Wagner Beyond Good and Evil [Hardcover]

John Deathridge presents a different and critical view of Richard Wagner based on recent research that does not shy away from some unpalatable truths about this most controversial of composers in the canon of Western music. Deathridge writes authoritatively on what Wagner did, said, and wrote, drawing from abundant material already well known but also from less familiar sources, including hitherto seldom discussed letters and diaries and previously unpublished musical sketches. At the same time, Deathridge suggests that a true estimation of Wagner does not lie in an all too easy condemnation of his many provocative actions and ideas. Rather, it is to be found in the questions about the modern world and our place in it posed by the best of his stage works, among themTristan und IsoldeandDer Ring des Nibelungen.Controversy about Wagner is unlikely to go away, but rather than taking the line of least resistance by regarding him blandly as a classic in the Western art tradition, Deathridge suggests that we need to confront the debates that have raged about him and reach beyond them, toward a fresh and engaging assessment of what he ultimately achieved.

John Deathridgeis King Edward Professor of Music at King's College London. He is the author, with Carl Dahlhaus, ofThe New Grove Wagner,co-editor of theWagner-Werk-Verzeichnis (WWV)and editor of, and contributor to, the English language edition of theWagner Handbook.

This collection provides us with that rarest of objects: a genuinely new book on Wagner. Virtually every page offers fresh perspectives, some of them mined from the most unlikely of sources; indeed, the sheer eclecticism of the book, its willingness to range widely and irreverently through both popular and elite culture, is one of its greatest strengths. Roger Parker, author ofRemaking the Song: Operatic Visions and Revisions from Handel to Berio

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