality is worthless, except perhaps as a source of unintended humour.