Overview
New essays demonstrating and exploring the abiding fascination of Wagner's controversial work. Richard Wagner's Parsifal remains an inexhaustible yet highly controversial work. This ""stage consecration festival play,"" as the composer described it, represents the culmination of his efforts to bring medieval myth and modern music together in a dynamic relationship. Wagner's engagement with religion--Buddhist as well as Christian--reaches a climax here, as he seeks through artistic means ""to rescue the essence of religion by perceiving its mythical symbols . . . according to their figurative value, enabling us to see their profound, hidden truth through idealized representation."" The contributors to this collection break fresh ground in exploring the text, the music, andthe reception history of Parsifal. Wagner's borrowings-and departures-from the medieval sources of the Grail legend, Wolfram's Parzival and Chretien's Perceval, are considered in detail, and the tensional relation of the work to Christianity is probed. New perspectives emerge that bear on the long genesis of the text and music, its affinities to Wagner's earlier works, particularly Tristan und Isolde, and the precise way in which the music was composed. Essays address the work's bold, modernistic musical language and its unprecedented soundscape involving hidden choruses and other unseen sources of sound. The turbulent, astonishing, and sometimes disturbing history of Parsifal performances from 1882 until 2004 is traced in vivid detail for the first time, demonstrating the abiding fascination exerted by this uniquely challenging work of art. Contributors: MaryA. Cicora, James M. McGlathery, Ulrike Kienzle, Warren Darcy, Roger Allen. William Kinderman and Katherine Syer teach at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and often lead study seminars during the Wagner Festival in Bayreuth, Germany.
Full Product Details
Author: William Kinderman (Royalty Account) ,
Katherine R. Syer (Royalty Account) ,
James M McGlathery (Royalty Account) ,
Katherine R. Syer (Royalty Account)
Publisher: Boydell & Brewer Ltd
Imprint: Camden House Inc
Volume: v. 62
Dimensions:
Width: 15.20cm
, Height: 2.20cm
, Length: 22.90cm
Weight: 0.564kg
ISBN: 9781571134578
ISBN 10: 1571134573
Pages: 376
Publication Date: 01 June 2010
Audience:
Professional and scholarly
,
Professional & Vocational
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active
Availability: In Print
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Reviews
This collection of essays makes a major contribution to Parsifal interpretation... A must read for all Parsifalians. OPERA TODAY This marvelous Companion to Parsifal offers something of value to anyone interested in finding out more about Wagner's last work... GERMAN QUARTERLY Kinderman and Syer have effectively succeeded in emulating a Wagnerian quality: to stimulate our appetite for more. GERMAN STUDIES REVIEW
This collection of essays makes a major contribution to Parsifal interpretation.... A must read for all Parsifalians. OPERA TODAY This marvelous Companion to Parsifal offers something of value to anyone interested in finding out more about Wagner's last work.... GERMAN QUARTomething of value to anyone interested in finding out more about Wagner's last work.... GERMAN QUARTERLY Kinderman and Syer have effectively succeeded
Author Information
ROGER ALLEN is Emeritus Fellow in Music, St Peter's College, University of Oxford. His publications include Richard Wagner's 'Beethoven' 1870: A New Translation (The Boydell Press, 2014) and Wilhelm Furtwängler: Art, Politics and the Unpolitical (The Boydell Press, 2018).
