Overview

Beyond Reason relates Wagner's works to the philosophical and cultural ideas of his time, centering on the four music dramas he created in the second half of his career: Der Ring des Nibelungen, Tristan und Isolde, Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, and Parsifal. Karol Berger seeks to penetrate the ""secret"" of large-scale form in Wagner's music dramas and to answer those critics, most prominently Nietzsche, who condemned Wagner for his putative inability to weld small expressive gestures into larger wholes. Organized by individual opera, this is essential reading for both musicologists and Wagner experts.

Full Product Details

Author:   Karol Berger
Publisher:   University of California Press
Imprint:   University of California Press
Dimensions:   Width: 15.20cm , Height: 3.00cm , Length: 22.90cm
Weight:   0.816kg
ISBN:  

9780520409255

ISBN 10:   0520409256
Pages:   552
Publication Date:   29 October 2024
Audience:   College/higher education ,  Undergraduate ,  Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Awaiting stock  
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Table of Contents

Preface Prologue: Beyond Autonomy The Uncanny Grace: A Gloss on Kleist’s Marionettes Reason Beyond Reason  History  Nation  Will Religion, the Enlightenment, the Counter-Enlightenment: The New Configuration part one 1. The Secret of Music-Dramatic Form: Music Drama as Opera 2. Der Ring des Nibelungen: The Anarchist Utopia Das Rheingold: The Fall Die Walküre: How One Becomes Human  Act 1: Becoming Wagner  Act 2: Becoming Brünnhilde  Act 3: Waiting for the Hero Siegfried: How One Becomes a Hero  Act 1: Getting the Sword  Act 2: Using It  Act 3: The Awakening Götterdämmerung: The Apocalypse  Prologue: The Past and the Future  Act 1: The Entrapment 1  Act 2: The Entrapment 2  Act 3: Death and Transfiguration  The Myth of Revolution part two 3. Tristan und Isolde: The Erotic Utopia  The Lyrical Axis  The Narrative Axis  The Orchestral Strand  The Music-Dramatic Form  The Myth of Will Postscript 4. Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg: Politics after Tristan  Act 1: The Knight’s Failure  Act 2: The Clerk’s Failure  Act 3, Part 1: A Lesson in Poetics  Act 3, Part 2: The Shoemaker’s Triumph  The Myth of Nation 5. Parsifal: Ethics after Tristan  The Communion Sequences of Acts 1 and 3  The Monologues of Acts 1 and 3  Act 2: The Kiss of Self-Knowledge  The Music-Dramatic Form  Eros and Agape  The Myth of Redemption  Epilogue: Wagner contra Nietzsche  Wagner and Nietzsche: A History of the Relationship  Becoming Nietzsche  Nietzsche contra Wagner, Wagner contra Nietzsche Appendix 1. Das Rheingold: The Music-Dramatic Plan Appendix 2. Die Walküre: The Music-Dramatic Plan Appendix 3. Siegfried: The Music-Dramatic Plan Appendix 4. Götterdämmerung: The Music-Dramatic Plan Appendix 5. Tristan und Isolde: The Music-Dramatic Plan Appendix 6. Die Meistersinger: The Music-Dramatic Plan Appendix 7. Parsifal: The Music-Dramatic Plan Acknowledgments Abbreviations Used in Notes Notes Works Consulted Index

Reviews

"""The author develops his new interpretative perspective with so much mastery and such highly reflective circumspection that he is sure to convince even some inveterate Nietzscheans. ... Karol Berger has written a great and momentous book, and only now the work begins. What more could one wish from the contemporary Wagner research?"" * Wagnerspectrum * ""This is an exceptionally clear and accessible book on topics on which it is traditionally difficult to be clear and accessible: the origin, genesis, and nature of Wagner's achievement in his ‘music dramas’, and the evaluation of these dramas in terms of their impact on German culture from a philosophical point of view. . . .Musicologists will have a feast with this work, as Berger surprisingly shows the origin of Wagner's musical forms in Italian operatic models, and also shows how superficial and incorrect was Nietzsche's later, spiteful criticism of his former master and idol. . ."" * The Heythrop Journal * “… it is the textual-critical in­terpretation of Wagner’s works that is most satisfying in Beyond Reason. Berger’s freshly imagined and vividly expounded narratives have most in common with such apprecia­tive readings, of a predominantly literary character, as those published in recent years by Richard H. Bell, Paul Dawson-Bowling and Roger Scruton….Berger deploys his chosen terminology with confidence, and argues for his interpretations with eloquence and unflagging commitment.” * The Wagner Journal *"

""The author develops his new interpretative perspective with so much mastery and such highly reflective circumspection that he is sure to convince even some inveterate Nietzscheans. ... Karol Berger has written a great and momentous book, and only now the work begins. What more could one wish from the contemporary Wagner research?"" * Wagnerspectrum * ""This is an exceptionally clear and accessible book on topics on which it is traditionally difficult to be clear and accessible: the origin, genesis, and nature of Wagner's achievement in his ‘music dramas’, and the evaluation of these dramas in terms of their impact on German culture from a philosophical point of view. . . .Musicologists will have a feast with this work, as Berger surprisingly shows the origin of Wagner's musical forms in Italian operatic models, and also shows how superficial and incorrect was Nietzsche's later, spiteful criticism of his former master and idol. . ."" * The Heythrop Journal * “… it is the textual-critical in­terpretation of Wagner’s works that is most satisfying in Beyond Reason. Berger’s freshly imagined and vividly expounded narratives have most in common with such apprecia­tive readings, of a predominantly literary character, as those published in recent years by Richard H. Bell, Paul Dawson-Bowling and Roger Scruton….Berger deploys his chosen terminology with confidence, and argues for his interpretations with eloquence and unflagging commitment.” * The Wagner Journal *

Author Information

Karol Berger is Osgood Hooker Professor in Fine Arts, Emeritus, Department of Music, Stanford University. His award-winning books include Musica Ficta; A Theory of Art; and Bach’s Cycle, Mozart’s Arrow. 

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