Wagnerism

Resumen del libro

An absolutely masterly work' Stephen Fry Alex Ross, renowned author of the international bestseller The Rest Is Noise, reveals how Richard Wagner became the proving ground for modern art and politics-an aesthetic war zone where the Western world wrestled with its capacity for beauty and violence. For better or worse, Wagner is the most widely influential figure in the history of music. Around 1900, the phenomenon known as Wagnerism saturated European and American culture.

Such colossal creations as The Ring of the Nibelung, Tristan und Isolde, and Parsifal were models of formal daring, mythmaking, erotic freedom, and mystical speculation. A mighty procession of writers, artists, and thinkers, including Charles Baudelaire, Virginia Woolf, Isadora Duncan, Vasily Kandinsky, and Luis Bunuel, felt his impact. Anarchists, occultists, feminists, and gay-rights pioneers saw him as a kindred spirit.

Biografía del autor

ALEX ROSS nació en Washington D. C. Desde 1996 es crítico musical del New Yorker. Ha sido galardonado con numerosos premios, como tres ASCAP Deems Taylor Award por su crítica musical, la Genius Fellowship de la MacArthur Foundation, la Holtzbrinck Fellowship de la American Academy en Berlín, la Fleck Fellowship del Banff Centre y una Letter of Distinction del American Music Center por su contribución al campo de la música contemporánea. Ha sido profesor de escritura en la Universidad de Princeton y ha recibido un doctorado honorífico de la Manhattan School of Music. Actualmente vive en Manhattan. Su primer libro, el best seller internacional El ruido eterno (Seix Barral, 2009), fue galardonado con el National Book Critics Circle Award, el Guardian Book Award, el Premio del Pen Club Musical Japonés al mejor libro del año y la Genius Fellowship, y fue finalista del Premio Pulitzer 2008 y del Premio Samuel Johnson.