THE FIRST HUNDRED YEARS OF WAGNER'S ""TRISTAN

by Elliot Zuckerman ‧ RELEASE DATE: N/A

Zuckerman's real competence has produced a book that can be appreciated on any of several levels of musicianship, general scholarship, and acquaintance with Wagnerian opera. ""Wagner"" is a giant biographical subject: one must speak of his philosophy, his relationships with other people -- especially women, the vicissitudes of his career, and the bonfires of debate his works touched off among the literati. Though quantitatively the book might have been titled ""One Hundred Years of Wagner,"" the title's emphasis on Tristan und Isolde is significant, and Zuckerman's closing paragraphs hopefully presage a new era in musicological thought. This opera, he says, ""has been separated from its composer in the adjective 'Tristanesque'""; perhaps our generation may now, with Zuckerman's clearheaded assistance, finally inhume the ludicrous tradition, begun by the French Symbolists, of misreading Wagner's texts (and scores, too) to account for every temporary artistic peccadillo, and let his music be its own excuse for being. Only one curious error stands out here: the three tenors the author accuses Mme. Nilsson of having ""exhausted"" in a recent Metropolitan performance were in fact indisposed, and did management a great favor by appearing at all. This book may reasonably be commended to scholarly attention, but it is also a quite practical introduction to Tristan and to ""the Master "" for those who may not yet know him well. The facts are there, and the lory is not missing.

Pub Date: N/A

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Columbia Univ. Press

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 1964

Categories: NONFICTION