The Perfect Wagnerite: A Commentary on the Niblung's Ring
by Bernard Shaw
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About This Book
As a commentator on music and music critics, Bernard Shaw was experienced and knowledgeable, strongly opinionated, and, as in all his writing, unsurpassed for brilliance and wit. The reader will find that this commentary on the cycle of four Wagner operas known as "The Ring" contains all these characteristics: it is enlightening and provocative, and it makes very entertaining reading.Shaw was firm Wagner partisan, and in the book he enthusiastically endorses the operas and Wagner's music in general. Particularly interested in the philosophic and social ideology behind the Ring operas, he also ...
Chapters (35)(click to expand)
- THE PERFECT WAGNERITE A COMMENTARY ON THE NIBLUNG'S RING
- Preface to the First German Edition
- PREFACE TO THE SECOND EDITION
- Preface to the First Edition
- THE PERFECT WAGNERITE
- PRELIMINARY ENCOURAGEMENTS
- THE RING OF THE NIBLUNGS
- THE RHINE GOLD
- WAGNER AS REVOLUTIONIST
- THE VALKYRIES
- SIEGFRIED
- BACK TO OPERA AGAIN
- SIEGFRIED AS PROTESTANT
- PANACEA QUACKERY, OTHERWISE IDEALISM
- DRAMATIC ORIGIN OF WOTAN
- THE LOVE PANACEA
- NOT LOVE, BUT LIFE
- ANARCHISM NO PANACEA
- SIEGFRIED CONCLUDED
- NIGHT FALLS ON THE GODS
- PROLOGUE
- A WAGNERIAN NEWSPAPER CONTROVERSY
- FORGOTTEN ERE FINISHED
- WHY HE CHANGED HIS MIND
- WAGNER'S OWN EXPLANATION
- THE PESSIMIST AS AMORIST
- THE MUSIC OF THE RING
- THE REPRESENTATIVE THEMES
- THE CHARACTERIZATION
- THE OLD AND THE NEW MUSIC
- THE NINETEENTH CENTURY
- THE MUSIC OF THE FUTURE
- BAYREUTH
- BAYREUTH IN ENGLAND
- WAGNERIAN SINGERS
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