Wagner in Thought and Practice - Hardcover

With their passionate musings and romantic outpourings, Wagner's written works are pure opera. His sweeping generalizations (e.g., Shakespeare is responsible for the "unparalleled confusion in dramatic art lasting two centuries") and unsubstantiated scientific assertions (e.g., early humanity developed vowels for emotions and consonants for objects) are woven into an historical scheme with the composer at the epicenter. Today, these sometimes questionable ideas seem faded and quaint, hardly worth the controversy they once generated. But in this otherwise expert and informative volume, Skelton performs a disservice by accepting them at face value in his summarizing, rambling accounts. As the above examples show, identifying Wagner's debatable notions is easy, and though Skelton's primary intention was to survey the works, failure to submit them to critical scrutiny encourages the thoughtless glorification of this composer. Only comprehensive music collections need consider.
- Daniel Fermon, Museum of Modern Art Lib., New York
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.