Wagner, Schumann, and the Lessons of Beethoven's Ninth

Christopher Alan Reynolds is Professor of Music at University of California, Davis, and author of Papal Patronage and the Music of St. Peter's, 1380--1513 and Motives for Allusion: Context and Content in Nineteenth-Century Music (which was a finalist for the Otto Kinkeldey Award from the American Musicological Society in 2004). He is a past president of the American Musicological Society.

• Preface Acknowledgments Introduction 1. Wagner's Faustian Understanding of Beethoven's Ninth 2. The Impact of the Ninth on The Flying Dutchman 3. Wagner, Thematic Dispersion, and Contrary Motion 4. Schumann, Thematic Dispersion, and Contrary Motion 5. Late Schumann, Wagner, and Bach 6. Brahms's Triple Response to the Ninth 7. Wagner and Schumann Appendix 1: Citations of Wagner's Possible Allusions and Influences in The Flying Dutchman Appendix 2: Contrary Motion Counterpoint in the First Movement of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony Appendix 3: Contrary Motion Counterpoint in The Flying Dutchman Appendix 4: Contrary Motion Counterpoint in the Fourth Movement of Schumann's Second Symphony Appendix 5: Contrary Motion Counterpoint in the First Movement of Brahms's First Symphony Abbreviations Notes Works Cited Index

"Wagner, Schumann, and the Lessons of Beethoven's Ninth is a fascinating new examination... It is as though a careful magnifying glass were held to past interactions between two very different composers..." -- Nancy Lorraine The Midwest Book Review "This is a multilayered book. It is on one level a formidable piece of forensic musical detective work displaying detailed critical understanding of the works in question through identification of influences and tracing of possible thematic cross-references across generic boundaries; on another it is a musically highly intelligent study of interactive compositional processes in the different but related guises of operatic and instrumental music." Music & Letters