In Search of Wagner

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by Theodor W. Adorno,

Translated by Rodney Livingstone,

Foreword by Edward Said

Verso

Due/Published August 2004, 160 pages, paper

ISBN 1844675009

Available again (S04)

Richard Wagner's works are among the most controversial in the history of European music--because of their powerful aesthetic qualities and, in wider political terms, because of their eventual assimilation into the official culture of the Third Reich.

This concise synoptic account by one of the most brilliant exponent of Frankfurt School Marxism interweaves these artistic and ideological qualities. It provides musicological analyses of Wagner's scores and of his compositional techniques, orchestration and staging methods, quoting copiously from the music dramas themselves. At the same time it offers incisive reflections on Wagner's social character and the ideological impulses of his artistic activity.