Reviews for On music and drama

The average rating for On music and drama based on 2 reviews is 2.5 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2009-05-01 00:00:00 Kim Holmes A selection of useful writings by the prolific Richard Wagner is poorly presented in this volume, which features atrocious translations and dubious editing. Wagner was not a great prose stylist, to put it mildly, but there is scarcely a sentence in this book that does not cause the brain to seize up in confusion. I've read Heidegger's Being and Time, and still struggled to parse tangled clauses or match subjects with distant verbs. I know from other translations of Wagner that one can do much better. The book is a potpourri of interesting excerpts drawn from hither and yawn in Wagner's writing, presented end-to-end in a topical sequence with little indication if we're reading from a letter, an anonymous pamphlet, or a book published under Wagner's name. Nor do we know, without referring to a list of sources buried at the back of the book, when each excerpt was written, arranged as they are willy-nilly throughout with little regard to chronology. It is hardly controversial to suggest that Wagner changed his mind over his career about a great many things, and why the editors would make it so difficult to understand the development of his ideas over time by this arrangement is a complete mystery to me. There is useful material in this book, but it is hard-won by the fortitudinous reader for the reasons mentioned.

Review # 2 was written on 2007-11-22 00:00:00 Erom Fonz weird