Richard Wagner (1813-1883) is one of the most influential - and also one of the most controversial - composers in the history of music. Over the course of his long career, he produced a stream of spellbinding works that challenged musical convention through their richness and tonal experimentation, ultimately paving the way for modernism. This book presents an in-depth but easy-to-read overview of Wagner's life, work and times. It considers a wide range of themes, including the composer's original sources of inspiration; his fetish for exotic silks; his relationship with his wife, Cosima, and with his mistress, Mathilde Wesendonck; the anti-semitism that is undeniably present in the operas; their proto-cinematic nature; and the turbulent legacy both of the Bayreuth Festival and of Wagnerism itself. Making use of the very latest scholarship - much of it undertaken by the author himself in connection with his editorship of The Wagner Journal - Millington reassesses received notions about Wagner and his work, demolishing ill-informed opinion in favour of proper critical understanding. It is a radical - and occasionally controversial - reappraisal of this most perplexing of composers. The volume's arrangement - unique among books on the composer -combines an accessible text, intriguing images and original documents, thus ensuring a consistently fresh approach. Bringing new insights to an endlessly fascinating subject, The Sorcerer of Bayreuth will charm anyone interested in music and in the wider cultural life of the 19th century and beyond.

This book, addressed to both specialists and the opera-going public, brings together a team of acknowledged authorities from round the world to examine the performance history and reception of Wagner's works in Europe and America. A connected sequence of essays on conducting, singing, production and stage design explores the nature of Wagner's demands on his interpreters. The book raises questions about the realization of opera on the stage: about the authority of the composer vis-a-vis the director and the audience: about the sanctity of the text, score and stage directions; and about the role of art itself in society.

Published for the 200th anniversary of Richard Wagners birth, and written by one of the most distinguished Wagner scholars in the world, this in-depth and highly readable account of Wagners life, work and times will be the book of the bicentenary. Richard Wagner (18131883) is one of the most influential and also one of the most polarizing composers in the history of music. Over the course of his long career, he produced a stream of spellbinding operas that challenged musical convention through their richness and tonal experimentation, paving the way for modernism. This richly illustrated overview of Wagners life, work and times makes use of the very latest scholarship much of it undertaken by the author in connection with his editorship of The Wagner Journal. The book reassesses received notions, demolishing ill-informed opinion in favour of proper critical understanding. It is a radical and occasionally controversial reappraisal of this most perplexing of composers. A wide range of themes include the composers original sources of inspiration; his fetish for exotic silks; his relationship with his wife, Cosima, and with his mistress; his anti-semitism; and the turbulent legacy both of the Bayreuth Festival and of Wagnerism itself. The books arrangement unique among books on the composer combines an accessible text, intriguing images and original documents in carefully co-ordinated sections, ensuring a consistently fresh approach.

Wagner is one of the most controversial of composers, and much that has been written about him--including his autobiography--is misleading. Barry Millington draws on the best previous scholarship and his own original research to set the record straight. The first part of this book is devoted to biography; the second, to a detailed study of the operas. Millington offers a historical review of the critical interpretation of each opera, including a discussion of recent methods of formal analysis. In this revised edition, two chapters, those on Tannhauser and Die Meistersinger, include significant new material. The bibliography has also been updated.

’An absolutely masterly work’ Stephen Fry Alex Ross, renowned author of the international bestseller 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.

Winner of the 2007 National Book Critics Circle Award for Criticism A New York Times Book Review Top Ten Book of the Year Time magazine Top Ten Nonfiction Book of 2007 Newsweek Favorite Books of 2007 A Washington Post Book World Best Book of 2007 In this sweeping and dramatic narrative, Alex Ross, music critic for The New Yorker, weaves together the histories of the twentieth century and its music, from Vienna before the First World War to Paris in the twenties; from Hitler's Germany and Stalin's Russia to downtown New York in the sixties and seventies up to the present. Taking readers into the labyrinth of modern style, Ross draws revelatory connections between the century's most influential composers and the wider culture. The Rest Is Noise is an astonishing history of the twentieth century as told through its music.

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The unrivaled single-volume survey of Wagner's life and work Edited by one of the leading Wagner scholars of modern times, and with contributions from seventeen experts from around the world, The Wagner Compendium is the key to a complete understanding of the composer— the most comprehensive, informative and well-organized guide to his life and times. Features include: calendar of Wagner's life, works and related events who's who of Wagner's contemporaries details of historical, intellectual and musical background exploration of Wagner's character and opinions full list of Wagner's prose writings comprehensive listing and discussion of the works