Download or read book Studies in Musical Genesis Structure and Interpretation written by William Kinderman and published by . This book was released on 2013-08-15 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This study explores the evolution of the text and music of this inexhaustible yet highly controversial music drama across Wagner's entire career, and offers a reassessment of the ideological and political history of 'Parsifal' that illuminates the connection of Wagner's legacy to the rise of National Socialism in Germany. The compositional genesis is traced through many unfamiliar sketches and manuscript sources held at Bayreuth, revealing unsuspected models and veiled connections to Wagner's earlier works.
Download or read book Wagner s Parsifal written by Roger Scruton and published by Penguin Group. This book was released on 2021-03-25 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A superbly insightful and moving exploration of Wagner's last opera, by one of Britain's leading intellectuals Wagner's last music-drama tells the story of Parsifal, the 'pure fool, knowing through compassion', who has been called to rescue the Kingdom of the Grail from the sins that have polluted it. The Grail is a symbol of purity in a world of lust and power, but although Parsifal is the culmination of Wagner's life-long obsession with the religious frame of mind, the redemption sought by his characters is far from the Christian archetype. For Wagner, redemption occurs inthis life, when compassion prevails over enslavement, and purity replaces spiritual pollution. His music here ties together suffering and contrition, sin and forgiveness, downfall and redemption in an inextricable knot, healing the fractures and uniting the warring elements in human life in a way that is clear, convincing and uncanny. More than any other of his works, Parsifal expresses in music a depth of feeling for which we do not have words. This short but penetrating book, by a writer who was uniquely both a leading philosopher and musicologist, shows us how Wagner achieves this profound work, explaining the story, its musical ideas, and their coming together into a sublime whole which gives us the musical equivalent of forgiveness and closure. There are few writers who can so enhance our understanding of one of the greatest works in western music.
Download or read book Opera and Drama written by Richard Wagner and published by U of Nebraska Press. This book was released on 1995-01-01 with total page 444 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: With Richard Wagner, opera reached the apex of German Romanticism. Originally published in 1851, when Wagner was in political exile, Opera and Drama outlines a new, revolutionary type of musical stage work, which would finally materialize as The Ring of the Nibelung. Wagner's music drama, as he called it, aimed at a union of poetry, drama, music, and stagecraft. ø In a rare book-length study, the composer discusses the enhancement of dramas by operatic treatment and the subjects that make the best dramas. The expected Wagnerian voltage is here: in his thinking about myths such as Oedipus, his theories about operatic goals and musical possibilities, his contempt for musical politics, his exaltation of feeling and fantasy, his reflections about genius, and his recasting of Schopenhauer. ø This edition includes the full text of volume 2 of William Ashton Ellis's 1893 translation commissioned by the London Wagner Society.
Download or read book Richard Wagner Parsifal written by Lucy Beckett and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1981-08-20 with total page 180 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A comprehensive account of Wagner's last, and strangest opera.
Download or read book The Wagner Compendium A Guide To Wagner s Life and Music written by Barry Millington and published by Thames & Hudson. This book was released on 2001-07-17 with total page 570 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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
Download or read book The Parsifal Mosaic written by Robert Ludlum and published by Bantam. This book was released on 2015-06-02 with total page 722 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Michael Havelock’s world died on a moonlit beach on the Costa Brava as he watched his partner and lover, double agent Jenna Karas, efficiently gunned down by his own agency. There’s nothing left for him but to quit the game, get out. Then, in one frantic moment on a crowded railroad platform in Rome, Havelock sees Jenna. Racing around the globe in search of his beautiful betrayer, Havelock is now marked for death by both U.S. and Russian assassins, trapped in a massive mosaic of treachery created by a top-level mole with the world in his fist: Parsifal. Praise for Robert Ludlum and The Parsifal Mosaic “[Robert] Ludlum’s narrative imagination is a force of nature.”—The New York Times “As fast-paced and absorbing as any he’s written.”—Newsday “The suspense never lets up.”—The Atlanta Journal-Constitution “A crackling good yarn.”—Los Angeles Times Book Review
Download or read book Tristan s Shadow written by Adrian Daub and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2013-11-25 with total page 237 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Das Rheingold, Die Walküre, and Siegfried. Parsifal. Tristan und Isolde. Both revered and reviled, Richard Wagner conceived some of the nineteenth century’s most influential operas—and created some of the most indelible characters ever to grace the stage. But over the course of his polarizing career, Wagner also composed volumes of essays and pamphlets, some on topics seemingly quite distant from the opera house. His influential concept of Gesamtkunstwerk—the “total work of art”—famously and controversially offered a way to unify the different media of an opera into a coherent whole. Less well known, however, are Wagner’s strange theories on sexuality—like his ideas about erotic acoustics and the metaphysics of sexual difference. Drawing on the discourses of psychoanalysis, evolutionary biology, and other emerging fields of study that informed Wagner’s thinking, Adrian Daub traces the dual influence of Gesamtkunstwerk and eroticism from their classic expressions in Tristan und Isolde into the work of the generation of composers that followed, including Zemlinsky, d’Albert, Schreker, and Strauss. For decades after Wagner’s death, Daub writes, these composers continued to grapple with his ideas and with his overwhelming legacy, trying in vain to write their way out from Tristan’s shadow.
Download or read book The Rest Is Noise written by Alex Ross and published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. This book was released on 2007-10-16 with total page 706 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.
Download or read book Wagner Without Fear written by William Berger and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2010-06-16 with total page 466 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Do you cringe when your opera-loving friends start raving about the latest production of Tristan? Do you feel faint just thinking about the six-hour performance of Parsifal you were given tickets to? Does your mate accuse you of having a Tannhäuser complex? If you're baffled by the behavior of Wagner worshipers, if you've longed to fathom the mysteries of Wagner's ever-increasing popularity, or if you just want to better understand and enjoy the performances you're attending, you'll find this delightful book indispensable. William Berger is the most helpful guide one could hope to find for navigating the strange and beautiful world of the most controversial artist who ever lived. He tells you all you need to know to become a true Wagnerite--from story lines to historical background; from when to visit the rest room to how to sound smart during intermission; from the Jewish legend that possibly inspired Lohengrin to the tragic death of the first Tristan. Funny, informative, and always a pleasure to read, Wagner Without Fear proves that the art of Wagner can be accessible to everyone. Includes: - The strange life of Richard Wagner--German patriot (and exile), friend (and enemy) of Liszt and Nietzsche - Essential opera lore and "lobby talk" - A scene-by-scene analysis of each opera - What to listen for to get the most from the music - Recommended recordings, films, and sound tracks
Download or read book Richard Wagner written by Michael Saffle and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2010-06-10 with total page 576 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Richard Wagner: A Research and Information Guide is an annotated bibliography concerning both the nature of primary sources related to the composer and the scope and significance of the secondary sources which deal with him, his compositions, and his influence as a composer and performer.
Download or read book Wagnerism Art and Politics in the Shadow of Music written by Alex Ross and published by HarperCollins UK. This book was released on 2020-09-15 with total page 784 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: ’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.
Download or read book Richard Wagner written by Martin Geck and published by University of Chicago Press. This book was released on 2013-09-18 with total page 463 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “[An] intriguing exploration of the composer’s life and thought as exemplified by his music. An excellent biography.” —Library Journal Best known for the four-opera cycle The Ring of the Nibelung, Richard Wagner (1813–83) was a conductor, librettist, theater director, and essayist, in addition to being the composer of some of the most enduring operatic works in history. Though his influence on the development of European music is indisputable, Wagner was also quite outspoken on the politics and culture of his time. His ideas traveled beyond musical circles into philosophy, literature, theater staging, and the visual arts. To befit such a dynamic figure, acclaimed biographer Martin Geck offers here a Wagner biography unlike any other, one that strikes a unique balance between the technical musical aspects of Wagner’s compositions and his overarching understanding of aesthetics. A landmark study of one of music’s most important figures “People who would like to know more about Wagner, and people who have loved his music for years . . . will find a great deal in this book to enjoy and to admire.” —Tablet “Geck describes a Wagner who is grounded, focused and even cautious, a savvy realist and ironist rather than a flamboyant, flailing ideologue . . . Suffused with his readings of contemporary productions of the operas, Geck’s musical analyses are succinct and superb” —New York Times “As an editor of Wagner’s Complete Works, Geck brings a deep familiarity with the composer to his task.” —Weekly Standard “A thoroughly approachable yet consistently provocative study.” —Thomas S. Grey, editor of The Cambridge Companion to Wagner
Download or read book Reading the Red Book written by Sanford L. Drob and published by Taylor & Francis. This book was released on 2023-03-28 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The long-awaited publication of C. G. Jung's Red Book in October 2009 was a signal event in the history of analytical psychology. Hailed as the most important work in Jung's entire corpus, it is as enigmatic as it is profound. Reading The Red Book by Sanford L. Drob provides a clear and comprehensive guide to The Red Book's narrative and thematic content, and details The Red Book's significance, not only for psychology but for the history of ideas.
Download or read book Vocal Victories written by Nila Parly and published by . This book was released on 2011 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Vocal Victories is the first musicological comparison of all of Richard Wagner's great female characters, from Senta in The Flying Dutchman to Kundry in Parsifal. It has long been customary to view these and other opera heroines as victims, because these women, as a rule, perish during the plot of the opera. A closer study of the music of the women - their singing and the orchestral voices that surround them - reveals, however, that it is in the female characters that the new and groundbreaking musical material comes into being, and that the women are far more in command of the development of the works. Vocal Victories claims that Wagner was far ahead of his time in terms of equality between the sexes, and the musicological analyses are supported by quotations from the composer's own writings, so that a picture of Wagner as a radical critic of the oppressive patriarchal society emerges clearly and unmistakably. The feminist approach to the material also provides an opportunity for new
Download or read book T T Clark Handbook of Suffering and the Problem of Evil written by Matthias Grebe and published by Bloomsbury Publishing. This book was released on 2023-07-13 with total page 753 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The T&T Clark Handbook of Suffering and the Problem of Evil provides an extensive exploration of the theology of theodicy, asking questions such as should all instances of suffering necessarily be understood as evil? Why would an omnipotent and benevolent God allow or perpetrate evil? Is God unable or unwilling to reduce human and non-human suffering on Earth? Does humanity have the capacity to exercise a moral evaluation of God's motives and intentions? Conventional disciplinary boundaries have tended to separate theological approaches to these questions from philosophical ones. This volume aims to overcome these boundaries by including biblical (Part I), historical (Part II), doctrinal (Part III), philosophical (Part IV), and pastoral, interreligious perspectives and alternative intersections (Part V) on theodicy. Authors include thinkers from analytic and continental traditions, multiple Christian denominations and other religions, and both established and younger scholars, providing a full variety of approaches. What unites the essays is an attempt to answer these questions from the perspective of biblical testimony, historical scholarship, modern theological and philosophical thinking about the concept of God, non-Christian religions, science and the arts. The result is a combination of in-depth analysis and breadth of scope, making this a benchmark work for further studies in the theology of suffering and evil.
Download or read book Being Wagner written by Simon Callow and published by William Collins. This book was released on 2017 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Simon Callow plunges headlong into Wagner's world to discover what it was like to be Wagner, and to be around one of music's most influential figures.The perfect introduction to the Master. A hundred and thirty-five years after his death, Richard Wagner's music dramas stand at the centre of the culture of classical music. They have never been more popular, nor so violently controversial and divisive. His music is still banned in Israel - the only classical composer whose music is banned in the western world. His ten great mature masterpieces constitute an unmatched body of work, created against a backdrop of poverty, revolution, violent controversy, critical contempt and hysterical hero-worship. As a man, he was a walking contradiction, aggressive, flirtatious, disciplined, capricious, heroic, visionary and poisonously anti-Semitic. At one point, he had four lengthy operas written with no hope of being performed when, as if in a fairy-tale, he was rescued by a beautiful young king with limitless wealth which he bestowed on the composer. When one of those works, Tristan and Isolde, was at last performed, it revolutionised classical music at a stroke. Finally he fulfilled his lifelong dream of creating a vast epic to rival the work of the great Greek playwrights, a music drama in four massive segments, ushering gods and dwarves, heroes and thugs, dragons and rainbows onto the stage, the apotheosis of German art as he saw it, so extreme in its demands that he had to train a generation of singers and players to perform it, and erect a custom-built theatre to house it. Wagner died, exhausted, after creating one final piece - Parsifal - that seems to point to an even more radical new future for music. Simon Callow recalls the intellectual and artistic climate in which Wagner worked, recording the almost superhuman effort required to create his work, and evoking the extraordinary effect he had on people - this composer like no other who ever lived, extreme in everything, creator of the most sublime and most troubling body of work ever known.
Download or read book The Magician s Assistant written by Ann Patchett and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2004-09-17 with total page 371 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the bestselling author of The Dutch House, a secretive magician’s death becomes the catalyst for his partner’s journey of self-discovery in this “enchanting” book (San Francisco Chronicle) “that is something of a magic trick in itself.” (Newsweek) When Parsifal, a handsome and charming magician, dies suddenly, his widow Sabine—who was also his faithful assistant for twenty years—learns that the family he claimed to have lost in a tragic accident is very much alive and well. Sabine is left to unravel his secrets, and the journey she takes, from sunny Los Angeles to the bitter windswept plains of Nebraska, will work its own magic on her. Sabine's extraordinary tale, “with its big dreams, vast spaces, and disparate realities lying side by side” captures the hearts of its readers and “proves to be the perfect place for miraculous transformations.” (The New Yorker)
