Beyond Reason

Karol Berger

• Publisher: University of California Press
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9780520966130
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Opera Music

Beyond Reason relates Wagner's works to the philosophical and cultural ideas of his time, centering on the four music dramas he created in the second half of his career: Der Ring des Nibelungen, Tristan und Isolde, Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, and Parsifal. Karol Berger seeks to penetrate the "secret" of large-scale form in Wagner's music dramas and to answer those critics, most prominently Nietzsche, who condemned Wagner for his putative inability to weld small expressive gestures into larger wholes. Organized by individual opera, this is essential reading for both musicologists and Wagner experts.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Beyond Reason
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• CONTENTS
• Preface
• Prologue: Beyond Autonomy
• PART ONE
• PART TWO
• Appendix 1. Das Rheingold: The Music-Dramatic Plan
• Appendix 2. Die Walküre: The Music-Dramatic Plan
• Appendix 3. Siegfried: The Music-Dramatic Plan
• Appendix 4. Götterdämmerung: The Music-Dramatic Plan
• Appendix 5. Tristan und Isolde: The Music-Dramatic Plan
• Appendix 6. Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg: The Music-Dramatic Plan
• Appendix 7. Parsifal: The Music-Dramatic Plan
• Acknowledgments
• Abbreviations Used in Notes
• Notes
• Works Consulted
• Index