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Richard Wagner: The Last of the Titans
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Product Description
Köhler’s reading of the letters, diaries, and other documents of the main protagonists, some of them unfamiliar even to seasoned Wagnerians, results in some breathtaking but convincing reappraisals. He examines Wagner’s love affairs with Jessie Laussot, Mathilde Wesendonck, and Judith Gautier and assesses their lasting emotional effect. He re-evaluates Wagner’s relationships with his mother, step-father, sister, and—most revealingly—his wife, Cosima, a relationship seen as based on fear rather than love. Köhler explores the philosophical roots of Wagner’s work, which the composer himself deliberately obfuscated. And he analyzes Wagner’s relationship with King Ludwig, whom Wagner is revealed to have blackmailed, and with Nietzsche, whom he tried to destroy.
The traumas of his youth haunted Wagner throughout his life, as his emotional development underlay his notorious anti-semitism. Köhler’s interpretation of Wagner’s dreams, as recorded in Cosima’s diaries, offers astonishing insights into the paranoia and insecurity of a man who was one of the leading composers of his age.
Product Details
- Amazon Sales Rank: #418504 in Books
- Published on: 2004-12-11
- Number of items: 1
- Binding: Hardcover
- 704 pages
Editorial Reviews
From Booklist
Wagner's life (1813-83) was marked by death, love, power, and abuse, all of which are present in his operas. His father died soon after Richard's birth, his stepfather and an uncle raised him, and his older sister Rosalie exerted the strongest female influence on him. There were many women in his subsequent life; his first marriage failed, though, and his second wife, Liszt's daughter Cosima, controlled him behind the scenes. Musically, he grew up with Weber, turning to Meyerbeer as a model for operatic writing. Add hatred of Jews to his makeup, stir the pot, and out came the Wagnerian themes of true love unattainable until death, power of the spiritual over the secular, and family cohesion surmounting all obstacles as well as an utterly personal musical idiom primarily committed to music supporting libretti. Kohler weaves together the events of Wagner's life, analyses of his operas' plots, and the relationships between people in the former and characters in the latter in a lengthy psychological study employing the works as windows on the life. Alan Hirsch
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Review
“The book is undoubtedly a landmark in Wagner studies.”—Barry Millington, The Evening Standard
“Köhler . . . will give us Wagner uncut.”—Andrew Crumey, Scotland on Sunday
About the Author
Joachim Köhler is the author of Nietzsche and Wagner: A Lesson in Subjugation, and Zarathustra’s Secret: The Interior Life of Friedrich Nietzsche, both published by Yale University Press. He is also the author of Wagner’s Hitler. Stewart Spencer is editor of The Selected Letters of Richard Wagner, Wagner’s Ring, and Wagner Remembered.
Customer Reviews
Richard Wagner The Last of the Titans
The most thorough, most complete treatise concerning this master of German Opera I have ever encountered.
Not as bad as I thought it would be, but....
Joachim Kohler has made a career out of writing intellectually dishonest, crass books on both Richard Wagner and Friedrich Nietzsche, and while I expected more of the same here, this weighty tome actually possesses some merit.
As far as reliable biography goes, Kohler's book is more responsible than Gutman's Richard Wagner: The Man, His Mind, and His Music (but, again, that's not saying all that much), and Kohler does present some interesting analysis regarding Wagner's phobias, dreams and obsessions. The problem that arises here, though, is one that plagues all such psycho-biographies; that is Kohler's conclusions are purely subjective & cannot be conclusively proven.
Some of the reviewers here have made the remark that this is more of a philosophy book than a biography, and this is entirely correct. If one has little desire to wade through the theorizing of Feuerbach, Schopenhauer, Schelling, Hegel and Kant, then that person would be much better served in reading either Watson's or Millington's bios on Wagner. But if you are interested in seeing the philosophical backbone of Wagner's work, Kohler's book can be stimulating. I think Kohler is correct in discerning Schelling's influence in Wagner's thought, as well as his emphasis on Hegel's ideas on Wagner. Kohler is incorrect, in my opinion, in stating that Schopenhauer's thought had virtually no impact on Wagner. While it's true that Wagner's most "Schopenhauerian" work, Tristan und Isolde, is just as much in debt to Feuerbach, Schopenhauer's negation of the individual consciousness and the primacy of the Will are indeed pervasive presences in the opera. Wagner's Meistersinger & Parsifal are even more patently Schopenhauerian.
Kohler's views on Der Ring are also interesting, but again, those views are entirely subjective, and one can easily argue against them.
Having discussed the book's merits, there are also some major flaws. Nietzsche & King Ludwig are both portrayed as hapless victims of Wagner's megalomania, and Liszt is portrayed as an artist whom Wagner shamelessly [...] and blatantly copied. There is no doubt that Nietzsche & Ludwig were both psychologically wounded by Wagner (the man was quite a pill, after all), but neither men were utter victims, and both profited from their association with Wagner, and said as much. In regards to Liszt, Wagner was definitely influenced by him, but by the time of Die Walkure, Wagner had far surpassed his mentor.
Kohler addresses Wagner's notorious anti-Semitism, and it must be said, Kohler's murky analysis of Wagner's worst vice is almost as murky as Wagner's anti-Semitism. There are much more responsible (and clearer) examinations of Wagner's ugly hatred in the books The Darker Side of Genius, The Tristan Chord, and Ring of Myths. I recommend reading these first, and then coming back to this book.
Finally, we have Cosima. I never liked her, and it's easy to agree with Kohler's assessment of her as a self-righteous, manipulative woman. But I think it's also fair to say that she adored her husband (a quick glance through her diaries will prove that), and Kohler is off the beam in stating that their relationship was based primarily on fear.
Anyway, if you have the time and patience, this is a worthy read, but if you aren't inclined to wade through 700 pages of subjective psycho-biography and philosophical meanderings, then I would stick with a more manageable volume. In any event, I'm off to listen to Act II of Tristan.
A philosophy book, not a biography
Let's begin by saying that this is a very difficult book, dense in style and at times obscure in its arguments. Stewart Spencer deserves high praise for his lucid translation.
What this book most emphatically is NOT is a biography. Rather, it is a set of semi-philosophical musings on the themes of Wagner's music dramas. There is NO narrative, and readers ignorant of the track of Wagner's career will be lost. Koehler is hung-up on Wagner's relation with his step-father and his sisters. Moreover, in this account Cosima is an ogre fresh from the pages of the Brothers Grimm at their nastiest. Koehler's Wagner is glad to die at age 69 just to get away from her. This Wagner is also a Freudian's wet dream, with speculations that range from the interesting to the absurd.
It is NOT a good first--or even second--book on Wagner. For biography try Ronald Taylor; for philosophy read Bryan Magee's exceptionally fine "Wagner and Philosophy" (American title: "The Tristan Chord").
What this book IS is that it's much better than some of the crap Koehler has previously published. (For a book-length pathology of "post hoc ergo propter hoc" give his "Wagner's Hitler" a perusal. His logical fallacies will have you rolling with laughter out of your chair.) I am glad I read this book, difficult as it was. I learned a lot--or at least was exposed to some thought-provoking ideas.
In sum, I'd recommend this book only to die-hard Wagnerians fairly well steeped in the literature already.
