Ebook: In search of Wagner

London: Verso, 2009 — 178 p. — ISBN-10: 1844673448; ISBN-13: 978-1844673445.Written in exile from Germany, this potent study of Europe’s most controversial composer explodes the frontiers of musical and cultural analysis. Measuring key elements of Wagner’s oeuvre with patent musical dexterity, Adorno sheds light on a nineteenth-century bourgeois figure whose operas betray the social gestures and high-culture fantasies that helped plant the seeds of the modern Culture Industry. A foreword by Slavoj Žižek situates Adorno’s reflections within present debates over Wagner’s anti-Semitism and the moral status of his work, proving why this book remains one of the most important character studies of the twentieth century.ContentsTranslator's Preface
Foreword by Slavoj Zizek
PrefaceSocial Character
Gesture
Motiv
Sonority
Colour
Phantasmagoria
Music Drama
Myth
God and Beggar
Chimera