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Published pseudonymously in 1850 in the influential journal Neue Zeitschrift für Musik, “Judaism in Music” is both the most-often cited and least-often read of Richard Wagner’s voluminous prose works. Although commonly described as a vile work of hate speech or as a model for the breathless prose style of Der Stürmer, Wagner’s essay is actually rather mild and extremely clinical in its assessment of the mostly deleterious influence of Jews in German culture. The mildness of the essay is only apparent to those who have actually read the work, very few of whom are numbered among Wagner’s detractors.
First of all, Wagner’s solution to the Jewish question is for Jews to stop being Jews, that is, to convert to Christianity. This is hardly the stuff of genocide. Wagner reveals himself to be the greatest civic nationalist of the 19th century. For Wagner, the Jewish question is confessional, not genetic, in origin.
And what really is Wagner’s problem with the Jews? It is, quite simply, that the Jews have not truly assimilated into German culture. Wagner acknowledges the talented nature of many Jewish intellectuals and musicians, but likewise points out that their talents are imitative, rather than creative, in nature. As such, Jews have been able to insinuate themselves into German society without truly becoming part of German culture. As Kevin MacDonald has so often reminded us, the Jews always remain a people apart.
According to Wagner, the inability of Jews to truly assimilate into German culture is rooted in language, which in turn, has a profound impact on Jewish aesthetics. Wagner rightly remarks upon the discordant sounds of the language of the Jews. Here he is referring to Yiddish, the common tongue of East European Jews, which is a pidgin form of German. German is a beautiful language when spoken correctly and an even more beautiful language when sung well. I doubt that even the most fervent Zionist believes that Yiddish possesses sonic beauty. The tonal ugliness of Yiddish, then, has an impact upon Jewish aesthetic sensibilities. Jews, therefore, have different standards of aesthetic beauty than do Caucasians of European descent. Of course, Wagner sees this as being rooted in cultural conditioning rather than being part of Jewish genetic proclivities.
Unwittingly, Wagner has stumbled onto something that has been substantiated by genetic research. Aesthetic standards are not universal; they vary by race. The old adage that music is a universal language has no more validity than the Lockean tabula rasa. It should not be surprising, then, that Jews are at the forefront of every artistic movement that subverts Western standards of aesthetics.
Wagner also touches upon Jewish economic and political solidarity, and implies that criticism of the Jews is taboo since wealthy Jews control the finances of most European nations. Substitute Zuckerberg and Soros for Rothschild and you have an essay that is as relevant today as it was in 1850.
“Judaism in Music” is available for free downloading on the IMSLP website as part of Volume III of William Ashton Ellis’ outstanding 1895 translation of the 8-volume Richard Wagner’s Prose Works. An affordable paperback edition (which also includes several introductory essays as well as Wagner’s 1869 article “Some Explanations Concerning ‘Judaism in Music’” and Mark Twain’s article “At the Shrine of St. Wagner”) is available as Volume 6 of the Barnes Review Revisionist Handbook Series (Judaism in Music: Wagner for the 21st Century).
5 comments
“I doubt that even the most fervent Zionist believes that Yiddish possesses sonic beauty.”
Obviously not, since fervent – and indeed, non fervent – Zionists saw the abolition of Yiddish as a spoken language as a central part of their project.
Since German Jews, especially those involved in high culture, also abhorred Yiddish, I’m doubtful that this really had anything to do with anything.
“First of all, Wagner’s solution to the Jewish question is for Jews to stop being Jews, that is, to convert to Christianity.”
German Jews already had converted to Reform Judaism, which is a denomination of Liberal Protestantism. This was even more apparent then than now (they introduced organs into the service, permitted consumption of Pork, replaced the bar mitzvah with confirmation, many even moved the Sabbath to Sunday). Wagner’s observations apply equally well to Brahms. Then, as now, Jews are just being used as political synedoche for white liberals, with a bit of race pseudoscience (as opposed to genuine HBD studies) being carelessly thrown in to make it sound clever. When history repeats itself this much it kind of gets boring.
Thanks for touching on the subject, Quintilian!
Wagner’s Ring Cycle is criminally neglected by white nationalists. It is prophetic with respect to the Jewish Question and the fall of Western Civilization, regardless of the poet-composer´s own stated views on the issue.
Everyone knew back then that the short, lusty, greedy, crafty race of dwarves in the Ring were Jews. The story begins when one such dwarf (Jew), Alberich, tries to court the Rhine maidens (gentile women) and is rejected because of his undesirable (Semitic) features. He then curses love to win the power of “gold” (usury, money, finance).
“The world’s wealth I can win through you? If I cannot extort love, can I by cunning attain pleasure?”
Thus we clearly see that the dwarf Alberich is the forefather of all Weinsteins of this world, and his ilk. Later on, he makes his point even clearer. The dwarf threatens the gods (Aryans) thus:
“The black gnome you despise, you eternal revellers. Beware! When you men serve my might the dwarf will take his pleasure with your pretty women”.
This is not the place to make a thorough analysis of Wagner’s masterpiece, but suffice it to say that the tetralogy ends when Hagen, Alberich’s offspring, born of the rape of a human (gentile) woman by the dwarf (Jew) — and thus of mixed heritage, looking like a human, and being able to blend into human society to carry out his malicious intent –, Hagen sets up even his half (gentile) brothers and especially he Aryan hero Siegfried, and betrays them, triggering the Twilight of the “Gods” (Aryans), that is destruction of Western society.
Therefore, in my opinion, if Wagner claimed (albeit under a pseudonym) that the problem with Jews was not racial, but cultural and religious (maybe to appease the “normie” audience of his day?), his art spoke — consciously or not, for we do not fully understand the workings of the “Muses” — spoke very clearly on racial lines about the same issue. Whoever has ears to hear let them hear!
>Wagner has stumbled onto something that has been substantiated by genetic research. Aesthetic standards are not universal; they vary by race.
Do you have the source for this?
Please see Voland and Grammer, Evolutionary Aesthetics.
You have my thanks.
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