Richard Wagner

In this new biography of Richard Wagner, Joachim Khler draws on social and political analysis, documentary interpretation, and psychological insights to paint a rounded picture of Wagner as both a controversial historical phenomenon and a complex human being. Khlers reading of the letters, diaries, and other documents of the main protagonists, some of them unfamiliar even to seasoned Wagnerians, results in some breathtaking but convincing reappraisals. He examines Wagners love affairs with Jessie Laussot, Mathilde Wesendonck, and Judith Gautier and assesses their lasting emotional effect. He re-evaluates Wagners relationships with his mother, step-father, sister, andmost revealinglyhis wife, Cosima, a relationship seen as based on fear rather than love. Khler explores the philosophical roots of Wagners work, which the composer himself deliberately obfuscated. And he analyzes Wagners relationship with King Ludwig, whom Wagner is revealed to have blackmailed, and with Nietzsche, whom he tried to destroy. The traumas of his youth haunted Wagner throughout his life, as his emotional development underlay his notorious anti-semitism. Khlers interpretation of Wagners dreams, as recorded in Cosimas diaries, offers astonishing insights into the paranoia and insecurity of a man who was one of the leading composers of his age.