... a crowded and mesmerizing history ... [a] superb chronicle of obsession, intoxication, hyperbolic exultation, appropriation, exploitation, repudiation, transmutation, and perpetual reinvention—an aerial view of a culture’s nervous system as it responds to an unexpected stimulus. In the end, Wagnerism is, however obliquely, very much a book about Wagner and his music, all the richer for being filtered through such a range of listeners and spectators ... As a non-musician myself, I like the importance that Ross places on their reactions, reactions that occur (as his subtitle puts it) 'in the shadow of music' ... Ross draws on an impressive range of texts, delving particularly deep into the arcana of fin-de-siècle literature.
New Yorker music critic Alex Ross’ magnificent new book ... makes his subject less Wagner himself—although he has plenty to say about the music and the problematical man—than the way we absorb ideas and attitudes, how they can grow into cancers or panaceas ... Every culture has its own issues with Wagner, and Ross’ even hand is especially impressive when taking on the Big One. His explication of Hitler’s rise and the legacy of Wagner’s anti-Semitism is a moving lamentation, yet it lays bare the contradictions ... In the end, the inconsistencies are what made Wagner matter, and what make Ross today’s perfect Wagnerite.
... a work of enormous intellectual range and subtle artistic judgment that pokes and probes the nerve endings of Western cultural and social norms as they are mirrored in more than a century of reaction to Wagner’s works. The book has its own 'Wagnerian' heft and ambitiousness of intent, being nothing less than a history of ideas that spans an arc from Nietzsche and George Eliot to Philip K. Dick, Apocalypse Now and neo-Nazi skinheads ... Wagnerism was incontestably a labor of love for Ross ... And it is easy to understand why, because his strategy is to use Wagner as a kind of ur-source out of which spring a multitude of artistic, social and political movements that include everything from the hectic musings of obscure bohemian poets and novelists to the opportunistic appropriation of the composer’s music and iconography by Nazi propagandists. In so doing, Ross has dug deep into some of the most fertile (and occasionally most bizarre) terrain of Western culture, examining and bringing to light the struggles for individuation and self-discovery of a host of reactive minds — poets, novelists, painters, playwrights, filmmakers, politicians and more ... 'The behemoth whispers a different secret in each listener’s ear,' Ross so wryly but perfectly sums up the 'near-infinite malleability' of his art and the 'interpretive pandemonium' over what exactly these operas mean ... Ross takes a deep dive into the psyches of Joyce, Proust, Mann and T. S. Eliot and returns with revelations, particularly in the case of Ulysses and Finnegans Wake, that may surprise even the most ardent scholar for the extent to which each of them was influenced by Wagner. His moving essay on Mann’s Death in Venice, framed by what he terms 'gay Wagnerism,' reaches an emotional high point worthy of the inner turbulence of that epochal novella ... These names — Joyce, Proust, Eliot, et al. — are already familiar darlings for analysis, and encountering them yet again in a work of cultural history can at times feel like literary Groundhog Day, but Ross’s exegesis is nonetheless immensely valuable. And there are those we might not expect to have fallen under the composer’s spell.
He fleshes out his story with consummate authority and élan, even if he occasionally falls into the trap of elites-speaking-only-to-elites. But perhaps that elitism is purposeful, given Wagner's audiences. Ross is an unabashed Europhile ... Ross is particularly adept at highlighting sexual tensions, not only in the operas but also in the composer's life ... Ross' book is one of this year's intellectual triumphs.
... takes up Wagner’s protean impact with unprecedented scope ... No previous writer has so copiously chronicled the sheer ubiquity of Wagner in important novels, poems and paintings. The result is an indispensable work of cultural history, offering both a comprehensive resource and a bravura narrative ... While the existing Wagner literature is vast and defies generalization, the best-known studies range from passionate advocacy to equally impassioned denunciation. Mr. Ross, who came late to Wagner, is a centrist—a circumspect, at times even diffident, Wagnerite ... Mr. Ross is able to become many listeners. Relatedly, there are limits to his degree of engagement—and Wagner is about commitment, however dangerous or misguided. These limits frame and modulate Mr. Ross’s extraordinary book ... Writing about Virginia Woolf’s mostly concealed Wagnerian dimension, Mr. Ross is again keenly attuned to defining yet elusive subcurrents.
... sweepingly original ... [Ross] ushers readers along an endlessly fascinating tour of the lives and works touched by, in his words, “the chaotic posthumous cult” spawned by a composer with a gift for making impassioned friends and equally impassioned enemies (sometimes in the same person, see: Nietzsche, Friedrich). The book’s journey leads through disparate worlds of politics, painting, poetry, novels, theater, film, philosophy, architecture, and more. By the end, one senses with accumulated clarity the degree to which the spell cast by this music has held the modern world itself in its sway.
Like his muse’s operas, the work is filigreed, prone to bombast, at times bloated, and, at over 700 pages, formidable. But the remarkable trick about Ross’s undertaking is in how it steers clear of the usual critical constructions that befall bad artists who make good art. Though Wagner’s myriad hatreds are certainly deeply plumbed, judgment is not Ross’s aim in the book ... by following Wagner’s reception rather than laying claim to a decisive reading of his work—instead hunting it, inspecting it, tracking how it moves—Ross has given us a book that does something impressive. Ross, in a rare feat of contemporary criticism, divests himself of his autonomy as a critic, hands it to others, and shows how writing about art is always an intervention between the subject and its beholders ... Ross’s latest book is not only an overview of Wagner’s influence on musicians and nonmusicians alike, though it is certainly and explicitly that; more usefully, it is also a Trojan Horse that delivers a larger exercise in figuring out the limits of criticism ... Flashes of the most Wagnerian figure in this country today came involuntarily to mind as I read Ross’s book, and no mention of his name is necessary to underscore Ross’s success in outlining the enduring relevance of a towering, self-satisfied, endlessly fascinating figure whose myth often eclipses his reality and whose seductive factors seem baffling to many.
Just like Wagner’s operas, this book sprawls. There are hundreds of characters, but many keep telling a similar story. Some of them come back again and again just when you think you’ve got rid of them. This, however, is part of Ross’s thesis: Wagner is so dominant an aesthetic presence that you can spend your whole life wrestling with him ... These multiple images of Wagner can leave your head spinning, but Ross is building a powerful argument that carries into the less diffuse second half of the book ... With rhetorical flourishes and an eye for detail Ross extols the art made by Wagnerians who were able to meet 'the Meister' on their own terms and follow the composer’s famous injunction ... Yes, taking Wagner really seriously can be destructive. Ignoring him, however, is just stupid.
Wagner’s reach, as Ross comprehensively demonstrates, is vast, greater by far than that of any other musician in history, greater perhaps than any artist in any medium, his influence profound and continuing and by no means confined to music itself. I find myself already slipping into hyperbole, always a danger with Wagner. This is something Mr. Ross never does. One of the many beauties of this incomparably rich book is that it refuses to engage in any simplistic analysis of its subject, who emerges in his full bewildering complexity. It is one of the most valuable books about Wagner I know of, compelling one to engage not merely with the composer and his legacy but with music itself, how it works on us, what it is ... The book is of such scope, filled with so many surprising and unexpected details, crammed with astonishing juxtapositions and unexpected connections, replete with searching analyses of artists in every medium who have been influenced by Wagner, that all one can possibly do, here, is—like a guide in some great palace or museum—to point the reader gently in this direction or that ... By the end of the book, you may not like Wagner any more than you did before, you may not enjoy his music any more than you have in the past, but you will be compelled to admit that he was an absolutely titanic figure, whose influence and traces are everywhere, in areas scarcely touched on in this review.
It’s always cause for rejoicing when New Yorker music critic Ross publishes a book, and this latest is on a scale worthy of the composer of the Ring of the Nibelung. Ross makes the case that the work and influence of German composer Richard Wagner (1813–83) is key to understanding the art and politics of the last 150 years, and he does so with the sweep and scope of a Wagner overture ... It’s a tribute to the thoughtful and accessible Ross that his conclusions seem both valid and inevitable ... With this multifaceted jewel of a book, Ross has produced a monumental study of Wagner’s legacy. Eighteen out of 18 anvils.
Ross’s impressive research has uncovered hundreds upon hundreds of Wagnerian references, allusions, and influences in the art and literature of the last 150 years—some famous and significant, others just curious. The book is packed with descriptions of paintings, plot summaries, and biographical anecdotes, from Baudelaire and Whitman all the way to Philip K. Dick and Apocalypse Now. At times this plenitude threatens to make Wagnerism read like an encyclopedia. But Ross also offers insightful discussions of Wagner’s most significant legacies—for theater direction and narrative technique, for feminism and queer culture, and for revolutionary politics.
... dense and illuminating ... What makes Wagnerism such a challenging and rewarding read is how Ross comes to terms with that influence ... Ross paints a picture of Wagner that complicates his image as fascism’s favorite composer ... Over the course of more than 700 pages, Ross covers a tremendous amount of ground—touching on the Russian Revolution, the birth of cinema, both World Wars, and a who’s-who of artistic and philosophical heavyweights ... mercifully light on the music theory terminology that made The Rest Is Noise an occasionally frustrating read for those of us who couldn’t identify a tritone by ear if you put a gun to our heads. And while Ross does offer a lot of biographical information and anecdotes about Wagner, he’s careful not to psychoanalyze him or make excuses for his subject’s major failings ... doesn’t advocate for separating the art from the artist. With an artist whose legacy is as confusing and complicated as Wagner’s, that kind of surgery is impossible. Which Wagner do you remove? Ross makes this point throughout the book: There is no definitive Wagner—he is a prism through which so many different artists and thinkers refracted their own light.
... encyclopedic ... With deep-focus detail, Ross compiles and frames all of Wagner’s life and work ... Given the many tin-eared treatises Wagner authored or inspired, Ross struggles to convince skeptics that the composer’s music still holds relevance, that its beauty can still touch hesitant souls. The plots of his operas sometimes scan like feeble Grimms’ fairy tales ... provides a thick and convoluted treatment of a thick and convoluted subject, gathering up so much scattered research that it feels weighted, bogged down. In 1998, Ross published an essay in The New Yorker called 'The Unforgiven,' which addressed Wagner’s antisemitism in a way that was bracingly clear — and twice as compelling as this 750-page marathon ... Ross gives Wagnerites much to chew on in his magisterial new volume ... On the plus side, Ross excels at dismantling many Wagnerian myths ... As the pages pile up and Ross travels from Victorian Britain to Czarist Russia to Gilded Age America, canvassing a wide assortment of different Wagners (including, alongside the Nazi Wagner, Jewish and Black Wagners), reading the book comes to seem not unlike the chore of sitting through one of the master’s operas ... Ross is a sure-handed guide through the knottiest thickets of Wagnerian apocrypha.
... magnificent ... Every culture has its own issues with Wagner, and Ross’ even hand is especially impressive when taking on the Big One. His explication of Hitler’s rise and the legacy of Wagner’s anti-Semitism is a moving lamentation, yet it lays bare the contradictions ... In the end, the inconsistencies are what made Wagner matter, and what make Ross today’s perfect Wagnerite. The operas, often stemming from his insecurities, are among art’s greatest psychological studies in what makes us, with our angels and devils, tick. On that subject, Ross is most persuasive in his close readings of canonic post-Wagnerian literature.
Ross has written a book about Wagner’s consequences with a striking omission — what he did with music, and what he did to music ... Nevertheless, it is possible, as Ross has found, to write a very long book about his influence which has almost nothing to say about the music itself, and which doesn’t find it necessary to talk about the music that was shaped by him ... It is an eccentric approach, but entirely possible ... Ross does a good and very full job in tracing the obsession of different times and places, and the intellectual flavor each wave took ... Ross is very conscious of the complexity of these questions, and how they have become more complicated with the passage of time. His omission of much consideration of Wagner’s music has the curious effect of making those who were obsessed by him sound somewhat deranged. This, however, is not always inappropriate, and much of the story is inevitably of gross misuse on both sides ... Ross’s book is excellent, and extraordinarily thorough. Though one occasionally misses a musically literate person saying something intelligent about Wagner there are plenty of books about that. Leaving the music to one side, Ross’s is a very thorough account of apparent delusion in search of a fugitive meaning.
... his most ambitious book ... There’s nothing breezy about it ... Ross has much that’s interesting to say about the responses to Wagner’s controversial, wide-ranging, and widely circulated writings ... He’s generous when it comes to citing the work of a great many scholars who have explored Wagner’s influence on generations of literary figures and on social and political issues and movements. Ross goes overboard in demonstrating his scholarly credentials ... At times Wagnerism seems not a sustained narrative but an encyclopedia of everything related to Wagner ... a reader may begin to wonder whether some of his subjects were as obsessed with the composer as he is ... The strongest pages in Wagnerism—they come in the final third of the book, mostly in the chapter 'Siegfried’s Death'—deal with the complex position of Wagner in Hitler’s imagination, Nazi Germany, and the Allied countries before, during, and immediately after World War II. Ross brings a feeling for historical paradox and ambiguity to this prototypical case study in the relationship among art, society, and politics ... He has a focus here that eludes him in much of the rest of the book, where he piles up so much information and makes matters so complicated that a reader may end up wondering what exactly he’s getting at ... the more I’ve thought about his book, the more I’m convinced that the overload of sometimes only partially digested material that he’s packed into these pages is engineered to feel anarchic—maybe even nihilistic. Ross has set out to shatter Wagner’s work into a million pieces ... Does Ross’s book really support the conclusions he wants to draw about Wagner in particular and, I suspect, about the arts more generally? I don’t think so.
The story diverges and digresses and soon gets out of Ross’s control. Like Wagner with his repeated orchestral motifs, he tends to go round in circles: I don’t mind Nietzsche’s eternal recurrence in music, but a historical narrative needs to move ahead. In this encyclopaedic book, the plethora of interpreters makes Wagner mean anything at all, which ultimately makes him mean nothing in particular ... For Shaw, Wagner’s Ring exposed the greedy iniquity of capitalism, while for Hitler it unearthed the racial roots cultivated by fascism. Can it do both or is Ross just amassing opposed opinions? At its most undiscriminating, Wagnerism lapses into a game of Trivial Pursuit: if you need to know how many US cities have streets named after Parsifal, the answer is somewhere in here ... On American turf, Ross writes well about the novelists Willa Cather and Owen Wister, who found an equivalent to the raw, wild landscapes of the Ring in the geysers of Yellowstone, the Wyoming prairies and the New Mexico desert, and he uncovers a suppressed tradition of African American Wagnerites. Yet in his desperation to be all-inclusive he straggles off in quest of such exotic aficionados as 'the Sri Lankan Theosophical leader Curuppumullage Jinarajadasa' and 'Horacio Quiroga, a Uruguayan epigone'. Worse, the abstruse rightwing philosopher Martin Heidegger and the structural anthropologist Claude Lévi-Strauss lure him up blind alleys of speculative theorising ... The occasional obscenity adds a much-needed fillip ... My long slog through his book was not so cathartic. After Ross’s hungover postlude, I recalled his claim, made 700 arduous, enfevered, over-charged pages earlier, that Wagner’s influence was actually less extensive than those of Monteverdi, Bach or Beethoven. It’s good to be reminded that music does not always leave us with an aching libido and shredded nerves or threatens the universe with extinction.
Drawing on hundreds of bibliographical sources and copiously end-noted, Ross’s Wagnerism is exhaustive, a clear labor of love but one structurally weakened by the diffusiveness of its subject matter. Ross claims too much and admits as much. The consequence is a blurred narrative in parts and a sense that points are being stretched ... The book’s strengths lie in its early chapter accounts of the development of the Bayreuth Festspielhaus and the English, American, and French responses to Wagner’s music ... Ross’s accounts of the radical personalities and violent controversies churned up by the Wagner cult are colorful and occasionally disturbing. His explanation of Wagner’s magpie philosophy that drew from (and discarded when convenient) a string of thinkers including Hegel, Feuerbach, Prudhomme, Schopenhauer, and many, many others is clear and enjoyable. Ross’s description of Wagner’s dealings with Friedrich Nietzsche is another strength ... Despite its accumulated learning, however, Wagnerism tells only half the story. We see the effect of Wagner but not a persuasive cause ... it is surprising that, for a music critic, the author does not better develop this seemingly fundamental element. Reading Nietzsche’s late-life admission that Wagner showed him 'the fifty worlds of foreign ecstasies that only he had wings to reach' makes us all the more curious. As it stands though, Wagnerism rather mimics Gioachino Rossini’s wry description of Wagner’s work: 'beautiful moments and bad quarter hours.'
The first time I sat through Wagner’s complete Ring cycle, early in the 1990s, the neighboring seats held a planeload of Germans who had come over for the Met’s version because it was more to their taste than the modernizing Regietheater dominant in various German cities ... And when the last glorious notes of Götterdämmerung had faded away, they were on their feet, cheering wildly for the conductor, James Levine. In my own mythologization of the moment, I was surrounded by Prussians applauding the great Jewish conductor. And that, I thought, was the Wagner story all along: unlikelihood and contradiction that can never be resolved. It’s one of the many merits of Alex Ross’s new book, Wagnerism: Art and Politics in the Shadow of Music, that he doesn’t try to resolve these contradictions. He instead lays out what Richard Wagner has meant over two centuries in all its paradoxical complexities ... Not only is Ross—as readers of The New Yorker, where he is a long-time critic, know—an expert and evocative guide to the music, he proves as well a persuasive intellectual historian. His book is an extraordinary undertaking ... Ross makes his book a compendium, and any future discussion of the topic will have to return to it. I found myself wishing it had been reduced in size and given a firmer architecture: the wish to include absolutely everything that might be said about Wagner’s permeation of modern culture tends to make everything seem of equal importance. Reading the book has something of the endlessness of Wagner’s music.
New Yorker music critic Alex Ross’ newest opus of nearly 700 pages, Wagnerism , posits that we live our lives almost unaware of the currents that have shaped the cultural content we consume, the world through which we move. An account of composer Richard Wagner’s influence on the past 160 or so years, Wagnerism is neither a biography of Wagner nor an analysis of his music, but a grappling with Wagnerism itself and how it has shaped the world beyond music. Following Alex Ross’ two volumes of music criticism and history–The Rest is Noise and Listen to This — Wagnerism becomes a biography of a culture’s history of influence, spreading outwards from Wagner himself and across the 19th, 20th, and 21st century. Much like the structure of Wagner’s music–seemingly endless, not just temporally but musically, in its addictive linking of melodies and motifs so that the end and beginning of whole sequences become indistinguishable–Wagnerian figurations appear and reappear in the chronology of time. Extending into a much larger and consistently more urgent cultural question, Wagnerism asks: how do we separate art from artist? Myth from culture? Culture from Myth? Must we? Can we? Can we not, and still live with the dissonance?
... sweeping ... Ross manages to tame the sprawl with incisive analysis and elegant prose that casts Wagner’s music as 'an aesthetic war zone in which the Western world struggled with its raging contradictions, its longing for creation and destruction, its inclinations toward beauty and violence.' The result is a fascinating study of the impact that emotionally intense music and drama can have on the human mind.
