I am delighted to present here a philosophical research article, co-authored with Marta Vigano, on the interpretation and reception of Wagner’s work. It is the result of research carried out as part of a philosophy seminar at Sorbonne University.
ABSTRACT
The aim of our research is to examine the philosophical implications, first of all, of a scathing critique of Wagner by Nietzsche (a sick work symptomatic of a sick modernity), then by Adorno (a bourgeois work that foreshadows the art of mass societies). Two critiques which, in reality, echo some of the very same arguments that underpin Wagner’s true modernity, both on a musicological level and in terms of the aesthetic conditions under which Wagner’s musical drama is received. However, this criticism, with its strong pathological undertones, took on a moral tone after the Nazi era, and its political recovery of Wagner’s musical drama, particularly in the writings of Jankélévitch (who believed that the monumentality of Wagner’s work was perfectly consistent with Nazi ideology, referring to an ‘unspeakable’ that cannot be articulated but closes off all possibility, which he contrasts with the immanent charm of French music, which conveys an ‘ineffable’ — also a mystery — but which opens up new possibilities). We have thus observed that this sense of guilt has manifested itself among Wagnerian performers through the end of the Mozartian, light-hearted Wagner of the golden age, embodied by a new heaviness in the orchestra (notably illustrated by an evolution in the style of Wilhelm Furtwaengler’s approach, between 1937 and 1954). Finally, we examined attempts to rehabilitate Wagner’s work: on the one hand, a modernist approach with Wieland Wagner, and on the other, a socialist one with Patrice Chéreau, both of which contributed to making Wagner’s work relevant and acceptable again by aligning aesthetic qualities with ethical concerns (Wieland Wagner by focusing on the characters’ interpersonal relationships, Chéreau by replacing the overthrow of the gods by men with the overthrow of the powerful by the people). We also posed another contrast regarding accessibility between seriousness and Hollywood-style spectacle, and on the orchestral level between James Levine and Leopold Stokowski. In conclusion, we argued that Wagner’s music draws its strength from a materiality, that is particularly illustrated in its revival in contemporary film music (notably in John Boorman’s Excalibur).
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