Ernest Newman Study of Wagner

Annotation

Whilst the greatest effort has been made to ensure the quality of this text, due to the historical nature of this content, in some rare cases there may be minor issues with legibility. Brief exposition of them could serve any useful purpose. Some readers may feel astonished that while I have passed over a portion of Wagner's ablest and most interesting work in this way, I have discussed at fair length many of his treatises that are of far less intrinsic value. The reason is that these latter, though not finally educational or illuminative in themselves, are factors that cannot be overlooked in the attempt at a veracious diagnosis of Wagner; while such writings as the purely musical ones merely illustrate points in his mental structure that are dealt with in other connec tions. My object has been to study Wagner as a psychological and aesthetic phenomenon; to try to answer the questions ln virtue of what constitution of brain was he so great a musician? And How did his peculiarities of mental structure affect his views of the other arts and of life in general?