Richard Wagner's Zurich
The Muse of Place
Chris Walton
When the people of Dresden rose up against their king in May 1849, Richard Wagner went from Royal Kapellmeister to republican revolutionary overnight. He gambled everything, but the rebellion failed, and he lost all. Now a wanted man in Germany, he fled to Zurich. Years later, he wrote that the city was "devoid of any public art form" and full of "simple people who knew nothing of my work as an artist." But he lied: Zurich boasted arguably the world's greatest concentration of radical intellectuals and a vibrant music scene. Wagner was accepted with open arms. This book investigates Wagner's effect on the musical life of the city and the city's impact on him. Mathilde Wesendonck emerges not as Wagner's passive muse but as a self-assured woman who exploited gender expectations to her own benefit. In 1858, Wagner had to flee Zurich after again gambling everything -- this time on Mathilde -- and again losing. But it was in Zurich that Wagner wrote his major theoretical works; composed Das Rheingold, Die Walküre, and parts of Siegfried and Tristan und Isolde; first planned Parsifal; held the first festival of his music; and conceived of a theater to stage his own works. If Wagner had been free in 1849 to choose a city in which to seek heightened intellectual stimulation among the like-minded and the similarly gifted, he could have come to no more perfect place.
Chris Walton is Professor of Music at the University of Pretoria, South Africa.
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DETAILS
14 b/w illustrations
11 line illustrations
288 pages
Size: 9 x 6
13 digit ISBN: 9781571133311
Binding: Hardback
First published: 01/Sep/2007
Price: 70.00 USD / 40.00 GBP
Imprint: Camden House
Series: Studies in German Literature Linguistics and Culture
BIC class: AVH
STATUS: Available
Details updated on 05/01/2009
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Reviews
Walton is more interested in people than in institutions...the result is a highly lively picture of the Zurich of the day.... His portraits of [Mathilde and Otto Wesendonck] differ greatly from those hitherto drawn by Wagner himself and by the Wagner literature, and his arguments are logical...[Walton's] depiction of the couple will have its consequences for Wagner research. TAGES-ANZEIGER (CH)
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Just when one thinks everything that could possibly be written about Richard Wagner has been written, along comes a new point of view. . . . There are some real surprises here and many an obscurity brightened up or revealed for the first time. The writing is erudite. It is an important addition to the Wagner bibliography. --Parsons, AMERICAN RECORD GUIDE, Jan/Feb 2008
The connections and meetings among contemporary composers such as Fanny Hünerwadel, Wilhelm Baumgartner, Johann Carl Eschmann and Wagner that Walton brings out are striking. And striking too are the similarities that he establishes between Wagner and Johannes Brahms, like Wagner a friend of Swiss landscape and culture. SCHWEIZER MUSIKZEITUNG
Walton displays a deep knowledge of his subject which allows him to draw subtle and unexpected connections throughout...The book is both meticulously researched and highly readable...packed with information and insight on a crucial decade of Wagner's life: a must-buy for Wagner scholars and enthusiasts. THE WAGNER JOURNAL
Chris Walton's new study fruitfully examines the relationship between Wagner and Zurich: the influence of the city's intellectual community on Wagner and the lasting legacy he bequeathed it. His valuable research into Otto and Mathilde Wesendonck should occasion a radical reassessment of the stereotypical views that have traditionally attached themselves to Wagner's relationship with his patrons. --Barry Millington, author of Wagner, editor of The Wagner Compendium, and co-editor of Selected Letters of Richard Wagner
Filling in many gaps in what remains ... a part of the composer's life more name-checked than presented in detail, [this book] has the feel of freshly discovered research materials.... In a detailed analysis of [Mathilde Wesendonck's] relationship with Wagner ... Walton presents the convincing (and still quite novel) view that, far from being Wagner's "white piece of paper," she "became an important sounding-board for Wagner's plans and theories." GRAMOPHONE
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