A01=John Deathridge
Author_John Deathridge
Category=AVLF
Category=AVN
Category=AVP
Category=DNBF
classical music
controversial composer
deathridge
der ring des nibelungen
engaging assessment
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eq_bestseller
eq_biography-true-stories
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eq_music
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eq_non-fiction
famous classical composers
music appreciation
music history
performing arts
provocative actions
tristan and isolde
understanding wagner
unpublished musical sketches
wagner
western art tradition
western music canon
Product details
- ISBN 9780520254534
- Weight: 590g
- Dimensions: 152 x 229mm
- Publication Date: 14 Jul 2008
- Publisher: University of California Press
- Publication City/Country: US
- Product Form: Hardback
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John Deathridge presents a different and critical view of Richard Wagner based on recent research that does not shy away from some unpalatable truths about this most controversial of composers in the canon of Western music. Deathridge writes authoritatively on what Wagner did, said, and wrote, drawing from abundant material already well known but also from less familiar sources, including hitherto seldom discussed letters and diaries and previously unpublished musical sketches.At the same time, Deathridge suggests that a true estimation of Wagner does not lie in an all too easy condemnation of his many provocative actions and ideas. Rather, it is to be found in the questions about the modern world and our place in it posed by the best of his stage works, among them Tristan und Isolde and Der Ring des Nibelungen. Controversy about Wagner is unlikely to go away, but rather than taking the line of least resistance by regarding him blandly as a "classic" in the Western art tradition, Deathridge suggests that we need to confront the debates that have raged about him and reach beyond them, toward a fresh and engaging assessment of what he ultimately achieved.
John Deathridge is King Edward Professor of Music at King's College London. He is the author, with Carl Dahlhaus, of The New Grove Wagner, co-editor of the Wagner-Werk-Verzeichnis (WWV) and editor of, and contributor to, the English language edition of the Wagner Handbook.
