
Wagnerism
Art and Politics in the Shadow of Music
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
3 months free
Buy for $33.74
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
-
Narrated by:
-
Alex Ross
-
By:
-
Alex Ross
This program is read by the author and includes excerpts from Richard Wagner's musical compositions throughout.
Alex Ross, renowned New Yorker music critic and author of the international best seller and Pulitzer Prize finalist The Rest Is Noise, reveals how Richard Wagner became the proving ground for modern art and politics - an aesthetic war zone where the Western world wrestled with its capacity for beauty and violence.
For better or worse, Wagner is the most widely influential figure in the history of music. Around 1900, the phenomenon known as Wagnerism saturated European and American culture. Such colossal creations as The Ring of the Nibelung, Tristan und Isolde, and Parsifal were models of formal daring, mythmaking, erotic freedom, and mystical speculation. A mighty procession of artists, including Virginia Woolf, Thomas Mann, Paul Cézanne, Isadora Duncan, and Luis Buñuel, felt his impact. Anarchists, occultists, feminists, and gay-rights pioneers saw him as a kindred spirit. Then Adolf Hitler incorporated Wagner into the soundtrack of Nazi Germany, and the composer came to be defined by his ferocious antisemitism. For many, his name is now almost synonymous with artistic evil.
In Wagnerism, Alex Ross restores the magnificent confusion of what it means to be a Wagnerian. A pandemonium of geniuses, madmen, charlatans, and prophets do battle over Wagner’s many-sided legacy. As listeners of his brilliant articles for The New Yorker have come to expect, Ross ranges thrillingly across artistic disciplines, from the architecture of Louis Sullivan to the novels of Philip K. Dick, from the Zionist writings of Theodor Herzl to the civil-rights essays of W.E.B. Du Bois, from O Pioneers! to Apocalypse Now.
In many ways, Wagnerism tells a tragic tale. An artist who might have rivaled Shakespeare in universal reach is undone by an ideology of hate. Still, his shadow lingers over 21st century culture, his mythic motifs coursing through superhero films and fantasy fiction. Neither apologia nor condemnation, Wagnerism is a work of passionate discovery, urging us toward a more honest idea of how art acts in the world.
A Macmillan Audio production from Farrar, Straus and Giroux
©2020 Alex Ross (P)2020 Macmillan AudioListeners also enjoyed...




















Critic reviews
Chicago Tribune Best Books of the Year, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Best Books of the Year, 2020
NPR Best Book of the Year, 2020
Barnes and Noble Best New Books of the Year, 2020
New York Times Book Review Notable Books of the Year, 2020
People who viewed this also viewed...

















This dense prose is not for the faint-of-heart, but is richly rewarding for those who give it their time and attention.
A review of how influential a great artist can be.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Wow this was so good
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Excellent
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Captivating
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
If you love the music of Richard Wagner, you will love this book…
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
A tour de force
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
I loved the audible book but it needs music
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Brilliant
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
astonishing and fascinating
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
Magnificent book
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.