TheRingand the conditions of interpretation: Wagner's writing, 1848 to 1852

Abstract

It is sometimes remarked that Wagner's prose works would not be of much interest if their author had not also turned his creative energies in a very different direction. What is not often observed, however, is the influence this truism has exerted on critical approaches to the theoretical writings. A tacit consensus dictates that these texts be seen as marginalia, ancillary documents whose value lies in the light they shed on immeasurably more important achievements. We have inherited the prose works in the form of useful gnomic tags:Gesamtkunstwerk, ‘endless melody’, ‘deeds of music made visible’ – fragments of text extracted from their context and pressed into service as authoritative pronouncements about the operas. More extensive analysis has usually been concerned with the relation between the written theories and the works they are understood to describe. There is a powerful hierarchy implicidy at work: text (theory) is subservient to music (practice); the former is at best an interpretative tool.

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