In Search of Wagner
Written in exile from Germany, this potent study of Europe’s most controversial composer explodes the frontiers of musical and cultural analysis. Measuring key elements of Wagner’s oeuvre with patent musical dexterity, Adorno sheds light on a nineteenth-century bourgeois figure whose operas betray the social gestures and high-culture fantasies that helped plant the seeds of the modern Culture Industry. A foreword by Slavoj Žižek situates Adorno’s reflections within present debates over Wagner’s anti-Semitism and the moral status of his work, proving why this book remains one of the most important character studies of the twentieth century.
Paperback, 148 pages
ISBN: 9781844673445
June 2009
$12.95 / £6.99
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Part of the Radical Thinkers series
Reviews
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A volume of Adorno is equivalent to a whole shelf of books on literature.
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An astonishing book, comparable only to the later Wagner tracts by Nietzsche . . . essential reading for anyone seriously involved with the composer, and now we can read it thanks to a superior translation by Rodney Livingstone.
Discussions
Begin a discussionOther books by Theodor Adorno
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Quasi Una Fantasia
Adorno’s own selection of his essays and journalism from more than three decades of music writing.
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Towards a New Manifesto
A fascinating dialogue on a new Communist Manifesto from two giants of twentieth century philosophy.by Theodor Adorno, and Max Horkheimer
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Minima Moralia
Adorno's literary and philosophical masterpiece, built from aphorisms and reflections.
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Aesthetics and Politics
by Theodor Adorno, Walter Benjamin, et al.
The most remarkable aesthetic debates in European cultural history, with an afterword by Fredric Jameson.