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Richard Wagner

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Thor, God of Thunder
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« Reply #15 on: July 26, 2007, 09:49:18 pm »

Wagner controversies

The German composer Richard Wagner was a controversial figure during his lifetime, and has continued to be so after his death. Even today he is associated in the minds of many with Nazism and his operas are thought to extol the virtues of Aryan supermen. The writer and Wagner scholar Bryan Magee has written:

"I sometimes think there are two Wagners in our culture, almost unrecognizably different from one another: the Wagner possessed by those who know his work, and the Wagner imagined by those who know him only by name and reputation."

Most of these perceptions arise from Wagner's published opinions on a number of topics. Wagner was a voluminous writer and published essays and pamphlets on a wide range of subjects throughout his life. (Many of Wagner's writings are available online in English translations at The Wagner Library.) While his music-dramas have an immediate appeal, Wagner's writing style is verbose, unclear and turgid, which has greatly added to the confusion about his opinions.

Several of his writings have achieved some notoriety, in particular his essay Judaism in Music ("Das Judenthum in der Musik"), a critical view on the influence of Jews in German culture and society at that time. His attitudes to the unification of Germany were complex: he disliked the first German Chancellor Bismarck, however he often expressed his belief that German Art should be extolled and protected, most notably in Hans Sachs' final oration in his opera Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg. The essays he wrote in his final years were also controversial, with many readers perceiving them to employ an endorsement of racist, Aryan beliefs.

Wagner was also promoted during the Nazi era as one of Adolf Hitler's favourite composers, and Hitler is alleged to have said that "Whoever wants to understand National Socialist Germany must know Wagner." [3] Historical perception of Wagner has been tainted with this association ever since, and there is debate over how Wagner's writings and operas might have influenced the creation of Nazi Germany. Finally there is controversy over Wagner's paternity. It is suggested that he was the son of Ludwig Geyer, rather than Carl Friedrich Wagner and some of his biographers have suggested that Wagner himself believed that Geyer was Jewish.

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