Tag Archives: Wagner Bicentennial Symposium

Wagner Bicentennial Symposium
Wagner’s Place in the Germanic Tradition
Part 8: Gelassenheit

2,275 words

Part 8 of 8

Gelassenheit

We can say that the plot of the Ring is simply this: Western man, in the person of Wotan, finally awakens to the destructiveness of his thumotic nature, and wills his own end. (See my review of Duchesne’s Uniqueness of Western Civilization for a discussion of how Western man is preeminently thumotic man.) Read more …

Published: July 9, 2013 | Posted in North American New Right | Also tagged Arthur Schopenhauer, articles, Asatru, Brünnhilde, Collin Cleary, Der Ring des Nibelungen, European identity, Faustian man, Ludwig Feuerbach, Martin Heidegger, myth, narcissism, North American New Right, Odin, originals, Richard Wagner, Ring cycle, thumos, vanity, warrior ethics, Wotan | 5 Responses

Wagner Bicentennial Symposium
Wagner’s Place in the Germanic Tradition
Part 7: Siegfried & Götterdämerung

3,645 words

Part 7 of 8

Siegfried

If Wotan is the main character of the Ring, Siegfried is its hero. However, in dealing with the character of Siegfried we do not depart from our discussion of Wotan at all. This is because Siegfried, like many of the other characters in the Ring, is a kind of hypostatization of an aspect of Wotan himself. Read more …

Published: July 8, 2013 | Posted in North American New Right | Also tagged Arthur Schopenhauer, articles, Asatru, Brünnhilde, Collin Cleary, Der Ring des Nibelungen, European identity, Faustian man, myth, narcissism, North American New Right, Odin, originals, Richard Wagner, Ring cycle, thumos, vanity, Wotan | Leave a comment

Wagner Bicentennial Symposium
Wagner’s Place in the Germanic Tradition
Part 6: Das Rheingold & Die Walküre

2,707 words

Part 6 of 8

Das Rheingold

When the events of Das Rheingold begin, the Wotan-Loge relationship is already well-established, and the primeval crimes described earlier are long past. However, the opera begins with yet another crime against nature: Alberich’s theft of the Rhinegold. Read more …

Published: July 5, 2013 | Posted in North American New Right | Also tagged Arthur Schopenhauer, articles, Asatru, Brünnhilde, Collin Cleary, Der Ring des Nibelungen, European identity, Faustian man, myth, North American New Right, Odin, originals, Richard Wagner, Ring cycle, Wotan | 1 Response

Wagner Bicentennial Symposium
Wagner’s Place in the Germanic Tradition
Part 5: The One-Eyed God

2,522 words

Part 5 of 8

The story of the Ring involves four ages, similar to those taught in Tradition.

The Age of Titans is the period represented by figures somehow more primordial than the gods: Erda, the Norns, and possibly the Rhine daughters. Events in this age are not depicted in the Ring; they are merely referred to (primarily in Götterdämmerung).

Wagner Bicentennial Symposium
Wagner’s Place in the Germanic Tradition
Part 4: Wotan & the Faustian West

2,783 words

Part 4 of 8

Wotan and the Faustian West

As noted in the Introduction to this essay, at the time of the Ring’s conception Wagner was an anarchist revolutionary. Major influences on his thinking included Bakunin, Feuerbach, Hegel, and possibly Marx (though of these only Bakunin was an anarchist). Read more …

Published: July 3, 2013 | Posted in North American New Right | Also tagged Arthur Schopenhauer, articles, Asatru, classical music, Collin Cleary, Der Ring des Nibelungen, European identity, Faustian man, myth, North American New Right, Odin, opera, originals, Oswald Spengler, Richard Wagner, Ring cycle, Wotan | Leave a comment

Wagner Bicentennial Symposium
Wagner’s Place in the Germanic Tradition
Part 3: Wagner’s Use of Source Materials for the Ring

3,473 words

Part 3 of 8

Wagner’s Use of Sources for the Ring

As a brief summary of how Wagner makes use of the major sources discussed in section three above, I don’t think one could do any better than this paragraph from an article by Elizabeth Magee:

Looking back, we can see how the Eddas supplied most of Das Rheingold, Read more …

Published: June 4, 2013 | Posted in North American New Right | Also tagged articles, Asatru, Collin Cleary, Der Ring des Nibelungen, Eddas, myth, North American New Right, originals, Richard Wagner, Ring cycle, Volsunga Saga | Comments closed

Wagner Bicentennial Symposium
Wagner’s Place in the Germanic Tradition
Part 2: The Story of Der Ring des Nibelungen

3,462 words

Part 2 of 8

The Story of Der Ring des Nibelungen

For the uninitiated, I will now tell the story of the Ring, confining myself to essentials. Even the initiated would do well to read this summary, just to re-familiarize themselves with the story, as the account of Wagner’s use of the source material to follow will presuppose that one is well-acquainted with the events of all four operas. Read more …

Published: June 3, 2013 | Posted in North American New Right | Also tagged articles, Asatru, classical music, Collin Cleary, Der Ring des Nibelungen, mythology, North American New Right, opera, originals, Richard Wagner, Ring cycle | Comments closed

Wagner Bicentennial Symposium
Wagner’s Place in the Germanic Tradition
Part 1: The Origins of Der Ring des Nibelungen

5,716 words

Part 1 of 8

1. Introduction

Richard Wagner is the man principally responsible for keeping the Germanic mythological tradition alive in the modern world. Countless individuals have been exposed to that tradition through Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen, and it is safe to say that at any given moment somewhere in the world some portion of the Ring is being played or performed. Read more …

Published: May 31, 2013 | Posted in North American New Right | Also tagged articles, Asatru, Collin Cleary, Der Ring des Nibelungen, Eddas, J. G. Fichte, Ludwig Feuerbach, myth, North American New Right, originals, Richard Wagner, Ring cycle | Comments closed

Wagner Bicentennial Symposium
Parsifal & the Possibility of Transcendence

Christopher Pankhurst

4,392 words

In 1878 Nietzsche sent a copy of his book Human, All Too Human to Richard Wagner. At the same time Wagner sent Nietzsche a copy of the verse for his opera Parsifal. Nietzsche was later to write that when received this text, “I felt as if I heard an ominous sound – as if two swords had crossed.”[1] Read more …

Published: May 28, 2013 | Posted in North American New Right | Also tagged Arthur Schopenhauer, articles, Christopher Pankhurst, classical music, Friedrich Nietzsche, North American New Right, opera, originals, Parsifal, philosophy, Richard Wagner | 6 Responses

Wagner Bicentennial Symposium
Wagner, Nietzsche, & the New Suprahumanist Myth, Part 3

Kurwenal

2,835 words

Part 3 of 3

IV.

Published: May 27, 2013 | Posted in North American New Right | Also tagged articles, classical music, fascism, Friedrich Nietzsche, Kurwenal, myth, North American New Right, opera, originals, philosophy, Richard Wagner, suprahumanism, the Conservative Revolution, transhumanism | Comments closed

Wagner Bicentennial Symposium
Wagner, Nietzsche, & the New Suprahumanist Myth, Part 2

Kurwenal

2,373 words

Part 2 of 3

III.

Given the concept of “tendency,” it is easy to see an intimate relation between the work of Wagner and of Nietzsche. Read more …

Published: May 24, 2013 | Posted in North American New Right | Also tagged articles, Christianity, classical music, Friedrich Nietzsche, Kurwenal, North American New Right, opera, originals, philosophy, propaganda, Richard Wagner, suprahumanism, the Conservative Revolution, the Jewish question, time, transhumanism | Leave a comment

Wagner Bicentennial Symposium
Wagner, Nietzsche, & the New Suprahumanist Myth, Part 1

Kurwenal

4,140 words

Part 1 of 3

“I simply said to you that Wagner was the greatest man who ever lived. I didn’t say that he was God himself, but I was tempted . . .”

— Pierre Louÿs (letter to Debussy)

“‘Let us look one century ahead, and let us suppose my attack against two thousand years of unnaturalness and the desecration of man should succeed. Read more …

Published: May 23, 2013 | Posted in North American New Right | Also tagged articles, classical music, Friedrich Nietzsche, Kurwenal, North American New Right, opera, originals, philosophy, Richard Wagner, suprahumanism, time, transhumanism | 2 Responses

Wagner Bicentennial Symposium
Remembering Richard Wagner:
May 22, 1813–February 13, 1883

278 words

Richard Wagner was born 200 years ago today in Leipzig in the kingdom of Saxony. He died on February 13, 1883 in Venice. As an artist, intellectual, author, and cultural force, Wagner has left an immense metapolitical legacy, which is being evaluated and appropriated in the North American New Right’s Wagner Bicentennial Symposium, which will continue through the end of May with articles by Collin Cleary, Christopher Pankhurst, and others. Read more …

Published: May 22, 2013 | Posted in North American New Right | Also tagged articles, commemorations, Greg Johnson, North American New Right, originals, Richard Wagner | Comments closed

Wagner Bicentennial Symposium
Rage Against the Machine:
A Very American Ring Cycle

Jef Costello

The great Wagner Machine--Siegfried and Brunnhilde in Goetterdaemmerung

The great Wagner Machine–Siegfried and Brünnhilde in Götterdämmerung

2,427 words

It heaves and groans. It shimmies and clicks. One holds one breath during the best parts, hoping it will not malfunction and ruin the whole evening. One fears for the performers, halfway expecting it to devour them.

Published: May 21, 2013 | Posted in North American New Right | Also tagged articles, classical music, Jef Costello, North American New Right, opera, originals, Richard Wagner | 3 Responses

Wagner Bicentennial Symposium
Never Surrender:
Wagner on War & Culture

Richard Widmann

Richard Wagner by Arno Breker, Haus Wahnfried, Bayreuth

Richard Wagner by Arno Breker, Bayreuth

4,743 words

Not symphonic music, but rather the shattering roar of cannon announced the birth of Richard Wagner on May 22, 1813 in Leipzig. The German kingdom of Saxony had been overrun by the French troops of Napoleon Bonaparte as he made a last-ditch effort to reassert dominance over Europe.[1]

Published: May 21, 2013 | Posted in North American New Right | Also tagged articles, France, Germany, North American New Right, originals, Richard Wagner, war | 1 Response

Wagner Bicentennial Symposium
Wagner as Metapolitical Revolutionary

Kerry Bolton

7,638 words

Karl Marx reserved a special place of contempt for those he termed “reactionists.” These comprised the alliance that was forming around his time among all classes of people, high-born and low, who aimed to return to a pre-capitalist society. These were the remnants of artisans, aristocrats, landowners, and pastors, who had seen the ravages of industrialism and money-ethics then unfolding. Read more …

Published: May 20, 2013 | Posted in North American New Right | Also tagged articles, Houston Stewart Chamberlain, Karl Marx, Kerry Bolton, metapolitics, Mikhail Bakunin, North American New Right, originals, revolution, Richard Wagner, the Jewish question | 1 Response

Wagner Bicentennial Symposium
My Wagner Problem—and Ours

James J. O'Meara

1,880 words

“Your themes — they almost always consist of even values, of half, quarter, eighth notes; they are syncopated and tied, to be sure, but nonetheless persevere in what is often a machinelike, stamping, hammering inflexibility and inelegance. Read more …

Published: May 17, 2013 | Posted in North American New Right | Also tagged Alain Daniélou, articles, classical music, James J. O'Meara, North American New Right, originals, Richard Wagner, Traditionalism | 45 Responses

Wagner Bicentennial Symposium
The Monster

Deems Taylor

1,720 words

Portuguese translation here

He was an undersized little man, with a head too big for his body — a sickly little man. His nerves were bad. He had skin trouble. It was agony for him to wear anything next to his skin coarser than silk. And he had delusions of grandeur. Read more …

Published: May 16, 2013 | Posted in North American New Right | Also tagged articles, classical music, North American New Right, opera, reprints, Richard Wagner | 7 Responses

Wagner Bicentennial Symposium
Evil Genius:
Constructing Wagner as Moral Pariah, Part 4

A night at the opera: Adolf Hitler with Winifred Wagner, the daughter-in-law of Richard Wagner

4,022 words

Part 4 of 4

Wagner and National Socialist Germany

Richard Wagner has long been reviled by Jews as the intellectual and spiritual precursor to Adolf Hitler who, according to William Shirer, once declared: “Whoever wants to understand National Socialist Germany must know Wagner.”[1] Read more …

Published: May 16, 2013 | Posted in North American New Right | Also tagged Adolf Hitler, articles, Brenton Sanderson, classical music, commemorations, North American New Right, opera, originals, Richard Wagner, the Jewish question, the Third Reich | 4 Responses

Wagner Bicentennial Symposium
Evil Genius:
Constructing Wagner as Moral Pariah, Part 3

Arno Breker, Bust of Richard Wagner

2,360 words

Part 3 of 4

Wagner’s Music Dramas as Coded Anti-Semitism

T. W. Adorno and Wagner biographer Robert Gutman began a modern Jewish intellectual tradition Read more …

Published: May 15, 2013 | Posted in North American New Right | Also tagged articles, Brenton Sanderson, classical music, commemorations, North American New Right, opera, originals, Richard Wagner, the Jewish question, Theodor Adorno | Comments closed

Wagner Bicentennial Symposium
Evil Genius:
Constructing Wagner as Moral Pariah, Part 2

3,016 words

Part 2 of 4

Wagner’s Racial Thinking

In addition to his concern about the baleful Jewish influence on German culture, Wagner, under the influence of Darwinism and the French racial theorist Arthur de Gobineau, became increasingly concerned about the fate of the White race generally. Read more …

Published: May 14, 2013 | Posted in North American New Right | Also tagged articles, biological race differences, Brenton Sanderson, Christianity, classical music, commemorations, North American New Right, opera, originals, Richard Wagner, the Jewish question, Theodor Adorno | Comments closed

Wagner Bicentennial Symposium
Evil Genius:
Constructing Wagner as Moral Pariah, Part 1

Richard Wagner, 1813–1883

4,763 words

Part 1 of 4

Richard Wagner was a one man artistic and intellectual movement whose shadow fell across all of his contemporaries and most of his successors. Other composers had influence; Wagner had a way of thinking named after him. It has been claimed that “never since Orpheus has there been a musician whose music affected so vitally the life and art of generations.”[1] Read more …

Published: May 13, 2013 | Posted in North American New Right | Also tagged articles, Brenton Sanderson, classical music, commemorations, North American New Right, opera, originals, Richard Wagner, the Jewish question, Theodor Adorno | 2 Responses

Bryan Magee’s The Tristan Chord

4,085 words

Bryan Magee
The Tristan Chord: Wagner and Philosophy
New York: Metropolitan Books, 2000

Bryan Magee’s The Tristan Chord: Wagner and Philosophy (just Wagner and Philosophy in the UK) combines two of my favorite subjects into an informative, stimulating, and highly readable book. Creativity and critical reflection are two very different activities, and excellence in one is seldom accompanied by excellence in the other. Read more …

Published: April 12, 2013 | Posted in North American New Right | Also tagged anarchism, Arthur Schopenhauer, book reviews, Bryan Magee, classical music, Friedrich Nietzsche, Greg Johnson, Ludwig Feuerbach, North American New Right, opera, originals, Parsifal, philosophy, Richard Wagner, socialism, the Jewish question | Comments closed

Bryan Magee’s Aspects of Wagner

2,373 words

Bryan Magee
Aspects of Wagner
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1988

In preparation for the Wagner bicentennial on May 22, I have been listening to, watching, and reading about Wagner non-stop. But one’s enjoyment of art and ideas is magnified by sharing them with others. So I am going to get you in the Wagner spirit, or drive you crazy trying, Read more …

Published: March 5, 2013 | Posted in North American New Right | Also tagged book reviews, Bryan Magee, classical music, drama, Greg Johnson, North American New Right, opera, originals, Richard Wagner, the Jewish question | 8 Responses

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