4. Zürich essays.

Even after the savage crushing of the 1848–9 uprisings, Wagner continued to believe that both social and artistic reform were imminent. In the first years of his exile in Zürich – he was not to enter Germany again until 1860 – he formulated a set of aesthetic theories intended to establish opera in a radically recast form as at once the instrument and the product of a reconstructed society. In the first of this series of Zürich essays, Die Kunst und die Revolution (1849), written under the influence of Proudhon and Feuerbach, Wagner outlined the debasement of art since the era of the glorious, all-embracing Greek drama. Only when art was liberated from the sphere of capitalist speculation and profit-making would it be able to express the spirit of emancipated humanity. The vehicle envisaged to effect this transformation process, namely the ‘art-work of the future’, was elaborated, along with the concept of the reunification of the arts into a comprehensive Gesamtkunstwerk (‘total work of art’) on the ancient Greek model, in two further essays, Das Kunstwerk der Zukunft (1849) and Oper und Drama (1850–51).

In the former, Wagner argued that the elements of dance, music and poetry, harmonized so perfectly in Greek drama, were deprived of their expressive potential when divorced from each other. In the ‘art-work of the future’ they would be reunited both with each other (in the ‘actor of the future’, at once dancer, musician and poet) and with the arts of architecture, sculpture and painting. Allowance was even made for the occasional use of the spoken word. Theatres would need to be redesigned by aesthetic criteria rather than those of social hierarchy. Landscape painters would be required to execute the sets. Above all, the new work of art was to be created, in response to a communal need, by a fellowship of artists, representative of das Volk (‘the people’).

The philosophical basis of Das Kunstwerk der Zukunft is multi-faceted. The völkisch ideology, which urged a return to a remote primordial world where peasants of true Germanic blood lived as a true community, had evolved with the rise of national consciousness in the 18th century. Notions such as that of the Volk’s creative endeavours arising spontaneously out of sheer necessity – a process of historical inevitability – owe much to Feuerbach and to such revolutionary thinkers as Marx. Nor was the concept of the Gesamtkunstwerk new: writers such as Lessing, Novalis, Tieck, Schelling and Hoffmann had previously advocated, either in theory or in practice, some sort of reunification of the arts, while the idea of the regeneration of art in accordance with classical ideals can be identified with Winckelmann, Wieland, Lessing, Goethe and Schiller.

Oper und Drama is an immense discourse on the aesthetics of drama-through-music (see Music drama). A new form of verse-setting (Versmelodie) is outlined, in which the melody will grow organically out of the verse. It will use Stabreim (an old German verse form using alliteration) and a system of presentiments and reminiscences, functioning as melodische Momente (‘melodic impulses’); see Leitmotif. Only rarely will one voice serve as harmonic support for another; choruses and other ensembles will be eliminated. Wagner’s claim that the new ideas and techniques had ‘already matured’ within him before the theory was formulated is something of an exaggeration, as is suggested by his willingness to adapt the theoretical principles in the light of practical experience. Their formulation did, however, enable him to grapple with the central issue: how to reconcile his own fundamentally literary and dramatic inspirations with the Classical symphonic tradition.

Two other important essays of the period should be mentioned. Das Judentum in der Musik argues that the superficial, meretricious values of contemporary art are embodied, above all, in Jewish musicians. The rootlessness of Jews in Germany and their historical role as usurers and entrepreneurs has condemned them, in Wagner’s view, to cultural sterility. The uncompromisingly anti-Semitic tone of the essay was, in part, provoked by repeated allegations that Wagner was indebted artistically, as well as financially, to Meyerbeer. The preoccupations and prejudices of Das Judentum also place it in an anti-Jewish tradition, often of otherwise impeccably liberal and humanitarian credentials, going back via Luther to the Middle Ages. Even the idea that Jews should, as part of the process of assimilation, undergo a programme of re-education was not novel, though the refinement (stated elsewhere) that that education programme should largely consist of the Wagnerian music drama was original.

In 1851 Wagner wrote an extensive preface to accompany the projected publication of the librettos of the Holländer, Tannhäuser and Lohengrin. This autobiographical essay, called Eine Mitteilung an meine Freunde, is of interest for the insights it offers into Wagner’s own view of his life and works to that date.

Wagner: (1) Richard Wagner