Richard Wagner

The Last of the Titans

Joachim Köhler, Stewart Spencer

$93.95

Hardback

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English

Yale University
11 December 2004

Music; Romantic music (c 1830 to c 1900); Opera; Individual composers & musicians, bands & groups

In this new biography of Richard Wagner, Joachim Köhler draws on social and political analysis, documentary interpretation, and psychological insights to paint a rounded picture of Wagner as both a controversial historical phenomenon and a complex human being. 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.

By: Joachim Köhler
Translated by: Stewart Spencer
Imprint: Yale University
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 235mm, Width: 156mm, Spine: 6mm
Weight: 1.338kg
ISBN: 9780300104226
ISBN 10: 0300104227
Pages: 704
Publication Date: 11 December 2004
Audience: General/trade , College/higher education , Professional and scholarly , ELT Advanced , Primary
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

Joachim Kohler is the author of Nietzsche and Wagner: A Lesson in Subjugation and Zarathustra's Secret: The Interior Life of Friedrich Nietzsche, published by Yale University Press.

Reviews for Richard Wagner: The Last of the Titans

The book is undoubtedly a landmark in Wagner studies. -Barry Millington, The Evening Standard Kohler ... will give us Wagner uncut. -Andrew Crumey, Scotland on Sunday