Analyzing Wagner's Operas: Alfred Lorenz and German Nationalist Ideology

by Stephen McClatchie

Overview

An examination of work by the German music theorist, Alfred Lorenz, to explain Wagner's operas and how they fit with German nationalist ideology.

The work of the Wagnerian theorist and analyst Alfred Lorenz (1869-1939) has had a profound influence upon both Wagnerian scholarship and music analysis in the twentieth century, and yet it has never been properly evaluated. Analyzing Wagner's Operas outlines the origins and development of the expressive aesthetic in writings by Wagner and others, as well as in early-twentieth-century theories of musical form, and it considers Lorenz's work and contributions in this light. The book also hopes to show, to the extent possible, where Lorenz's work acted as a sort of "musical metaphor" for German nationalist ideology during the Nazi era.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781580460231
Publisher:	BOYDELL & BREWER INC
Publication date:	10/25/1998
Series:	ISSN , #10
Pages:	260
Sales rank:	696,301
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 9.10(h) x 1.00(d)

Editorial Reviews

A rich book. It teaches us a great deal about late Romantic aesthetics and Wagnerian analysis, as well as Lorenz's career, his analytic work, and its reception. McClatchie's intelligent and knowledgeable consideration of complex questions about the interactions between ideology, cultural politics, and musical scholarship should challenge us to think as carefully and clearly about such questions whenever and wherever they arise.

JOURNAL OF AMERICAN MUSICOLOGICAL SOCIETY

A rich book. It teaches us a great deal about late Romantic aesthetics and Wagnerian analysis, as well as Lorenz's career, his analytic work, and its reception. McClatchie's intelligent and knowledgeable consideration of complex questions about the interactions between ideology, cultural politics, and musical scholarship should challenge us to think as carefully and clearly about such questions whenever and wherever they arise. --JOURNAL OF AMERICAN MUSICOLOGICAL SOCIETY

From the Publisher