Wagner and Schopenhauer: A Closer Look - Hardcover

Brener, Milton E

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1493189352 ISBN 13: 9781493189359

Publisher: Xlibris, 2014

Synopsis

In this book author and Wagnerian scholar Milton Brener takes sharp issue with some prevailing ideas concerning the allegedly pervasive influence of Arthur Schopenhauer on Wagnerian opera. He does so armed with intimate knowledge of the major writings of this 19th Century German philosopher, and of the texts of the mature Wagnerian operas. He notes that almost all authors have stated such influence as an accepted fact without offering specific evidence or examples. Bryan Magee, in his "The Tristan Chord: Wagner and Philosophy," offers the most detailed, and almost the only, exemplars in the existing literature, which he claims support such influence.
In a surgical-like analysis, Brener examines each of Wagner’s mature operas, beginning with "Tristan and Isolde" and each of Magee’s claims of influence in them. He finds that very few of them have serious validity. His conclusion is that Wagner found personal emotional comfort in the philosopher’s pessimistic, misanthropic views of the human race, but that neither his own miseries nor Schopenhauer’s views found fertile ground in the operas. On the contrary, Brener convincingly establishes that in many instances there are embedded in the operas ideas that prefigure concepts that did not become current until the 20th Century, and have nothing to do with Schopenhauer.
Three chapters are devoted to exposition and analysis of The "Ring of the Nibelung," the underlying theme of which Brener claims to be the subject of free will versus fate, something modern philosophers and scientists refer to as determinism. One chapter each is devoted to "Tristan and Isolde," "The Mastersingers," "Parsifal," and the uncompleted sketches for "The Victors." The discussion of Parsifal is preceded by a review of Schopenhauer’s extremely misogynous essay “On Women,” and his own failed relationships with women. The book’s thesis is logically convincing, yet highly readable.

About this title

From the Back Cover:

Most who write about Wagner's operas claim that the works of Arthur Schopenhauer had a huge effect on them. The influence has, Brener believes, been vastly overstated. The most detailed exposition of that alleged influence is by Bryan Magee. In his Tristan Chord, Magee details the bases for what are often, by others, unsupported conclusions. Familiar with both the important writings of Schopenhauer and the works of Wagner, Brener is among the few capable of a thorough analysis and factual response to Magee's claims. His conclusions, backed with primary sources, stand almost alone in opposition both to most of Magee's conclusions and to accepted dogma.

About the Author:

Milton Brener was born in New Orleans in 1930 and was educated in that city where he engaged in the private practice of law for 33 years. After retiring at age 61 he earned a Master's Degree in Anthropology, and in 2007 moved to New York City. He is the author of ten previously published books, dealing largely with art and opera history, and with the rise of ancient Greek culture. Among his previous books is the critically acclaimed Richard Wagner and the Jews, a subject about which he has lectured and has taken part in internationally televised panel discussions.

About this edition

• Publisher: Xlibris
• Publication date: 2014
• ISBN 10: 1493189352
• ISBN 13: 9781493189359
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 202