The Tristan Chord: Wagner and Philosophy

Rating:
Summary: A work of genius
Review: Magee's book on Wagner is brilliant. He puts Wagner's ideas in perspective in the tradition of German philosophy and intellectual history (Feuerback, Schopenhauer, Hegel, etc.). The writing is lucid and enjoyable. Having read this book, I have a much deeper appreciation of Wagner, the man and his music. It is hard to recommend Magee's text highly enough. This book is illuminating, exciting, fun, and absorbing -- I found it hard to put down. No Wagner lover should be without it.

Rating:
Summary: Critical to Understanding Wagner
Review: Most of the major secondary material about the intellectual influences on, and influence of, Wagner, refer to philosophy and Schopenhauer in particular. Magee cogently argues that these ideas were not just influential, but central to, Wagner's art. In particular, Magee shows that all Wagner's work after Tristan is deeply infused with Schopenhauerian epistomology and ethics. No other work that I have read so clearly and completely explains this seminal influence on Wagner.

Magee writes energetic prose without sacrificing any depth of analysis. I cannot recommend this book too highly to the following: 1) Wagner lovers 2) those interested in late 19th century intellectual history 3) those interested in philosophy 4) anyone who wants to know more about one of the most important thinkers of the last hundred and fifty years.

Rating:
Summary: Wagner: Not a Proto-Nazi
Review: One of the most brilliantly argued defenses of Richard Wagner I've ever come across. The genius composer is not the proto-Nazi that many make him out to be (having hobnobbed with Bakunin, Proudhon and other anarchists early on in his career) The author sets out to show that the philosophers Kant and Schoepenhauer had a profound influence on Wagner's music, esp, the Ring and Tristan and Isolde operas. I commend this author for his courage in defending one of the greatest composers of all time. May all PC hacks wither away and die in Wagner's eternal genius light. (...)

Rating:
Summary: Wagner: Not a Proto-Nazi
Review: One of the most brilliantly argued defenses of Richard Wagner I've ever come across. The genius composer is not the proto-Nazi that many make him out to be (having hobnobbed with Bakunin, Proudhon and other anarchists early on in his career) The author sets out to show that the philosophers Kant and Schoepenhauer had a profound influence on Wagner's music, esp, the Ring and Tristan and Isolde operas. I commend this author for his courage in defending one of the greatest composers of all time. May all PC hacks wither away and die in Wagner's eternal genius light. (...)

Rating:
Summary: Art is everything that transforms you
Review: Pierre Boulez's famous definition of art is the first thought that came to my mind after reading this book. Not only because of the author�s analytic description of Wagner's (above all things) transfigurational and revolutionary art but in which the book changed my way of listening and loving Wagner's work.

I am a long time Wagnerite (big, big fan!) and have always taken the study of Wagner's work seriously. For a long time, I had my unchangeable list of my favorite Wagner operas and I had a million of reasons for adoring each work and preferring this to the other. Not only did Magee�s Tristan give me many more reasons to love each of Wagner's operas but he, for the first time, changed my list of preference (and I�ll tell you I am a stubborn fellow). Though it did not turn my preferences list upside down, it made me love Tristan (not that Tristan is Magee's favorite work) above all other Wagner's works, in lieu of Die Walkure, which had been placed in my predilection as Wagner�s first and foremost magnum opus.

This book is an absolute analysis of the intellectual bricks that comprise each of Wagner's works and the philosophical mortar that binds all his thoughts together. The author has an unbiased and honest approach towards sensitive subjects such as Wagner's anti-Semitism and his relationship with Nietzsche. He masters these two issues with a skill that I had never seen before and, above all, with an intellectually honest approach which is sometimes hard to keep before such gut-sensitive matters.

Mr. Magee has a profound knowledge of philosophical thinking and has proved to be a first class connoisseur of Wagner's music, drama and history.

The work is the result of an intricate work of factual research and is laid down in paper with a superbly written prose. What a book!!! Brian Magee deserves all the praise for his work, which will deserve a place in my shelf of favorite books...

Rating:
Summary: Art is everything that transforms you
Review: Pierre Boulez's famous definition of art is the first thought that came to my mind after reading this book. Not only because of the author's analytic description of Wagner's (above all things) transfigurational and revolutionary art but in which the book changed my way of listening and loving Wagner's work.

I am a long time Wagnerite (big, big fan!) and have always taken the study of Wagner's work seriously. For a long time, I had my unchangeable list of my favorite Wagner operas and I had a million of reasons for adoring each work and preferring this to the other. Not only did Magee's Tristan give me many more reasons to love each of Wagner's operas but he, for the first time, changed my list of preference (and I'll tell you I am a stubborn fellow). Though it did not turn my preferences list upside down, it made me love Tristan (not that Tristan is Magee's favorite work) above all other Wagner's works, in lieu of Die Walkure, which had been placed in my predilection as Wagner's first and foremost magnum opus.

This book is an absolute analysis of the intellectual bricks that comprise each of Wagner's works and the philosophical mortar that binds all his thoughts together. The author has an unbiased and honest approach towards sensitive subjects such as Wagner's anti-Semitism and his relationship with Nietzsche. He masters these two issues with a skill that I had never seen before and, above all, with an intellectually honest approach which is sometimes hard to keep before such gut-sensitive matters.

Mr. Magee has a profound knowledge of philosophical thinking and has proved to be a first class connoisseur of Wagner's music, drama and history.

The work is the result of an intricate work of factual research and is laid down in paper with a superbly written prose. What a book!!! Brian Magee deserves all the praise for his work, which will deserve a place in my shelf of favorite books...

Rating:
Summary: Great Wagner book
Review: The author, Bryan Magee, modestly states in his preface that: "There is never any suggestion that I am giving a full explanation of [Wagner's] works by what I say in these pages: I am merely drawing attention to some of the ideas that went into them." While it is true that is book is focused on Wagner's philosophy (both in the broad and narrower senses of the word) and how this philosophy influenced and affected his works, he also succinctly and brilliantly covers Wagner's biography and personality. If you have never read a book on Wagner, this would be a marvelous place to start.

Magee's basic argument is that to really understand and appreciate Wagner's mature operas you need to understand Schopenhauerian philosophy and Wagner's metaphysical beliefs. He then proceeds to explain Wagner's ideas in a prose style that is straight-forward, extraordinarily lucid and brimming with profound insights. But while the heart of the book is the exposition of Wagner's philosophical beliefs and the affect on his music, there is so much more. As the book jacket blurb says accurately, the book is "at once a biography of the composer, an exploration of the creative process, an account of 19th century opera and an investigation of the intellectual and technical aspects of music". It is really a wonderful addition to Wagner literature.

Magee, it should be noted, is also the author of "Aspects of Wagner", which is a marvelous collection of five short pieces examining, yes, different aspects of Wagner. One of the pieces in that book is about Wagner's anti-Semitism, primarily placing Wagner's views in historical context. In Tristan's Chord, he compliments that earlier essay with an appendix which explores Wagner's anti-Semitism and its ramifications more fully than his earlier piece. It is a balanced and well-supported argument on this most controversial and inflammatory topic.

Rating:
Summary: The World as Intellect and Music
Review: The British teacher and author Bryan Magee has approached Richard Wagner in the past (in his "Aspects of Wagner"), but never has he presented Wagner as an artist so deeply influenced by philosophy as he does in "The Tristan Chord: Wagner and Philosophy". Mr Magee is a perceptive scholar and evidently a very good teacher. Anyone who can make Kant, Schopenhauer and Nietzsche lucid has got to be good. Wagner became entranced by Schopenhauer's "The World as Will and Representation" at the age of 41, and its spellbinding influence stayed with him for the rest of his life. An atheist, Schopenhauer saw the world, dominated by the Will to have and keep, as a grasping, relentlessly unhappy place. We can escape this torment by entering a metaphysical state similar to the Buddhist Nirvana, a bliss exemplified by music. Bertrand Russell, in "A History of Western Philosophy", can't resist pointing out that Schopenhauer, despite his ethereal pessimism, loved good food, fine wines, and casual affairs. (We won't even discuss his nasty temper.) Similarly, Wagner himself coveted luxury and power. But more important is Schopenhauer's influence on the music dramas themselves -- "The Ring", obviously, but even more so "Tristan und Isolde", with its rejection of the phenomenal world, the longing for death, expertly explained by Mr Magee. He also discusses the other operas with great insight. For instance, in "Die Meistersinger" (written after "Tristan") Wagner reverted to his Romantic roots, composing rhymed verse, a quintet, even a ballet. The longest and most interesting chapter is titled "Wagner and Nietzsche". The philosopher was only 24 when he met Wagner, young enough to be the composer's son, and indeed he became Wagner's somewhat slavish protégé. Their strongest point of reference was Schopenhauer, for they both loved "The World as Will and Representation". Later Nietzsche turned against both Schopenhauer and Wagner, his attacks on the latter ("Is Wagner a human being at all? ... a clever rattlesnake") becoming irrationally bitter. The deterioration of their relationship was exacerbated by Nietzsche's failing health and the indiscretion of a Frankfurt physician (denounced by Mr Magee as "a lightweight, silly fellow") who communicated with a layman, Wagner, in a manner that was professionally inappropriate. Obviously, the most difficult aspect of Wagner for an author to deal with is the undeniable anti-Semitism. But Mr Magee emphasizes that this was a fairly common European attitude and was, of course, more than half a century before the Holocaust. He makes a very strong argument against Wagner's popularity with the Nazis, the idea of Wagner's music being "a sort of sound track to the Third Reich". In fact, he notes, Wagner's popularity in Germany dropped between 1933 and 1940. The anti-Semitic writings are extremely unfortunate, but they can't be taken out of historical context and made to stand for something they were never meant to stand for. Sometimes the prose in "The Tristan Chord" becomes a little awkward, and there is no bibliography, which would have been interesting. But overall this is a fascinating study of brilliant minds meeting in the 19th Century.

Rating:
Summary: Essential Reading for Any Wagner Lover
Review: The Tristan Chord is a brilliant exploration of the evolutionary nexus between Wagner's political and philosophical beliefs, and the momunental works of art he created. For me the finest part of the book is the very detailed examination of the philosophy of Schopenhauer and it's extraordinary impact on the composer. To be able to write on such a complex subject and to do it in such a completely compelling and readable way is an amazing achievement. Essential reading for a deepening understanding of Wagner's oeuvre.

Rating:
Summary: Lucid, clear summary of Wagner's philosophical views
Review: There aren't many composers whose philosophical views are of such crucial, and controversial, importance as Wagner's. But this is not because Wagner was an important philosopher.

As Magee shows, Wagner's thinking should not be too readily dismissed. Wagner was no philosophical dilletante. He was awesomely well-read in the philosophy, philology and linguistics of his day, in addition to his vast reading in literature ancient and "modern", in history, myth, and the history of myth, and much more. And he was an intelligent and sometimes extraordinarily perceptive man, whose erudition was not just for showing off with but of vital importance to his thought and work.

However Wagner believed, wrongly, that his intuition was as sure a guide in the world of ideas as it was in music and drama. So his philosophical writings follow his intuitions, not his reasoning - indeed he seems to avoid reasoning, except in small bursts, out of principle. His writing is therefore irrational and self-contradictory, obscure in the worst German manner: neither original (except accidentally, where he achieves originality by misunderstanding a source, particularly Schopenhauer), nor lucid, nor "true". "True", that is, in the sense of being based on "matters of fact or reason".

So his philosophy is not, despite what Wagner probably thought, of much importance in its own right. It is mainly important because it permeates and influences his major works, which are among the few most endlessly fascinating human creations of any kind. The increasingly Buddhist resignation, withdrawal from the world, of his later works are steeped in Schopenhauerian doctrine, just as the leftist radicalism of the earlier works are steeped in the work of the libertarian democratic-socialist Feuerbach. Magee's book is invaluable in tracing the effect of these and other philosophers on Wagner's work. _Tristan und Isolde_, for example, was indeed written in the white heat of a love affair, but that love was Wagner's love of Schopenhauer, not of Matthilde Wesendonck.

Wagner's philosophical ideas are important to his work in a way that seems true of no other composer. Mozart's use of Masonic symbols in _Zauberflöte_ and elsewhere (eg his "three" chords, three maidens, three boys, etc) has never seemed more than skindeep, almost flippant, references, while in Wagner the philosophical ideas cut deep both with the drama and the characters. Magee shows how the many complex layers and depths of works like the _Ring_, Tristan_, _Parsifal_, and even the earlier Romantic operas like _Lohengrin_ and _Tannhäuser_, can never be fully explored without an understanding of Wagner's key ideas: the futility and evil of power-seeking and conquest, the struggle of the artist to escape from, and yet redeem, the constricting culture in which they operate, the desirability of losing the world by annihilating one's one ego-consciousness, the value of the irrational and of dream, and much else.

There is another, hopefully temporary, reason why it is worth knowing what Wagner's philosophical ideas actually were. Recently there has been a small avalanche of books presenting Wagner as a proto-Nazi, even a serious influence on Hitler, and one who put proto-Nazi ideas into his dramas. Books by Rose, Weiner, Köhler, Zelinsky, Millington and others creak and twang with the sound of long bows stretched past the breaking point, as they try to fit Wagner's operas and his prose works into a Nazi frame.

And "frame" is the word. As Magee shows, Wagner was a radical democrat when young (democracy being a radical idea at that time, in Europe), who drifted as far right as supporting constitutional monarchy, particularly when constitutional monarchs were writing his cheques. And who, after his disillusionment with Bismarckian Germany, lost interest in politics altogether. There were slim pickings for the Nazis, except for the antisemitism that Wagner shared with Hitler's other favourites, particularly Bruckner, also Beethoven, Bach and Brahms and many others, whose antisemitism is as ignored as Wagner's is stressed.

Magee adds an appendix on Wagner's antisemitism, putting it back in context as a disgraceful form of bigotry, just like the ignorant bigotry of today's taxi-driver who sounds off about Vietnamese, or Afghan, or African immigrants. Wagner, like many a talk radio jock, populist politician and barroom loudmouth of our own day, called for Jews to lose their separate culture and identity and assimilate into German culture. This is contemptibly racist, but the diametric opposite of the Nazi program of racial segregation followed by genocide. I might add, as Magee does not, that Wagner was an ardent abolitionist, passionately opposing slavery in the US. On some racial issues Wagner was more progressive and less racist than many Europeans and Americans of his day. But we seldom hear about this from those who prefer a simple caricature to a complicated human being.

And of course the Nazis banned _Parsifal_ for its pacifist content, as well as banning complete cycles of the _Ring_, which charts Wotan's moral degradation and downfall in pointing out its message of the futility of power and conquest. Magee notes that Wagner performances actually became much less frequent under the Nazis than before the takeover. The soundtrack of the Third Reich was not Wagner, as today's filmmakers think; in reality the opera houses played Auber, Lortzing and Lehar (Hitler never attended a Wagner opera after 1942). When classical music was played at the rallies, it was Bruckner and Liszt as much as, or more than, Wagner, but mainly the music played was "cholly Cherman" brass band music. Magee makes these points clearly and elegantly.

My main criticism of the book is that Magee clearly loves Schopenhauer almost as much as does Wagner. As a result I think he grossly underestimates the influence of the left-wing Feuerbach not only on the early works but on the later works: even _Parsifal_ ends with a political revolution, the peaceful overthrow of a hereditary monarchy. And the _Ring_ ends with us, the vassals and working women, alive after the fire and flood, facing the future with all heroes and gods swept away. I believe there is at least as much Feuerbach and Schopenhauer in the mature operas, and Magee tends to skimp on the continued radicalism of Wagner's Feuerbachian leanings and borrowings.

But this is a minor criticism of a splendid book. It is an invaluable guide to Wagner's philosophy, as well as being a remarkably clear exposition of Schopenhauer's philosophy. Highly recommended.

Cheers!

Laon