Richard Wagner

Description

Few of the great composers can claim a body of work as influential and contentious as Richard Wagner; his life and compositions remain intertwined with the great upheavals of his time, and this often obscures a dispassionate critical assessment of his output. In Richard Wagner Raymond Furness provides a clear and balanced view of Wagner's great achievements, without neglecting the controversies in his life and art. Using the composer's wide-ranging engagement with mythology as his starting point, Furness explores Wagner's music and extensive literary output.

Raymond Furness is former Chair of German at St Andrew's University, Scotland. He is author or editor of many books on German literature and culture, including A Companion to Twentieth-century German Literature (1991), Zarathustra's Children (2000) and On Heligoland (2008).

"[Furness's] compact book, with handsome black-and-white illustrations, offers a pithy overview of Wagner's works and life and a recommended discography."-- "Operavore" "This lucidly written, balanced, and non-hysterical book rises to the top. It is an excellent guide to the understanding of Wagner's continued relevance to the contemporary world." --Hans Rudolf Vaget "Wagner Notes"