llen by the fourteenth century, that converted the 17 year old Adolf to Wagnerism and supposedly inspired him to purify the still fairly recently formed Germany and cleanse it of the taint of Judaism. (Parenthetically, Rienzi was Wagner's longest work, the premiere of it in 1842 lasting as it did some six hours. Hitler certainly had more staying power than me.) Of course, we shouldn't blame Wagner for this. In the same way that we shouldn't blame Jesus for the many idiots who followed him, we can't really hold Wagner responsible for things that happened decades after his death. William Shirer claims any influence Wagner had on the nascent Dritte Reich was based upon a misinterpretation of his works. (Wagner is referred to on just six of the approximately 1300 pages of Shirer's history of the Third Reich.) This is also the claim made by advocates of Nietzsche, who is also viewed as an influence on Nazi Germany, that his words and ideas were taken and twisted by Nazi theorists and by Hitler; therefore in the interests of fairness at the very least we have to allow Wagner's advocates to state their case. But if Nietzsche was not an anti-Semite, and his writings provide abundant evidence that he was not, Wagner certainly was an anti-Semite, and his writings provide abundant evidence that he was. It's this part of his character which probably does the most to set people against him these days, given how unfashionable anti-Semitism has become since World War 2. Michael Tanner is clearly fascinated by the way in Wagner's character is used as an excuse to question the value of his work, whereas someone like Beethoven also acted like a monstrous *censored* but no one questions his work. This is a fair call to a degree. I think the personality of a creative artist must in some way find expression in the art they make and that this is unavoidable. By the same token, however, I think that the evaluation of the artwork has to be made by removing the...
