Beyond Reason: Wagner contra Nietzsche

Prologue: beyond autonomy - The secret of music-dramatic form: music drama as opera - Der Ring des Nibelungen: the anarchist utopia - Tristan und Isolde: the erotic utopia - Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg: politics after Tristan - Parsifal: ethics after Tristan - Epilogue: Wagner contra Nietzsche.;"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."