 | Aspects of Wagner (Oxford Paperbacks) by Bryan Magee
Buy new: $14.99 / Used from: $4.19 Magee is as good as anyone today thinking and writing about Wagner.
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 | The Philosophy of Schopenhauer by Bryan Magee
Buy new: $51.00 / Used from: $30.00 The best serious introduction to Schopenhauer's philosophy. Read this first. Then go on to...
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 | World as Will & Idea (Everyman's Library (Paper)) by Arthur Schopenhauer
Buy new: $9.20 / Used from: $6.59 The finest neglected European thinker; best read today for an understanding of Wagner.
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 | Tristan und Isolde in Full Score by Richard Wagner
Buy new: $29.67 / Used from: $11.28 The apex of Western culture in full score: everything musical before Tristan pointed to it; everything since Tristan has relied upon it. The first of Wagner's "Schopenhauerian" operas.
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 | Richard Wagner: Tristan und Isolde by Herbert von Karajan
Buy new: $43.98 / Used from: $14.96 This is Karajan, Dernesch, and the immortal Jon Vickers. It's hard to pick "the definitive recording," but though there are equals, there are none superior to this one.
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 | Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg in Full Score by Richard Wagner
Buy new: $34.35 / Used from: $25.00 The second of Wagner's "Schopenahuerian" operas, and probably the most sucessfully orchestral of his later works. It IS NOT a comedy, whatever else it is or isn't.
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 | Wagner - Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg / Kollo · Donath · Adam · G. Evans · Schreier · Hesse· Riderbusch · Karajan by Richard Wagner
Buy new: $46.98 / Used from: $29.74 Again, Karajan. Meistersingers is a huge opera, and good recordings are hard to find. This one is excellent.
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 | Thus Spoke Zarathustra: A Book for All and None (Modern Library) by Friedrich Nietzsche
Buy new: $13.60 / Used from: $3.87 Wagner is the "Sorceror" character in this book; he was the single greatest influence on Nietzsche, beyond Schopenhauer.
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 | Twilight of the Idols: or How to Philosophize with a Hammer (Oxford World's Classics) by Friedrich Nietzsche
Buy new: $11.95 / Used from: $1.89 The German title, Gottzendammerung, is an intentional play on Wagner's opera title, and the work is a trenchent re-interpretation of Wagner's love-and-renunciation philosophy.
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 | Gotterdammerung in Full Score by Richard Wagner
Buy new: $28.43 / Used from: $15.95 By the time Wagner came to score Gotterdammerung, he had changed his mind on its purpose, though the libretto remained unchanged. It is his greatest philosophical vision realized in music.
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 | Wagner: Götterdämmerung
Buy used from: $17.98 The cast is excellent, but this is the best recording of the final Ring-opera in terms of sound quality--an important thing with the wealth of leitmotivs to be accounted for in this work.
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 | The Tristan Chord: Wagner and Philosophy by Bryan Magee
Buy new: $18.90 / Used from: $5.75 The most insightful book on the philosophical content of Wagner, a tour de force.
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 | Parsifal in Full Score by Richard Wagner
Buy new: $23.07 / Used from: $13.99 To my mind, this work vies with Tristan as Wagner's greatest accomplishment. In this work, he stands at the end of his journey. The most "Schopenhauerian" of all his works.
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 | Wagner - Parsifal / Knappertsbusch by Richard Wagner
Buy used from: $31.95 No reservations here: no other Parsifal compares to this legendary 1962 Bayreuth production.
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 | I Saw the World End: A Study of Wagner's Ring (Clarendon Paperbacks) by Deryck Cooke
Buy new: $52.65 / Used from: $28.95 Hard to really grasp the Ring--and to do that you must grasp Gotterdammerung--without this book since it was first published. Indespensible, brilliant.
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 | My Life by Richard Wagner
Buy used from: $3.63 Extremely important for a inside view of Wagner's philosophy, and though it (obviously) lacks objectivity, it makes up for this in insight into the thought processes of the operas.
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 | Ring of the Nibelung by Richard Wagner
Buy new: $13.57 / Used from: $3.97 An English-German presentation of the text, it is useful for listening, though the translation is a little stilted at times. If you want to know "what's going on," this is a great book.
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