Wagnerism
Art and Politics in the Shadow of Music
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Narrated by:
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Alex Ross
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By:
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Alex Ross
About this listen
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...
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- By Elliott Wolfe, M.D. on 06-28-21
By: John Tresch
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Diderot and the Art of Thinking Freely
- By: Andrew S. Curran
- Narrated by: Paul Boehmer
- Length: 13 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Denis Diderot is often associated with the decades-long battle to bring the world's first comprehensive Encyclopedie into existence. But his most daring writing took place in the shadows. Thrown into prison for his atheism in 1749, Diderot decided to reserve his best books for posterity - for us, in fact. In the astonishing cache of unpublished writings left behind after his death, Diderot challenged virtually all of his century's accepted truths, from the sanctity of monarchy, to the racial justification of the slave trade, to the norms of human sexuality.
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lifelong coverage of his life.
- By Michael Daly on 03-22-21
By: Andrew S. Curran
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Primitive Mythology
- The Masks of God Series, Volume I
- By: Joseph Campbell, David Kudler - editor
- Narrated by: Arthur Morey
- Length: 19 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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The author of such acclaimed books as The Hero With a Thousand Faces and The Power of Myth discusses the primitive roots of mythology, examining them in light of the most recent discoveries in archaeology, anthropology, and psychology.
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Epic speculation into the origins of our mythic consciousness
- By BGZ on 01-10-19
By: Joseph Campbell, and others
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Beethoven
- A Life in Nine Pieces
- By: Laura Tunbridge
- Narrated by: Laura Tunbridge
- Length: 7 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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The iconic image of Beethoven is of him as a lone genius: hair wild, fists clenched, and brow furrowed. Beethoven may well have shaped the music of the future, but he was also a product of his time, influenced by the people, politics, and culture around him. Oxford scholar Laura Tunbridge offers an alternative history of Beethoven's career, placing his music in contexts that shed light on why particular pieces are valued more than others, and what this tells us about his larger-than-life reputation.
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Laura Turnbridge is an excellent author & narrator
- By Alex Scriabin on 04-25-23
By: Laura Tunbridge
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The Fellowship
- The Literary LIves of the Inklings: J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Owen Barfield, Charles Williams
- By: Philip Zaleski, Carol Zaleski
- Narrated by: John Curless
- Length: 26 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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C. S. Lewis is the 20th century's most widely read Christian writer and J. R. R. Tolkien its most beloved mythmaker. For three decades they and their closest associates formed a literary club known as the Inklings, which met weekly in Lewis' Oxford rooms and a nearby pub. They read aloud from works in progress, argued about anything that caught their fancy, and gave one another invaluable companionship, inspiration, and criticism.
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If You Love Literature...
- By Ray M on 07-14-16
By: Philip Zaleski, and others
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Shakespeare in a Divided America
- What His Plays Tell Us About Our Past and Future
- By: James Shapiro
- Narrated by: Fred Sanders
- Length: 9 hrs and 11 mins
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The plays of William Shakespeare are rare common ground in the United States. For well over two centuries, Americans of all stripes—presidents and activists, soldiers and writers, conservatives and liberals alike—have turned to Shakespeare’s works to explore the nation’s fault lines. In a narrative arching from Revolutionary times to the present day, leading scholar James Shapiro traces the unparalleled role of Shakespeare’s four-hundred-year-old tragedies and comedies in illuminating the many concerns on which American identity has turned.
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An Entertaining History Lesson
- By David on 08-17-20
By: James Shapiro
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Weimar Culture
- The Outsider as Insider
- By: Peter Gay
- Narrated by: James Anderson Foster
- Length: 6 hrs and 44 mins
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First published in 1968, Weimar Culture is one of the masterworks of Peter Gay's distinguished career. A study of German culture between the two wars, the book brilliantly traces the rise of the artistic, literary, and musical culture that bloomed ever so briefly in the 1920s amid the chaos of Germany's tenuous post-World War I democracy, and crashed violently in the wake of Hitler's rise to power.
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Engaging book, terrible narrator
- By Beth Simone Noveck on 05-08-21
By: Peter Gay
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Sailing the Wine-Dark Sea
- Why the Greeks Matter
- By: Thomas Cahill
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 7 hrs and 35 mins
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Best selling history writer Thomas Cahill continues his series on the roots of Western civilization with this volume about the contributions of ancient Greece to the development of contemporary culture. Tracing the origin of Greek culture in the migrations of armed Indo-European horsemen into Attica and the Peloponnesian peninsula, he follows their progress into the creation of the Greek city-states, the refinement of their machinery of war, and the flowering of intellectual and artistic culture.
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Super super
- By Richard on 12-28-03
By: Thomas Cahill
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Sontag
- Her Life and Work
- By: Benjamin Moser
- Narrated by: Tavia Gilbert
- Length: 22 hrs and 4 mins
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No writer is as emblematic of the American 20th century as Susan Sontag. Mythologized and misunderstood, lauded and loathed, a girl from the suburbs who became a proud symbol of cosmopolitanism, Sontag left a legacy of writing on art and politics, feminism and homosexuality, celebrity and style, medicine and drugs, radicalism and Fascism and Freudianism and Communism and Americanism, that forms an indispensable key to modern culture.
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Cloying voice
- By Suzanne on 11-02-19
By: Benjamin Moser
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Shakespeare Was a Woman and Other Heresies
- How Doubting the Bard Became the Biggest Taboo in Literature
- By: Elizabeth Winkler
- Narrated by: Eunice Wong
- Length: 14 hrs and 28 mins
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The theory that Shakespeare may not have written the works that bear his name is the most horrible, unspeakable subject in the history of English literature. Scholars admit that the Bard’s biography is a “black hole,” yet to publicly question the identity of the god of English literature is unacceptable, even (some say) “immoral.” In Shakespeare Was a Woman and Other Heresies, journalist and literary critic Elizabeth Winkler sets out to probe the origins of this literary taboo.
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Excellent!
- By Virgil Tracy on 06-03-23
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Keats
- A Brief Life in Nine Poems and One Epitaph
- By: Lucasta Miller
- Narrated by: Sally Scott
- Length: 10 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Miller, through Keats’s poetry, brilliantly resurrects and brings vividly to life, the man, the poet in all his complexity and spirit, living dangerously, disdaining respectability and cultural norms, and embracing subversive politics. Keats was a lower-middle-class outsider from a tragic and fractured family, whose extraordinary energy and love of language allowed him to pummel his way into the heart of English literature; a freethinker and a liberal at a time of repression, who delighted in the sensation of the moment.
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A Romantic Life
- By David on 05-03-22
By: Lucasta Miller
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Apollo's Angels
- A History of Ballet
- By: Jennifer Homans
- Narrated by: Kirsten Potter
- Length: 23 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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For more than 400 years, the art of ballet has stood at the center of Western civilization. Its traditions serve as a record of our past. A ballerina dancing The Sleeping Beauty today is a link in a long chain of dancers stretching back to 16th-century Italy and France: Her graceful movements recall a lost world of courts, kings, and aristocracy, but her steps and gestures are also marked by the dramatic changes in dance and culture that followed.
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a great book poorly read
- By Anonymous User on 04-14-11
By: Jennifer Homans
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Squeezing cherry-picked facts into a simplistic narrative
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Huge book - musical reader appreciates best
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What listeners say about Wagnerism
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- B. Price
- 01-18-22
A review of how influential a great artist can be.
Alex Ross has composed and narrated a little miracle of understanding. Richard Wagner was a little man from a distinctly unremarkable background, who had several very petty and destructive streaks to influence his world-view... but he single-handedly created sublime works of art that speak to so many political, artistic, philosophical and moral developments of the late 19th and entire 20th century. Mr. Ross leads the reader (or listener) through these many layers of influence to help us comprehend a little of how politics, religion, tribalism, national identity, the entertainment industry and luck can change the lens of how artistic work can both influence worldview and be used to influence political outcomes.
This dense prose is not for the faint-of-heart, but is richly rewarding for those who give it their time and attention.
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- Michael LeMay
- 03-09-21
Wow this was so good
As someone who does not have much interest in classical music or opera, this book is really remarkable as an intellectual history of one aspect of 19th and 20th century art, and one man’s remarkable influence on it. Cannot recommend it highly enough! And Alex Ross does a great job reading it, good author read.
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- Shipwrecked
- 06-04-21
Excellent
One of those books that really deserves 6 stars. I feel like I can now see in another spectrum of light - the history of 19th and 20th century art and literature makes so much more sense - Wagner’s influence was everywhere. The book is preposterously wide-ranging but also so nuanced and detailed that just thinking about its writing exhausts me. Listening was a pleasure though. Got me watching Wagner performances and I previously could not have cared less about opera. Highly recommended.
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- Frank Mars
- 04-28-22
A Masterpiece
I have never cared for classical music, opera, or Wagner. Somehow this became one of my favorite books ever?! Anyone interested in cultural studies of the 19th Century and beyond should try this book. The influence of Wagner makes him a great skeleton key to study many other creative people in other mediums. The audiobook enriches the experience through samples of the music itself. I am amazed at how thoroughly the subject is explored without ever feeling tedious. I don’t care that much about music but I might have to listen to his other books. Truly in awe of this book and the many subjects that it successfully holds together.
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- Golfgirl
- 07-17-23
So much information
unbelievable that one person can have such a comprehensible knowledge about literature, music, and art.
just some time one wonders: when somebody knows the wagner drama, turns everything into a wagner drama?
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- Amazon Customer
- 05-16-22
Captivating
An eloquent and eye-opening revelation about the enormous impact of Wagner on culture from the composer's early works to present day. A compelling narrative. Captivating
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- James Paris
- 03-15-22
If you love the music of Richard Wagner, you will love this book…
This is a most prolific and honest examination of the brilliant composer Richard Wagner and his contribution to society. From his own time to today, we look at the influence of Wagner’s music on the modern world. It is a trip through time in many cases, but it is also a fascinating journey into the composer’s influence on society, and Wagner’s influence is still felt today at this time. I would invite the reader to read (listen) to this fantastic work once, and then reread it (like I am going to do) again. It is something that you can’t put aside. I would recommend this book to those who enjoy music, but especially those who, like me, love the music of the composer Richard Wagner!
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- Victor T. Foia
- 04-13-23
A tour de force
Ross has written an incredibly erudite treatise on Wagner’s influence worldwide. No matter how much you know about the composer and his music, be assured you will learn a myriad of new things. The reading is endlessly fascinating, and whether you love, hate, or are indifferent to Wagner, as long as you love history, your efforts in reading this massive tome will be fully rewarded.
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- Eugene Gallagher
- 04-08-21
I loved the audible book but it needs music
I am a Wagner fan and now an Alex Ross fan. I've read many of his music reviews in the New Yorker and really enjoyed his in-depth guide to Wangerism. The only downside wat the great lengths that Ross spends on Willa Cather and other fin de seicle authors. Having never read her, I wasn't that interested in her. Ross spends about as much time as Wagner's influence on Cather as he does on Wagner's influence on the horrid Nazi culture. One of my favorite memories of Wagnerism is the start of Simon Gray's play "Otherwise Engaged," one of my favorite plays that I saw in London. The main character, played by a youngish Michael Gambon in the 1976 production I saw, sits down to listen to his new recording of Parsifal. He's rudely interrupted as the opening strains of Parsifal fill the theater. Throughout the play, he periodically starts to play the recording only to be stopped by other interruptions. I had never heard Parsifal before, but I bought a copy just to enjoy the rest of Wagner's wonderful music.
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- Russell
- 11-12-21
Brilliant
Simply spellbinding in scope and depth. A huge investment in time and attention, but so worth it.
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