Wagner's Relevance For Today Adorno PDF

Jean Stein
Wagner's Relevance for Today

Author(s): Theodor W. Adorno and Susan Gillespie
Source: Grand Street, No. 44 (1993), pp. 32-59
Published by: Jean Stein
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25007612
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THEODOR W. ADORNO
Wagner's Relev
for Today
This essay is drawnfrom a lecture given in Septemb

the Berliner Festspielwochen.
O f the countless aspects with which

presents us, I select one at random,
able for the lecture form: the question
relevance for today, of the perspective
consciousness toward his work-assuming that
erally of such a perspective. What is meant is a
ness: consciousness that is equal to the Wagneri
itself occupies an advanced standpoint in its dev
thirty years ago I wrote a book, In Search of Wagn
chapters appeared in the ZeitschriftfuirSozialforsc
entire book did not appear until much later, in 19
my return to Germany. Today I would formulate
book differently. Its central problem, that of the
societal aspects on the one hand and compositi
aspects on the other, might have to be argued
within the subject matter than it was then. But I
myself from the book, nor am I abandoning th
regard to Wagner the situation has changed gen
*A translation by Rodney Livingstone was published in

[All footnotes are the translator's.]
33
THEODOR W. ADORNO
I_
i .: I
7annhduser, Hoftheater Munich, 1861; drawing by Michael Echte
I would like to present-not as a revision of what I onc

but as a way of taking into account what has newly c
attention about Wagner-some divergences from the o
We have gained distance over the past thirty years
no longer represents, as he did in my youth, the wor
parents, but that of one's grandparents instead. A rath
place symptom: I can still remember quite well from m
how my mother lamented the demise of Italian vocal a
caused by the Wagnerian style of singing. Today that
self beginning to die out; it is exceedingly difficult to
singers who are up to it. The well-known and hypocri
cized system of guest singers, by which a handful of t
mous Wagner singers are lent around, so to speak, fr
production to the next, is not just an aberration. The
ginning to regress to precisely that phase that had shown
light of Wagner, to be outdated. Wagner no longer po
boundless authority of the earlier time. But what rose
that authority was not so much a critically intervent
sciousness, in disagreement with the triumphal lord, a
one: the ambivalence one feels toward a formerly bel
34
WAGNER'S RELEVANCE FOR TODAY
that must now be consigned to the past, whatever

rate, we have gained much freedom toward W
of consideration: the affective tie to him has lo
If, thanks to this freedom, I may now make
about the historical changes in the attitude tow
I cannot ignore the political aspect. Too much
been visited on living beings for a consideration
be purely aesthetic to close its eyes to it. Yet th
sciousness toward Wagner may also change pol
of nationalism that he embodied, especially in h
into National Socialism, which could draw on h
lain and Rosenberg,* for its rationalization. Wit
of nations into blocs this is no longer so immedi
therefore it also begins to recede in the work. H
not overestimate this. As the National Socialist
ues to smolder within the German reality, now
still present in Wagner. This begins to touch on
difficulty he affords for present-day consciousnes
plause that one may still encounter following a
say, Die Meistersinger, the self-affirmation of the
hears from within Wagner's music, still has som
the old virulent evil; the question of whether
should be performed can be separated only wren
acknowledgment of such demagogy. At an earlie
to localize this demagogy precisely in the purely
form. But, if I am allowed to express myself so pe
my criticism has now earned me the right to em
outlasted it. My own experience with Wagner d
itself in the political content, as unredeemable as t
I often have the impression that in laying it b
away one level only to see another emerge from
admittedly, that I was by no means uncovering for
any rate, the private objections to Wagner's person
* Houston Stewart Chamberlain (1855-1927), author

Grundlagen des 19. Jahrhunderts [Foundations of the N
Alfred Rosenberg (1893-1946), anti-Semitic ideologue a
Mythos des 20. Jahrhunderts [The Myth of the Twentiet
Germany, Rosenberg's book was second in popularity on
35
THEODOR W. ADORNO
that are still all the rage have something unspe

about them; anyone who drags them out gets sw
too, previously included his person among the s
cussion, it was because I was thinking of his so
private individual as the exponent and locus of
not of the individual in his psychological arbitra
so many people imagine they are qualified to pas
connection is not made between the power of ar
that was concentrated in him and the society, wha
are made against him are pure philistinism, not
the contemptible genre of fictionalized biograp
remind ourselves, as a corrective, of the great b
man*-anything but semi-official-which justif
how dishonest was the indignation over Wagne
for example, in view of the fact that during all th
in emigration the theaters earned a fortune at h
he had to do without.
The merely aesthetic anti-Wagnerianism rode th
called neo-Classical movement-politically not at
which is linked primarily to the name of Igor Strav
ment is not only chronologically passe; it also su
nal exhaustion. As the perceptible sign of its cap
Stravinsky himself made use of the very techni
his movement had originally honed its polem
the Schoenberg school. This has to do not only
of the times, but also with the deficiency that
Classicism; its historical impossibility becomes
defect. The tendency that is now emerging in
Classicism, and exposing by contrast the decorat
is implicit in the latter, is producing many thin
to do with Wagner than with those individuals
thirty or forty years have enjoyed playing the
nents. The second Vienna School, that of Arn
which exercises a decisive influence on the mos
porary music, took Wagner as its immediate poi
This was precisely one of the things people used
* Ernest Newman, The Life of Richard Wagner, 4 vols., New Yo

1933-47.
36
WA G NER'S RELE VANCE FOR TODA Y
7'yistan und Is Br
Tristan und Isolde, Bayreuth, 1886; drawing by Carlo Brioschi
in the very early Schoenberg as a cheap way of discred

mature musician.
But what has changed about Wagner, in the interim
merely his impact on others, but his work itself, in it
is what forms the basis of his relevance; not some pos
second triumph or the welljustified defeat of the neo-
As spiritual entities, works of art are not complete in th
They create a magnetic field of all possible intentions an
of inner tendencies and countervailing ones, of succ
necessarily unsuccessful elements. Objectively, new laye
stantly detaching themselves, emerging from within; ot
irrelevant and die off. One relates to a work of art not
is often said, by adapting it to fit a new situation, but
deciphering within it things to which one has a historica
ent reaction. The position of consciousness toward Wagn
experience as my own whenever I encounter him, and w
only mine, is even more deserving of the appellation "am
than the earlier position-an oscillation between attr
repulsion. This only points back to the Janus-like char
the work itself. Undoubtedly, every art of significanc
37
THEODOR W. ADORNO
something like this, Wagner's especially. As pr

gressive traits are intertwined in his work, so also
After what has occurred, it is self-evident that one
sive position toward him politically. This was true
and has remained so in view of the possibility
of the powers that, like their patron goddess Er
have gone on sleeping. In this regard, reality ta
over art. Still open is the question of how the a
siveness relates to the possibility of performing
not, by the way-and here I touch on something
imagine that it is possible to separate out the id
in Wagner and hold on to pure art as a kind of pur
For the demagogic, the proselytizing, the collecti
ture reaches right into the inner complexion o
the suspect element is amalgamated with its opp
other hand-and this is a part of the ambivalenc
of consciousness-among those resisting Wagner
individuals, even today, who have simply not ke
Among them is his greatest critic, Nietzsche. Th
movement, the first large-scale incidence of res
modern art in Germany, has formed a fatal a
music (so-called) and young people's music, devo
and the like; their preferred tactic has been to
favorably with newly unearthed composers like
and to mobilize against him forces that would c
differentiated and complex art with stupefacti
thing like a right-wing, petit bourgeois opposit
may be that he was resisted by a good bourgeois
insistence on the responsibility and autonomy o
but also by a bad one, a stuffy and dense narro
which Wagner is unalterably opposed. His music
to a degree shared by very few other things t
mitted into the German pantheon. Orthodox op
on, responded to this aspect of Wagner by comm
self-righteous purity.
Ambivalence is a relation toward something o
tered; one behaves ambivalently toward a thing
has not come to terms. In response to this, the
would be, quite simply, to experience the Wagne
38
WAGNER'S RELEVANCE FOR TODA Y
lannhauser, Bayreuth, 1891; Cosima Wagner, director; M

designer
something that to this day, despite all the external successes, has
not been accomplished. Tristan, Parsifal, the most significant ele
ments of the Ring are always more praised than truly appreci
ated. It is grotesque that in the Ring, then as now, Die Walkure
still plays the most prominent role, on account of such selections
as "Winterstiurme wichen dem Wonnemond," or Wotan's farewell
and the firestorm-in other words, on account of what in Vienna
are called Stuckeri, or little numbers. As such, they fly in the face
of the Wagnerian idea. The incomparably greater architecture of
Siegfried, in contrast, has never quite found its way into the public
consciousness. At best, the opera-going public suffers through it as
a cultural monument. The works of Wagner that have failed to win
the appreciation of the public are precisely the most modern ones,
those the most boldly progressive in technique and therefore the
farthest removed from convention. Their modernity should not be
misconceived as superficial, as a matter of the means they employ,
simply because they make greater use of dissonances, enharmonic
and chromatic elements, than the others. Wagnerian modernity is
of a different order; it towers decisively over everything it leaves in
39
THEODOR W. ADORNO
its wake. Wagner is the first case of uncompromi

inalism, if I may use the philosophical term: hi
in which the primacy of the individual work of a
work, the primacy of the figure in its concrete, e
are established fundamentally over any kind o
nally imposed form. He was the first to draw
from the contradiction between traditional for
ditional formal language of music as a whole,
artistic tasks at hand. The contradiction had a
felt, rumblingly, in Beethoven, and in essenti
his late style. Wagner, then, realized without r
binding, truly general character of musical wo
found, if at all, only through the medium of t
and concretion, and not by recourse to any kin
Therefore, contrary to the opinion of the ma
on Wagner by Hans Gal,* Wagner's criticism of
very great weight, both theoretically and artistica
trivialized by the simplistic assertion that Wagne
opera composer, basically no different from oth
up with some secondary theories to use for his
distic purposes. His verdict that opera was child
music should finally come of age, cannot be re
form, is something historically emergent and tra
locate Wagner's place within the genre is to deny
is inherent in the history of this form. It is no a
ber operas, when they occur today, as in the R
are possible only in a refracted mode, as styli
Wagnerians who return, in this manner, to th
recognize or acknowledge, in the irony with wh
the numbers and set pieces, that the verdict W
such categories remains in force. He clearly f
tion between the general and the particular in
then had been crystallizing in mere unconsciou
nium made its incorruptible decision that noth
exist, except in the extreme of particularity.
* Hans Gal (1890-1987), Austrian composer and teacher

tion (by Hans-Hubert Shonzeler) of Gal's Richard Wagn
1976 (London: Stein & Day).
40
WAGNER'S RELEVANCE FOR TODA Y
7annhauser7 Landestheater Darmstadt, 1930; Renato Mor
This, however, touches not only the form bu

of Wagner's art. In him, the artistic consciousn
tic, internally contradictory world was radicaliz
forms are as poorly adapted to this artistic co
silized relations are to critical insight. In this sens
productive. More than that. In the introduction
phy of history, which has become popular under t
History,* I found this sentence: "Mere desire, th
tality of the will, has no place in the theater and
history." This theorem of Hegel's, who was not
but also philosophically a classicist, is one to wh
adhere. In this, Wagner, who in his youth, befo
the ideas of Schopenhauer, is known to have be
enced by Feuerbach, was quite the revolutionar
His music shudders with the unrelieved violence
* Volume 1 of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel's Vorlesunge

der Geschichte [Lectures on the Philosophy of History] w
in der Geschichte: Einleitung in die Philosophie der Weltgesc
tory: Introduction to the Philosophy of World History
to the compilation published in English by Liberal Ar
History (New York, 1953).
41
THEODOR W. ADORNO
in the world order. One can raise all imaginable s

to the Wagnerian mythology, exposing it as chea
romanticism of false beards and bull's-eye windo
in comparison to all more moderate, detachedly
cist art, his work-especially the Ring-retains its
this mythological moment: that in it violence brea
same law that it was in the prehistoric world. In
modern works, prehistory persists as modernity
ters the facade of the bourgeois surface, and th
there shines enough of what has only now beco
and recognizable to suffice as proof of Wagner
today. Admittedly, his gesture, the thing his m
and Wagner's music, not merely his texts, is alw
something-is a gesture in favor of mythology.
might say, an advocate of violence, just as his pr
fies Siegfried, the man of violence. But when, in h
expresses itself in pure form, unobscured, in all
trapment, then the work, despite its mytholog
an indictment of myth, willingly or not. This
mund's indescribable emigre-music in the ope
the second act of Die Walkure. Richard Strauss is t
divinatory statement that Wagner strove to deli
by means of the leitmotif. One might conclude f
leitmotif-quasi-rational, identifying, unity-cre
halt the blind, diffuse, and deadly ambiguity of m
ner's surging sound reproduces. Through self-con
becomes something qualitatively different; the
lection of destruction marks its boundary.
That Wagner makes the case for myth, but ac
his creation, may provide the key to his dual c
mediate relevance for today is not of the species
renaissances. It approaches us from the vicinity
finished, like many things from the nineteenth
example being Ibsen. This can be illustrated by
ples, several of which I shall adduce. First, Wagn
Gal's book denies its relationship to modern har
ity, in stark contradiction to the fact that mod
developed by Schoenberg, after Verkldrte Nacht
of Wagner's. It is self-evident that Wagner was
42
WA G NER'S R EL E VA NCE FOR TODA Y
Siegfried, Bayreuth, 1952; Wieland Wagner, director and set d
would never have occurred to me to assert anything

All the tones and their combinations, even at their mos
example in Tristan and Parsifal, can be explained in
with the traditional teachings of harmony. At issue is
potential-not what one finds literally in the notes,
tend toward-and this, indeed, has decisively to do w
The preponderance of each particular harmonic eve
monic reference points, over triads and seventh ch
what will later come into its own as a consistent at
completely does away with the reference points. In
nance preponderates qualitatively, if not yet quanti
more power, more substantiality than consonance, a
compellingly in the direction of the new music. O
sions, Heinrich Schenker,* in his books, accused W
* Heinrich Schenker (1868-1935) was the author of sever

mony and counterpoint. His Harmonielehre was first publish
in 1906. There is an English translation by Elisabeth Mann B
University of Chicago Press, 1954).
43
THEODOR W. ADORNO
he could scarcely abide, of having destroyed the

line, despite his use of correct harmonic proced
in his odd terminology, means only that the ske
the entire musical progression along orderly steps w
functional harmony of thoroughbass and corres
is lacking. The observation is correct, but Schen
wrong. As a retrograde proponent of the power
abstract generalities in music, he failed to hear
supposed destruction, the emancipation of music
skeletal, abstract organization toward an organi
its specific forms, the irresistibly new element tha
dition of everything that was to come. The feelin
ground behind, of drifting into uncertainty, is
exciting and also compelling about the experien
music. Its innermost composition, the thing one m
to painting, call its peinture, can in fact be apprehe
ear that is willing to cast itself, as the music does,
Here we may state that what is relevant for today i
went unrecognized then and was therefore ne
nor appreciated.
I would like to elaborate on this principle by mea
cal detail; for it is impossible to speak-rather th
artistic phenomena if one does not at least prov
on their concrete technical complexion. It has b
to emphasize the principle of the sequence in th
of Wagner; I myself did so at one time. By seque
repetition of abbreviated motifs-in Wagner the
higher level, generally with dynamic, intensifying
ning out of the music, its essential fiber or text
more or less with the repetition of given eleme
to the essential technique of Viennese Classicism
ing Arnold Schoenberg's term, can be called t
developing variation. But however many sequen
Wagner, they by no means represent the sole pri
all, they themselves are already varied, frequentl
subtlety, in themselves. A perfect example wou
beginning of Tristan, two sequencings of one mo
extension of the sequence, it is already varied-m
a harmonic-modulatory sense decisively-in comp
44
original model, and only thus is it led back to

the reformulated dominant of the tonic A-m
principle in Wagner is by no means a crutch. It
chromaticism, the prevalence of the minor sec
the entire musical material, at least in the wor
which I am referring. On the one hand, the se
is intended to create the context that has vani
chromaticism, i.e., the abandonment of articul
steps that carry a different weight. But on th
this shows the close and modern way in which
to his own material-chromaticism itself embod
altogether dissimilar to the sequential principle
the smallest intervals corresponds to the repeti
musical events as they follow each other within
identity of the elements in the sequence, which f
is very closely related to the identity of the chro
even the principle of the sequence is not a mech
musicians may conclude all too hastily; it is muc
connected to the problems and tasks of the int
of Wagner's music than I was capable of comp
years ago.
In other of Wagner's works, it is true, things work quite differ
ently; in these-the less chromatic works-the sequential principle
plays no central role at all. The understanding of Wagner that is
due and would be relevant for today would have to inquire into
their structure. In Die Meistersinger, extensive musical differentia
tion is combined with a general absence of chromaticism, and
frequently with a deemphasizing of sequences in favor of a col
orful variety of individual forms. The continuity is created, over
long stretches, by an unconstrained redrawing of the dramatic
curve from moment to moment. The intact diatonic tonal struc
ture makes it possible to dispense with surface links. In this way, the
music achieves a concreteness of the irregular that traditional mu
sic never dreamed of. This would remain prototypical for Schoen
berg, for Berg, and for the most recent tendency: the trend toward
structures that are free, yet dense. The idea of a unity of constantly
changing situations, which in Wagner still oriented itself to the re
quirements of the dramatic action, has, to this day, not been fully
realized. It would provide the ideal model for a truly informal
45
I |
T H E O D O R W. A D O R N O
-
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_ S S
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I
_ ]
_S_!_
_E_
(,otte
proc
be b
men
in p
was
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The
touc
ner.
with
sical
that
degr
did a
tive,
form
form
date
pecu
solid
reac
lang
46
sic that appears to swing back and forth in the

the hand of an invisible puppeteer, has somethi
just as Wagner's supposedly so dynamic sequen
minates in a feeling of eternal sameness. In the mo
which draws so near to painting and the graph
toward the static becomes quite marked-here,
fully realized that Wagner had envisioned earlie
The accusation of formlessness misses the poi
everything that is not oriented toward traditional
of organization. In fact, without following any
Wagner's music is organized, articulated, archite
through in the highest degree. It was the great ac
Alfred Lorenz,* who is undeservedly forgotten,
first to see this. To deny that there is a formal pr
as Gal does, is simply an expedient way of elim
ing, the problem by ignoring it. No sooner ha
toward given formal norms disappeared than th
ing music compellingly in and of itself became
the formal types that Lorenz proposed, the bow
the concept of the bart-to which he surely ga
phasis, even if it is not completely unimportan
themselves much too abstract: mathematical, g
that fall short of Wagner's developmental princ
material theory of musical forms. As a particular c
art of transitions, which Wagner equated with t
tion, cannot be adequately explained by diagram
Wagner interpretation that is needed would be
to the details, how his forms, without borrowing,
and create themselves with compelling necessity f
occurs perhaps most splendidly in Siegfried-an
ing curve, further articulated so that each of the
* Alfred Lorenz (1868-1939) is the author of Das Geheimnis

Wagner [The Secret of Form in Richard Wagner], 4 vo
1924-34.
t Lorenz's term Bogenform (bow or arch form) denotes a musical form that
is roughly symmetrical, i.e., ABA or ABCBA. The "bar" stanza is the for
mal strophic design, AAB, based on German medieval Minnesang. Lorenz's
analysis of the extended use of this form in Die Meistersinger was influential
in reestablishing its importance for later composers as well.
47
THEODOR W. ADORNO
an additional ascent, the strongest of these in the

gether, probably the high point of Wagner's oeuv
to make the heretical suggestion that someone s
separate production of the third act of Siegfried b
viewers could devote themselves to it with comp
tion; not until then will we be able fully to compreh
it contains.
In connection with form I would like to say a few
color and orchestration. Wagner's mastery as an
unquestioned even by his opponents. The idea
strumentation* has long been recognized in Wag
the most delicate network of the composition in
ingly delicate network of instrumental colors and
the process. The orchestration, the tone colors,
of making the course of the musical events visib
most subtle details. To this extent it already create
must be further elaborated. Wagner's art of orche
exhaust itself in small-scale effects; it also answer
formal problem I have described above. Perhaps o
whatever Wagner did away with, in terms of general
placed with the wholly new, thoroughly individu
he gave to orchestration. Color itself became arc
this, too, Siegfried offers perhaps the best example.
levels, high and low, are articulated in the course
such a way that in the individual acts, as in the wor
uplift in the music corresponds to a rise in the p
Wagner achieves in the differentiation of color t
lution into the tiniest elements, he complement
the smallest values constructively to create somethin
color. His tendency is to take the tone, once it h
down into minimal units, and create great tonal s
broken fields; to take the fragments into which the
shattered, as Siegfried says in the enigmatic sword s
them back together into great homogeneous units
mally small elements can be combined flawlessly in
Anyone who is familiar with the formal problems
have no trouble recognizing the relationship this
* Ausinstrumentieren, also translated as "integrated instrume
48
WA G NER'S R EL E VANCE FOR TODA Y
(r e
G&oterdfimmerung, Bayreuth, 1
of differential and integra

unbroken tonal surface ba
one of the most important
creation of totality by me
the particular, which then
can be combined continuou
speaking, they actually ge
This is what lends Wagner
ity, the phenomenon that I
term, as totality, and that o
better call the tonal surfac
broken and richly nuance
surface, the melding of dif
thing that has attained its f
the incorporation of tone
Wagner's orchestration a
prevalent objections again
or have been rendered obs
him of being noisy; the c
49
THEODOR W. ADORNO
to accompany the history of the development of

As it happens, word has gotten around that the
tra in Bayreuth was hardly meant to encourage n
too, it would be better to begin at the extreme,
itself, to emphasize the creative brilliance of W
those instances where it stands in opposition to t
erate enjoyment, and simply cannot be listened
tion. At times, Wagner mobilizes extremes of loudne
anyone who knows the scores knows how sparin
fortissimo. But when it does turn fortissimo, the
thing happens resembling a protest against the m
consensus Wagner denounced in the knights of T
ridiculed in the guilds of Die Meistersinger. Barbaris
be equated with loudness, in his music, than the
of myth can be equated with the direct expressio
Barbarism ceases to be barbaric through its reflect
it becomes distanced, is even, if you will, criticized.
goes to the extreme, it has a precise function: th
of the chaotic, undomesticated element that his w
unreservedly. The violence of Wagnerian sound, w
is the violence of its content.
Wagner's peculiar transcendence vis-a-vis cultu
stands simultaneously above and below it-is one o
German characteristics. But anything that has su
aesthetic function as the sound described above
inner justification, becomes intrinsically beautifu
casions (for example, at a compellingly melodious
Die Gdtterdammerung by Karajan in Vienna), I ha
thing remarkable: in the final act of the Ring, t
that seem noisy are those that are not resolved c
in which the musical events do not fully corres
ume of sound-such as, for example, the overexte
positionally uneventful climax of Siegfried's fun
latter would seem altogether problematic; it is n
that it recalls Liszt. The conquest, following Wag
positions of musical expression and construction
justified his loudness after the fact; it is no accident
the threshold of the new music, such as Schoenbe
and Strauss's Elektra, with their tendency to triple f
50
an affinity to Wagner. At the same time, howev

orchestration is never heavily applied. Everywh
transparent, everything can be heard, in contra
works from Strauss's middle period. If it is tru
the art of orchestration and tonal color is subor
ation of the compositional fiber, then this implies t
murkiness or overblown sound but the clear repr
musical events, which, because they are no longe
within an overall scheme, require additional mea
fication. Only by hearing Wagner from this pe
hear him correctly. He is already guided by the
ideal of clarity, which later led via Mahler to Sc
new music. It follows from the principle of the
of the musical structure. The Siegfried Idyll, wh
themes of the third act in Siegfried in a soloist
setting, provides the proof by example. Light is
tain eccentricities of Wagner's composition that
nowadays: for example, the overly long narrativ
toward musical loquaciousness. In view of the di
in reducing the rich content of the Edda Siegf
theatrical form, the repetition of things that occu
and are already known (in narratives like Wotan's l
in the second act of Die Walkiire, or the repetition
items in the riddle scene between Wotan and M
act of Siegfried,) seem superfluous. Nor can we
some and discomfiting quality of certain long s
Gurnemanz's tale of Amnfortas and Klingsor, w
necessary from a dramatic point of view. There
judging the question whether contemporary W
tion should not finally decide to edit passages s
the harmonic structure allows it, despite the co
the cultural keepers of the Grail. But if, in the
traordinary things as that speech of Wotan's to
to be sacrificed to the red pencil, it would only
culty of the position of present-day consciousness
namely, that as I have said, what is magnificent in
be cleanly divided from what is questionable.
be had without the other; his truth content an
that legitimate criticism has found questiona
51
THEODOR W. ADORNO
interdependent. The uncertainty with which a s

formance practice approaches him is caused, not lea
fact that there is no way around this interweaving
the false in his work. In any case, it was Wagner's p
form that created those narratives. The fundam
of the Ring is not actually dramatic, but correlative
the original from which it was taken. If one wa
the paradox, one might speak, in regard to the
other works of the mature Wagner, of epic thea
rabid anti-Wagnerian Brecht would not have wan
and would be at my throat. Wagner's instinct se
epics-in which subjectivity, the free individual h
not yet exist but arises only as the antithesis to fat
dramatization in the true sense. In this Wagner
Hebbel, who thought himself so much cleverer
better educated. But the epic tendency does n
from the content. One could, after all, object th
also concerned itself with epic materials and th
translating them wholly into the dramatic form. T
Ring, which was conceived after all as a chef d'o
one must begin by accepting as such, has somet
predetermined about it-a consequence of the
in which its entire musical fiber is steeped. Step by
be expected and cannot happen otherwise is fulf
history meant progress in the consciousness of f
Wagner, who sided with Hegel's antipode, Schop
was a phenomenology of the spirit as fate. Conse
lacks the element of freedom, of openness, that con
From Senta's ballad to the great narrative of Gur
is therefore interlarded with reports and ballads, so
manner of the great lieder art of the earlier ninetee
note only in passing that so far as I know the extre
inquiry into a relationship between Wagner and
Schubert has not been undertaken.) The narrativ
what is occurring is reported truthfully, that it
something predetermined. This points once mor
that Wagner's music, which-in contrast to tradi
works with solid, extant forms-defines itself as
tinually in a state of becoming, ultimately turns st
52
WA GNER'S RELE VANCE FOR TODA Y
DerJfliegende Hollander, Bayerische Staatsoper, 1981; Herbert W

and set designer
analysis because its absolute dynamism lacks the other,

element against which it could become genuinely d
would have some difficulty identifying, in Wagner
trasting themes in the sense of Beethoven. A relat
the music's organization into fields. We know from
that without solidity there can be no dynamics, tha
thing flows nothing happens; the peculiar converg
the philosophy of Heraclitus and that of his antipodes,
speaks to this fact.
In Wagner unceasing change-both an asset an
ends in constant sameness. This is already embodie
striking musical material. For chromaticism-the pr
cellence of dynamics, of unceasing transition, of go
in itself nonqualitative, undifferentiated. One chro
sembles another. To this extent, chromatic music a
affinity to identity. If a bit of speculation in the m
losophy of history is allowed-and I would be the la
53
THEODOR W. ADORNO
Das RheI
Das Rheingold, Frankfurt, 1985; Ruth Berghaus, director
it-one might go so far as to surmise that Wagner's compositional

process prophesied the dawning horror of the transition from a
society that had reached the apogee of its dynamism to one that
had again turned rigid, become utterly reified: a new feudalism,
to use Veblen's term.
Also in this context, I would like to treat another dubious ele
ment in Wagner that again substantiates the close relationship
between what is inadequate and what is grandiose in his work. I
am again thinking of Die Gotterddmmerung. It can hardly be denied
that its final act is weak, falls short of its subject. Wagner conceives
no music of world destruction adequate to the one he prophesies.
It falls off, fails to fulfill the expectation of the maximal catastro
phe that it has aroused, despite the gruesomeness of passages like
Gutrune's scene before the corpse is brought back. Thus, for ex
ample, to take only the most obvious example, Brunnhilde's final
54
song is infinitely weaker, somehow fractured,

the fairly analogous one of Isolde. I used to ex
weakness as a result of the leitmotif-machine, the
ing with the preexisting, decades-old motival m
fully developed compositional style of the late Wa
behind. But that is too superficial. The circular,
of the conception of the tetralogy-already indi
7ing in the title-excludes from the start everyt
different, even where it would have been requir
the critical juncture. Something similar was al
the Meistersinger quintet, where Wagner's sense of
needs to break out of the circle, so he launches
ably melodic thought that does not derive from
however, he does not spin out the new idea in
doesn't pursue it along the lines of its dynamic
busies himself once more with the already rather
from the complex surrounding the Preislied. The s
I have just described for you a bit sketchily in
Die Gdtterdammerung are quite literally valid for
specifically Hegel's Phenomenology of Spirit, to wh
elsewhere. The last chapter of this work is calle
edge." The unwitting reader, who has chewed hi
Phenomenology, hopes that in the end absolute kn
ally be revealed in the identity of subject and ob
will finally have it. But when one reads the cha
disappointed and, what's more, can imagine th
for such extravagant hopes even when kindled b
phy. Absolute knowledge proves to be little mo
recapitulation of the foregoing book; the quinte
tion of the spirit in which it purportedly came to
absolute itself ever having been expressed, sin
Hegel, the latter was, in fact, never capable of
a result. In short, musically speaking, it is a re
ment of disappointment that characterizes all r
Die G6tterddmmerung. The absolute, redemption
when it takes the form of catastrophe, is possible
Myth is catastrophe in permanence. What does a
it to fulfillment, and death, which is the end of t
at the same time absolute regression.
55
THEODOR W. ADORNO
Parsifal, Hamburg Staatsoper, 1991; Robert Wilson, dir
If I have succeeded in giving at least some sen

the aesthetic weakness here is bound up with
which is of something circling within itself, fat
foreclosing the realization of the thing it no
then it is possible to understand why Wagner
errors are not correctable at will. It is not an
of Wagner's that is responsible for them. Th
only by stepping outside the bounds of aesth
errors may sound pedantic, but as soon as one
regard to artworks of the highest order, one
error: otherwise one takes them to be nonbi
thetic weaknesses spring from the metaphysics
the idea that "This is the way things are, and
don't escape, there is no way to escape." This
of performing Wagner today, about which I wou
words at least. The problem is antinomical. W
narrative passages and of the third act of Die
true of everything that is hard to bear in Wa
deeply embedded in the heart of the thing it
the bothersome element, one violates the wor
56
yond it, and with every step one takes this lead
friction, unsatisfying effects. But if one does not
not only succumbing to antiquarianism, but is c
all sorts of things-and by things I mean not o
but music, from sequences to entire formal el
no longer possible as they stand. Finally, attem
such antinomies into the timeless-the idea of w
is suggested by Wagner's mythology-are hopele
Wagner has its temporal core. Like a spider, his
the powerful web of nineteenth-century excha
Even the subtly seductive Spitzwegiant quality of t
Die Meistersinger has its function within the whol
almost irresistible but contaminated attempt to in
ical recent past for the German people, on whic
become intoxicated. For this reason the surreal
a resolution are perhaps adequate after all, des
character of the surrealism of the '20s and '30s.
to mythologize Wagner in the sense of timele
plode his temporal core, to show Wagner hims
of history or, as we nowadays say all too readily
I like Max Ernst's idea: to have King Ludwig II
in the cave of the Venusberg. The latest parodis
interpretation of the second act of Die Meisters
I have not seen the production myself-seems t
vein. If it is true about Wagner that no matter
is wrong, the thing that is still most likely to hel
is false, flawed, antinomical out into the open,
ing over it and generating a kind of harmony t
profound element in Wagner is antithetical. For
experimental solutions are justified today; only
Wagner orthodoxy is true. The defenders of th
get so worked up about it; Wagner's precise inst
will continue to be handed down for historians.
is unleashed by such interventions proves that the
precisely that layer where the question of Wagn
* A reference to the lilac monologue in the second act of
t Carl Spitzweg (1806-1885), painter of grotesque charac
57
THEODOR W. ADORNO
today is decided. One should also intervene witho

conspicuously nationalistic passages like the final
Sachs. In the same way, one should liberate the m
from the stigma of the disgraceful Jewish caricat
Beckmesser-at least through the accents set by th
If Wagner's work is truly ambivalent and fracture
be done justice only by a performance practice that
account and realizes the fractures instead of closin
cally.
It should be asked whether Wagner's relevance for today, as I
have attempted to illuminate it from widely divergent angles, isn't,
in the familiar phrase, merely artistic, something that is ultimately
confined to technical matters. The concept that is implied here of
a technique separable from truth content is shallow. But I would
like to address the truth content directly. If there is a formula to
be found for it, it would be a music that is dark despite all its color
and that points to the calamitous fate of the world by representing
it. Even the barbaric aspects of Wagner's work are an expression of
this: the culture that is shattered there the way Siegfried breaks the
anvil of Mime's smithy is not yet a culture at all. Truly the world
spirit behaved like the Wagnerian unfolding of total negativity.
Even today there is nothing of more serious concern than this;
this is why Wagner remains a serious matter. This is affirmed, for
the last time perhaps, by the profound affinity between the poetic
texts-whether or not one considers them successful-and their
compositional realization. Such affinity has not been achieved by
any art in the grand style since then. Music became specialized,
and it is music's curse, from the point of view of the philosophy
of history, that the process of specialization cannot be reversed
at will, and yet impairs the relevance and authenticity of the re
sulting works. The fractures in the Wagnerian work are themselves
already the consequence of a claim to totality that is not contented
with the specialized artwork, in which Wagner, too, participated
through technology. His artistry, his craft, those traits that already
enchanted Nietzsche, should be held up in contrast to dull handi
work in order that we might again learn everything from them. In
Wagner they serve a vision of the whole that criticizes not only the
opera of former times, with its division into differentjurisdictions,
but also society, with its division of labor, its guilds and orders, as it
58
exists down to the present day. When the whole of

as circling within itself, as something within whic
yet begun, it protests wordlessly against this ve
Bakunin heard this within him when he listened
and said: "That was only water, what must this mu
one day it deals with fire!" That Wagner could n
in the representation of fire is itself a piece of m
by its own metaphysics, his music took itself ba
because it does not, in the end, realize what it h
therefore fallible, given into our hands incomp
to be advanced, unfinished in itself. It awaits t
will advance it to self-realization. This would se
relevance for our time.
Translated by Susan Gill
59

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Jean Stein

Wagner's Relevance for Today

This essay is drawnfrom a lecture given in Septemb

O f the countless aspects with which

*A translation by Rodney Livingstone was published in

7annhduser, Hoftheater Munich, 1861; drawing by Michael Echte

I would like to present-not as a revision of what I onc

that must now be consigned to the past, whatever

* Houston Stewart Chamberlain (1855-1927), author

that are still all the rage have something unspe

* Ernest Newman, The Life of Richard Wagner, 4 vols., New Yo

Tristan und Isolde, Bayreuth, 1886; drawing by Carlo Brioschi

in the very early Schoenberg as a cheap way of discred

something like this, Wagner's especially. As pr

lannhauser, Bayreuth, 1891; Cosima Wagner, director; M

its wake. Wagner is the first case of uncompromi

* Hans Gal (1890-1987), Austrian composer and teacher

7annhauser7 Landestheater Darmstadt, 1930; Renato Mor

This, however, touches not only the form bu

* Volume 1 of Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel's Vorlesunge

in the world order. One can raise all imaginable s

Siegfried, Bayreuth, 1952; Wieland Wagner, director and set d

would never have occurred to me to assert anything

* Heinrich Schenker (1868-1935) was the author of sever

he could scarcely abide, of having destroyed the

original model, and only thus is it led back to

sic that appears to swing back and forth in the

* Alfred Lorenz (1868-1939) is the author of Das Geheimnis

an additional ascent, the strongest of these in the

* Ausinstrumentieren, also translated as "integrated instrume

of differential and integra

to accompany the history of the development of

an affinity to Wagner. At the same time, howev

interdependent. The uncertainty with which a s

DerJfliegende Hollander, Bayerische Staatsoper, 1981; Herbert W

analysis because its absolute dynamism lacks the other,

Das Rheingold, Frankfurt, 1985; Ruth Berghaus, director

it-one might go so far as to surmise that Wagner's compositional

song is infinitely weaker, somehow fractured,

Parsifal, Hamburg Staatsoper, 1991; Robert Wilson, dir

If I have succeeded in giving at least some sen

* A reference to the lilac monologue in the second act of

t Carl Spitzweg (1806-1885), painter of grotesque charac

today is decided. One should also intervene witho

exists down to the present day. When the whole of

Translated by Susan Gill

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