The Cerebral in the Sublime: Wagner and Beyond 

 

Abbreviations

 

CW     Nietzsche, Fredrich. The Case of Wagner. New York: Modern Library, 2000. Print.

 

SW      Adorno, Thodor W. In Search of Wagner. London: Verso, 1991. Print.

 

SN       Epstein, Joshua Benjamin. Sublime Noise: Musical Culture and the Modernist Writer. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2014. Project MUSE

 

Introduction

 

The turn of the nineteenth century brought with it the Romantic era. As a rebellion against the imbued structures of the eighteenth century, artists of the Romantic era pursued “emotional subjectivity”, “freedom of expression”, and “the spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings” (Kamien 273). The emphasis on “emotional intensity” and expressiveness (Kamien 277) spurred the production of art that materialised these changes in new ways of expressing vibrant colour and bolder definition amongst others (Kamien 277). In essence, the spirit of the Romantic era was a rebellious one.

 

Richard Wagner was an emblematic composer of the Romantic era. Known best for his operas – keenly so for his Ring cycle – Wagner’s art was critical in influencing the art of his contemporaries as well as of artists who followed after him. As a figure whose work attracts much scholarly debate, he is disliked by various scholars of high art who disfavour his appeal to mass culture. One of these scholars who is a writer of polemics, Theodor Adorno, sets a very thorough foreground to his book “In Search of Wagner” by explaining Wagner’s association with Fascism (predictable, as a citizen of nineteenth-century Germany) and his history of anti-Semitism. Adorno’s book is, in fact, a response to his predecessor in the field of polemics, Nietzsche’s “The Case of Wagner”. In his own work, Nietzsche expresses his firm discontent with Wagner’s art, much of which appears to be personal disfavour.

 

Of the many elements Nietzsche and Adorno debate, they agree on their disapproval of Wagner’s sublime. However, whilst Nietzsche, in his spirited writing, resists Wagner on the basis of suggestion and gesture to his work, Adorno grounds his argument in thorough analysis, which convinces legitimacy.

 

Many works of the highest quality are true as the expression of a consciousness that is false in itself. This is recognised only by transcendent  criticism, such as Nietzsche’s critique of Wagner. The failing of that kind of

critique, however, is not only that it judges the matter from on high rather than measuring itself by it. This criticism is also impeded by a narrow-minded notion of truth content, usually a cultural/philosophical notion that neglects the

immanently historical element of aesthetic truth. (Adorno “Aesthetic Theory” 129)

 

This criticism of Nietzsche by Adorno is self-implicating; as a writer of polemics, Adorno is guilty of this “transcendent criticism” as well. However, his perception of the “truth content” of this critical commentary and the identification of this as a “cultural/philosophical notion” reveals a self-awareness about Adorno that is rather absent in Nietzsche’s criticism. In measuring Adorno and Nietzsche’s works against each other, I will attempt to extract a portrait of Wagner that is true to himself.

 

Adorno’s highlighting of the “historical element of aesthetic truth” is yet another matter that requires commentary. The boundaries of the aesthetic, whilst dealing with subjective material, are meant to be fairly objective in nature. However, there is much contention about its objectivity, and the scale of valuing the aesthetic requires careful deliberation when dabbling with the very versatile works of Wagner. In studying the aesthetic elements in Wagner’s work, there is an emphasis on the difference between the aesthetic elements that are affective in nature and those that are cerebral.

 

In distilling the intelligent from the turmoil that characterises Wagner’s sublime, it is revealed that Wagner plays an important historical role as an establishing figure of many new artistic or musical ideas such as the leitmotiv and the Gesamtkunstwerk. Wagner’s dabbling with new forms of harmony and dissonance also paved the way for composers of the twentieth century who explored new modes of thought, such as Schoenberg’s new envisioning of tonal structure.

 

Finally, Epstein’s discourse on “Sublime Noise” projects for us an understanding of Wagner’s place in scholarly discourse; at a meta level, the effect of his excessive sublime translates to the immense debate about his art and his person, and also effects the equally quantifiable production of art as a reaction to his own work. Wagner’s position as a late nineteenth century German composer posits him as a figure who aided the transition into the twentieth century, and this thesis, in part, aims to disclose this significance. 

 

Chapter Three

The Affective and the Cerebral:

‘Sublime Noise’ Beyond Wagner

 

“Precisely because nothing is more modern than this total sickness, this lateness and overexcitement of the nervous mechanism, Wagner is the modern artist par excellence, the Cagliostro of modernity” (CW 622)

 

Wagner’s presence in music history, though tainted with its association with anti-Semitism and the dull, is undeniably an important one, having inspired many other artists who followed. Nietzsche, absorbed in his contention of Wagner’s sublime, sarcastically terms him the “modern artist par excellence”, but there is much truth in this statement. We have established the legitimacy of Wagner’s sublime as a reflection of and commentary on capitalist society, and have analysed the cerebral elements of his works. We have also examined the ways in which they laid the groundwork for musical revolution in the twentieth century. In this chapter, I will address the connection between the affective and the cerebral, as understood in hindsight from the twentieth century, as well as the significance of Wagner as a figure who inspired the modern in the context of the concept of “noise” in the twentieth century. I argue that the relationship between the affective and the cerebral validate the impact Wagner’s sublime had on composition in the twentieth century.

 

I always insisted that the new music was merely a logical development of musical resources. But of what use can theoretical explanations be, in comparison with the effect the subject itself makes on the listener? What good can it do to tell a listener, ‘This music is beautiful’, if he does not feel it? How could I win friends with this kind of music? (Schoenberg 50)

 

Schoenberg, famous for his treatise on counterpoint that led the Second Viennese School (Stein xi), here contends that the production of new art finds its significance in undertaking to evolve old art. In the previous chapter, we have established that Wagner’s work was fundamental in spurring the art of composers who came after him. However, rather than being lauded for his ability to evoke emotion in the listener, he is criticised for writing cheap music, written for the primary purpose of gaining the favour of the masses. Schoenberg here upholds the value of the affective, disputing Nietzsche’s dichotomy of the beautiful and the sublime by suggesting that beauty is determined by the affective nature of the art, to be determined by the listener.

 

The affective can be understood as the intuitive understanding of art. The audience, when listening to music, relates to the affective when he is moved by the music that he hears. While the affective is often thought to be subjective in nature and is difficult to be quantified by theory, I posit that breaking this affective music down into the simple analysis of its melody, tonal structure, and harmony can lend insight into its affective qualities.

 

One who assumes that counterpoint is cerebral while melody is spontaneous would be forced, in the face of these two examples, to conclude that cerebral products can be written faster than those of spontaneous feeling. But nothing could be more erroneous; the one as well as the other may require much or little work. Whether much or little labour is necessary depends on circumstances about which we have no control. Only one thing is certain, at least to me: without inspiration neither could be accomplished. (Schoenberg 67)

 

Counterpoint, a “technique of combining several melodic lines into a meaningful whole” (Kamien 62), is based off the relationship between simultaneously sounding melodic lines. The writing of counterpoint requires a keen understanding of harmony, as well as a careful arrangement of both the horizontal and vertical structures of the melodies such that the resultant arrangement of tones obeys the laws of music theory. This tedious process is often thought of as a superior mode of composition to the simple harmonic accompaniment to a melody. Schoenberg’s music, though using a tonal and harmonic language that differs from earlier Western musical traditions, is notable for its use of counterpoint, where his music is carefully constructed with a system of arrangement of tones, in accordance to his specific musical language.

 

Here, Schoenberg admits to the paralleled dichotomy between the cerebral and affective, with an emphasis on counterpoint and melody. He highlights the assumption that the affective and the melodic require less effort and time to be written, whereas the cerebral and counterpoint are more cumbersome to write. He dismisses this claim, stating that both are equally difficult to write, and are equally spawned by inspiration. This view differs from that of Nietzsche who professes in the same breath that “nothing is more dangerous than a beautiful melody” that originates from passion and that “nothing is cheaper than passion” (CW 624), therefore equating low value to beautiful melodies. Unlike the modal soundscape of the nineteenth century, Schoenberg’s art was developed in the twentieth century, where he birthed a new system of tonal understanding. In Schoenberg’s context, devoid of tonicity – or at the very least, traditional tonality – the “beautiful melody” also becomes more difficult to quantify.

 

To Schoenberg, having deconstructed tonality as it was understood in the nineteenth century, crafting a beautiful melody may have been as calculated as counterpoint, resulting in his assertion that “spontaneous feeling” is not sufficient to craft the affective. The affective melody, even in the tonal realm of the nineteenth century, is thus not generated easily through mere spontaneity, but because of a familiarity with the given tonal landscape. Conversely, Schoenberg attests that counterpoint “is honoured by the highest appreciation but tolerated only if it does not destroy the warmth of the dreams into which the charm of the beautiful has led the listener” (Schoenberg 54), suggesting that both the cerebral nature of counterpoint and the affective nature of beauty must come hand in hand for the music to have a holistic quality.

 

But if I now put it as follows: consonances are easier to understand that dissonances; and though dissonances are harder to understand, they are not incomprehensible (as the history of music indeed proves) so long as they occur in the right surroundings – then nobody will be able to dispute them…. Nowadays one could state it as follows: dissonance may be put on an equality with consonance so far as comprehensibility is concerned. Moreover: the question whether dissonances or consonances should be used, and to what extent, is not a question of beauty, but only a question of comprehensibility. (Schoenberg 101)

 

Schoenberg’s understanding of harmony is as complex as his understanding of melody, simply because his idea of tonal structure is in itself complex. In Wagner’s nineteenth century harmonic language, the use of chromaticism was a notable phenomenon (Kamien 279). Coloured harmony, which was fundamentally a construct aided by dissonance, became the method used in harmonic language to create the surge of emotion that characterised Romantic music. The pivotal rebellious idea of chromaticism is the blurring of tonicity by involvement of anything that is outside the diatonic; possibility in harmonic analysis is then multiplied between the use of the enharmonic and harmonic alteration. By the twentieth century, dissonance became common, and with atonality and Schoenberg’s twelve-tone system, dissonance became integrated into harmonic language. Here, Schoenberg explains that consonance is perceived to be more easily understood because it is familiar, but if the listener has sufficient knowledge to understand the dissonant and is familiar enough with the language of dissonance, it will become comprehensible.

 

Schoenberg also hints at the understanding of either consonance or dissonance in the “right surroundings”. The context in which dissonance becomes a matter of discomfort is when it is placed in the context of consonance, such that the dissonance becomes a suspension that requires resolution by a return to consonance (SW 65). In Schoenberg’s musical language, the reverse is true; surrounded by dissonance, consonance would produce a suspension that yearns for a resolve to dissonance. Dissonance thus becomes a sort of tension mechanism that negotiates an ebb and flow of energy, drawing attention to difference rather than to dissonance itself. It is this ebb and flow of energy that evokes emotion from the listener, lending to its affective quality. Dissonance in harmony is thus key in lending to the affective, and whilst it is a matter of the cerebral, it appeals to even the uneducated listener.

 

Schoenberg’s effort to “emancipate the dissonance,” to expand the possibilities of harmonic expression, gave dissonance a particular cultural cachet in the early twentieth century. Adorno’s philosophical reflections on dissonance, which should not be conflated with Schoenberg’s own program, emphasized its negative critical potential, its ability to expose the false rationality of mainstream systems of knowledge. The literary effort to reproduce the emotional or cognitive effects of dissonance likewise requires the writer to test the limits of representational language, to struggle against too-transparent modes of reading the world. (SN xxi)

 

In his work on ‘Sublime Noise’, Epstein speaks of the concept of ‘noise’ in an abstract form, with reference to the immense quantity of discourse and production of art that exists in the cultural, scholarly, political, and social spheres, and argues “that noise and music—as mutually informing sonic presences and as aesthetic and cultural categories—shape the writing of the early twentieth century” (SN xv-xvi). Whilst much of his work relates to writing in the literary, I extract some of his discourse on the musical and cultural to argue for the significance of Wagner’s sublime in contributing to this ‘noise’ in the twentieth century.

 

The discourse on Adorno’s “reflections on dissonance” here can be summarised as the function of the dissonant sound. Adorno notes with reference to Wagner’s work that “within a system totally dominated by semitone steps, without any opposing force, it becomes for the first time somehow bland and static” (SW 64-5). This is similar to my reasoning for the affective nature of the dissonant-consonant relation, where it is the differentiation of one from the other that provides the “opposing force” that moves the music from the “static” to the affective. Adorno also speaks of the “emancipation of the dissonance from its resolution” (SW 65), but this is dissociated from Schoenberg’s attempt to “emancipate the dissonance”. In the context of Wagner’s work, Adorno speaks of dissonance as “pure sound effects” (SW 65); dissonance, or the semi-tone, is thus integrated into Wagner’s harmonic language such that it becomes the norm, and merely a mode of expansive expression. The “emancipation of the dissonance” is thus a justification of Wagner’s constant use of dissonance, such that it requires liberation from its constant need to resolve itself. This is based on the premise that the dissonance in Wagner’s harmonic language is tension-inducing and hence yearns for a resolution. The need for the dissonance to resolve in Wagner’s music thus points to the neutral state of consonance in his harmonic language; whilst dissonance becomes normality in Wagner’s music because of its excessive use, the neutral state in the tonal Wagnerian language is still the consonant. 

 

However, in Schoenberg’s work where tonal structure is in accordance with his twelve-tone system, a completely different harmonic language is used, resulting in a different understanding of dissonance. Epstein’s reference to “Schoenberg’s effort to ‘emancipate the dissonance’” in order “to expand the possibilities of harmonic expression” is thus different from Adorno’s reference of Wagner because Schoenberg’s harmonic language is a different one. In the context of Schoenberg’s work, dissonance is emancipated from the bearings of the tonal realm and instead becomes all-prevalent in the language of the twelve-tone system; Schoenberg’s liberation of dissonance thus effectively normalises dissonance within the ideals of the twelve-tone system.

 

Epstein also speaks of the “emotional or cognitive effects of dissonance”, which has relation to “modes of reading the world”. The prevalence of dissonance within the structures of harmonic language in the nineteenth century and the subsequent normalising of this dissonance in the twentieth century is very much representative of the ‘noise’ of the cultural sphere which Epstein speaks of. As with Wagner, dissonance was considered an effigy of tension in nineteenth century harmonic language, and paralleled the increase in ‘noise’ with the rise of capitalism, the prelude to industrialisation, and the increase in political and scholarly ‘noise’. The sudden burst of ‘noise’ at the turn of the twentieth century with the two World Wars, increased critical thought, the advent of industrialisation, and the diversification of cultural and artistic movements were all so overwhelming that this ‘noise’ became normalised; the normalisation of this noise, like the normalisation of dissonance in Schoenberg’s harmonic language, becomes a new lens used in “reading the world”. Dissonance, which we established appeals to both the affective (or “emotional”) and cerebral (or “cognitive”), thus assumes this new duty as a mode of understanding the world and the “noise” that it produces.

 

Wagner’s influence as a historical figure thus becomes weightier, when the concept of ‘noise’ becomes significant in the twentieth century. Besides his use of dissonance, Wagner’s sublime is also perceived as cultural ‘noise’ in two senses: ‘noise’ in the massiveness of the work and its flurry of activity, as well as ‘noise’ as art that produces further discourse and commentary.

 

The sublime nature of Wagner’s art, as we have established in the first chapter, appeals to the large for both aesthetic and capitalist gain, and is not merely large quantities of empty sound, but is incredibly detailed. This massiveness of Wagner’s work, and the minutiae within the large soundscapes, performs the role of cultural noise that embodies a codified message – as all art aims to – which is revealed in its staging. Wagner’s work contributes especially to this cultural ‘noise’ because its sublime presence was felt very strongly in nineteenth century German society; the Ring cycle would have had a formidable presence in the nineteenth century, especially with the building of the Bayreuth theatre as advertisement. Moreover, as Wagner’s works were popular in the nineteenth century, the message of his art would have been wide-spread, hence allowing the ‘sublime noise’ to be heard. The detail within Wagner’s sublime as spelt out in the second chapter, as well as the multi-dimensional Gesamtkunstwerk, provide substance to the ‘sublime noise’ that Wagner’s work becomes in contributing to cultural discourse.

 

Epstein’s work in itself is self-reflexive in explaining how Wagner’s sublime might be understood as cultural ‘noise’ that produces discourse. The writings of Nietzsche, Adorno, Schoenberg, and Epstein which we have discussed in detail, as well as all other writings in the genre of the polemics, all contribute to the scholarly ‘noise’ that Epstein speaks of. The significance of this type of cultural ‘noise’ is that this discourse becomes a foundation for all other discourse that follows, propagating further commentary which cyclically reincarnates the need for increased ‘noise’. As ‘noise’ pertaining to critical thought, this discourse holds the power to influence political and social thought; just as Nietzsche’s work incited a degrading of Wagner’s aesthetic and connoted his art with propagandistic intention in the anti-Semitic movement, discourse that follows in criticism of art of the twentieth century and beyond hold the same political and social influence.

 

This materialisation of cultural ‘noise’ is plainly seen in Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring, which is a good representation of the “lived sonic experience” (SN xxvii). In this work, originally written as a ballet, Stravinsky illustrates the advent of industrialisation in Russia with harmonic language that is very much influenced by Schoenberg’s ideology. The soundscape that is produced is directly representative of the ‘noise’ present in the industrialised Russian twentieth century society; the artwork here becomes reflexive of the state of society, thus using the “emotional or cognitive effects of dissonance” as a “mode of reading the world” (SN xxi). At the time of its premiere, this work was not well received, and in his critique of reviews of this work as ‘noise’, Epstein singles out a critic who maps poor literary technique into his review (SN 14). On a meta level, this review, which is itself ‘noise’, uses the literary – albeit poorly – to attempt evoking the affective, and uses this affect to criticise a work of art that merges the affective and the cerebral to produce dissonance that represents cultural ‘noise’. The cyclic nature of the production and repercussions of ‘noise’ is evidenced in this singular work, and demonstrates the compounding effect of this ‘sublime noise’.

 

Through textual modes of dissonance and rhythm, modernists continually reinterpret noise as a symptom of the artwork’s public circulation. Through dissonance, I contend, the artwork is heard to mediate the shocks of noise in discrete simultaneous (“vertical”) moments; through rhythm, including the newly jarring off-beats of modern music, it is heard in parallel (“horizontal”) relation to the passage of historical time. (SN 2-3)

           

Dissonance, which is a concern of both the cerebral and the affective, thus becomes cultural ‘noise’ “as a symptom of the artwork’s public circulation”, primarily because of the message of activity, discontentment, or discord that it embodies. On a metaphysical level, the output of artists thus become an expression of society’s progress and concerns, and relates not just to the events of the day but also of the events across “the passage of historical time”. The message embodied by dissonance, which finds its footing in the relationship between the cerebral and the sublime, thus justifies the influence of Wagner’s sublime on the music and cultural thought of the twentieth century.

 

…music itself must fight for its right to exist: in a battle-music of a different kind, music must struggle to carve out an autonomous niche for art amidst this “exordium” of violence. The more music disavows its material status as “expensive noise,” the more it struggles to claim for itself an inviolable cultural status; amidst such a noise, to assert an autonomy for music requires a kind of willful deafness to the crescendoing hum of modern life, what Emily Thompson has called “the soundscape of modernity.” (SN xvi-xvii)

           

Amidst the abundance of this ‘noise’, the modern artist can either shy from competition in finding his space to sound his message or confront this ‘noise’ in courageous attempts to add to the pool of composition, running the risk of having his voice drowned out. The likely dampening of musical material, or art of any kind, confers the world of music with the challenge of evading the demoralising capacity of the “soundscape of modernity” and the “‘exordium’ of violence” to produce new material despite the conditions of ‘sublime noise’. The new status of music as “expensive noise” becomes harmful in capitalist society, where music is connoted as auxiliary and deserving to be disposed of.

 

However, Epstein’s assertion that “a twentieth-century world without noise would make it difficult to articulate the value of music” (SN xv) is logical, recalling an understanding of the aesthetic. The aesthetic value of music is compromised when it is devoid of the context in which it is composed, simply because the art would not be a legitimate representation of the condition of the artist or the artist’s society; a re-definition of the aesthetic or the ‘system of principles for the appreciation of the beautiful’ (OED) is thus called for in response to the changing perceptions of beauty; whilst beautiful melodies were valued in Wagner’s society, Schoenberg’s art posited a very different concept of beauty that did not follow the conventions of lyricism, but this did not disqualify the aesthetic merit of his art. ‘Noise’ must thus be incorporated into the idea of aesthetics, as a representation of cultural demand. The increasingly sublime nature of this ‘noise’, due to an exponentially increasing diversification of culture, ideology, politics, and scholarship, would result in a greater variation to the qualification of the aesthetically pleasing. The dissonance or ‘noise’ produced in society as a result of the relationship between the affective and the cerebral, which stemmed from the conflict within Wagner’s sublime, has thus had an immense impact on twentieth century art and continues to plague our modern world with revised ideology.

 

Conclusion

 

Evidently, it must be music which, though it is still music, differs in all essentials from previously composed music. Evidently it must express something which has not yet been expressed in music. Evidently, in higher art, only that is worth being presented which has never before been presented. There is no great work of art which does not convey a new message to humanity; there is no great artist who fails in this respect (Schoenberg 114)

 

If we understand every movement in music history as a rebellion of the past, the composer is then tasked with an immense burden of being torchbearer for the future in every instance. The composer’s knowledge must encompass all of music history to be able to pave the way for the ‘new’, which is mutable in accordance to every slight change in society and every new art that is produced, and must produce art that is of substance – art that encodes a message. Whilst notorious for anti-Semitism and Fascist writing, Wagner was also acclaimed for the accessibility of his music, his appealing sublime works, and his innovative use of narrative amongst other things. On multiple levels, Wagner embodies the identity of the forward-looking artist who envisions the ‘new’.

 

Having first established Wagner’s claim to the sublime and then negotiated its aesthetic value, this thesis has disputed much of Nietzsche and Adorno’s disfavouring of Wagner’s ideology. Instead, a validation of the aesthetic value of Wagner’s art – encompassing the musical, literary, dramatic, and visual – is found, as well as an understanding of the implications of capitalism on Wagner’s sublime.

 

Despite suggestion that Wagner’s sublime, which was constructed in part for mass appeal, is devalued because of its accessibility to an uneducated audience, an analysis of four features of Wagner’s operas that subscribe to the intelligence of his congregation – the leitmotiv, narrative structure, timbre, and organisation of time – proves otherwise. The historical Wagner, who incorporates cerebral elements in his art, is thus evidenced to be a figure of inspiration for artists who follow after him.

 

The final stage of deconstructing Wagner’s sublime involved a study of the dichotomy of the affective and the cerebral; whilst Wagner is commonly associated with the affective, having extracted elements of the cerebral from his work, there is a conclusion that both the affective and the cerebral are essential in endorsing the artistic produce of the twentieth century, borne from reaction to Wagner’s sublime. The understanding of the concept of ‘noise’ as a construct of the modern representative of cultural context and social discourse provides a foundation for the artist to produce ‘new’ art.

 

Ultimately, Wagner proves himself as a figure that historicises the sublime as a phenomenon that invites rebellion, as well as a versatile artist who caters to both the educated and the uneducated listener, without compromising on capital gain or his forward-looking demeanour. In creating ‘noise’ with his detailed sublime, Wagner basks in the ample ‘noise’ that is generated by his art.

 

 

List of Works Cited

 

Adorno, Theodor W. Aesthetic Theory. Ed. Gretel Adorno and Rolf Tiedemann. Trans.  Robert Hullot-Kentor. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota, 1997. Print.

 

Adorno, Theodor W. In Search of Wagner. London: Verso, 1991. Print.

 

Epstein, Joshua Benjamin. Sublime Noise: Musical Culture and the Modernist Writer. Dissertation, Vanderbilt University, 2008.

 

Epstein, Joshua Benjamin. Sublime Noise: Musical Culture and the Modernist Writer. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2014. Project MUSE.

 

Hillier, Paul. Oxford Studies of Composers: Arvo Pärt. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997. Print.

 

Kamien, Roger. Music: An Appreciation. McGraw-Hill Education, 2008. Print.

 

Nietzsche, Friedrich. The Birth of Tragedy. New York: Modern Library, 2000. Print.

 

Nietzsche, Friedrich. The Case of Wagner. New York: Modern Library, 2000. Print.

 

Prokofiev, Sergei. Peter and the Wolf. 1936.

 

Schafer, Murray R. Epitaph for Moonlight. 1968.

 

Schoenberg, Arnold. Style and Idea: Selected Writings. Ed. Leonard Stein. Trans. Leo Black. London: Faber & Faber, 1975. Print.

 

Stein, Leonard, editor. Arnold Schoenberg: Preliminary Exercises in Counterpoint. Faber and Faber LImited , 1963.

 

Vande Moortele, Steven. “Form, Narrative and Intertextuality in Wagner's Overture to "Der fliegende Holländer."” Music Analysis, vol. 32, no. 1, 2013, pp. 46-79.

 

Wagner, Richard. Der Fliegende Holländer. G Schimer, 1897. Print.

 

List of Works Consulted

 

Badiou, Alain. Five Lessons on Wagner. Trans. Susan Spitzer. London: Verso, 2010. Print.

 

Baragwanath, Nicholas. “The Case Of Wagner, Adorno, And Horkheimer.” Music and Letters, vol. 87, no. 1, 2006, pp. 52-71.

 

Berry, Mark. “Adorno’s Essay on Wagner: Rescuing an Inverted Panegyric.” The Opera Quarterly, vol. 30, no. 2-3, pp. 205-227.

 

Kramer, Lawrence. Musical Meaning: Toward a Critical History. Berkeley: University of California, 2002. Print.

 

Restagno, Enzo, Leopold Brauneiss, Saale Kareda, and Arvo Pärt. Arvo Pärt in Conversation. Trans. Robert Crow. Champaign: Dalkey Archive, 2012. Print.

 

Rosen, Charles. Romantic Poets, Critics, and Other Madmen. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1998. Print.

 

Serres, Michel. The Parasite. Trans. Lawrence R. Schehr. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2007. Print.

 

Žižek, Slavoj. "Afterword: Wagner, Anti-Semitism and 'German Ideology'" Five Lessons on Wagner. London: Verso, 2010. 161-225. Print.