The quest for the gesamtkunstwark

The Quest for the
Gesamtkunstwerk
and Richard Wagner



The Quest
for the
Gesamtkunstwerk
and
Richard Wagner

hilda meldrum brown

1


3
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Acknowledgements

It is a pleasure to record my gratitude to a number of friends, colleagues, and
institutions during the genesis of this book. For financial support I am especially indebted to the Leverhulme Trust for the award of an Emeritus Fellowship
and to Drue Heinz, DBE, for the award of a Hawthornden Fellowship which
carried with it the luxury of a ‘Writer’s Retreat’ at Hawthornden Castle
near Edinburgh and enabled me to bring it all to a conclusion.
For sympathetic support for my interdisciplinary approach to Wagner
I have been especially indebted in the early stages to the late Dr Derrick
Puffett and to the late Professor Peter Branscombe. Further assistance on matters musical and Wagnerian was generously supplied by Prof. Reinhard

Strohm (Oxford), Prof. Hans Rudolf Vaget (Smith College, Massachusetts),
and Barry Millington (London), while Dr Roger Allen (Oxford) has been a
never-failing ally on musicological points and has shared with me his encyclopedic knowledge and irrepressible enthusiasm for the richness of Wagner’s
scores. Fellow Germanists with musical antennae have always been ready
with their support; among these Professor Dr Hans Joachim Kreutzer (Munich)
has, as ever, been a tower of strength, as too have Prof. Martin Swales (London)
and Prof. Ricarda Schmidt (Exeter). Special thanks are due to Dr Uwe
Quilitzsch (Dessau-Wörlitzer Gartenreich) who initiated me into the glories of this wonderful garden, acting as my Cicerone over two whole days.
For technical assistance I owe an immense debt of gratitude to Dr Amy
Zavatsky (Oxford), who has surmounted every kind of problem (and they have
not been few!) with panache. Mr Peter Hall (Oxford) has produced impeccable transcriptions of my musical examples for which I am also extremely
grateful.
An enterprise like this calls on special moral support from friends:
Rosemary and Michál Giedroyc´, the late Margaret Jacobs, Elizabeth
Llewellyn-Smith, Dr Daniel Greineder, and Dr Ernst Zillekens have always
been at the ready to encourage progress and to root out any signs of flagging


vi

acknowledgements

on the Gesamtkunstwerk. For this they deserve my very special thanks, as
does Sophie Goldsworthy (OUP) for her advice and encouragement.
Finally, I have to record the happy coincidence of the unfolding of the
now celebrated performances of the Ring in nearby Longborough which,
opera by opera, culminated in 2013, the bicentenary of Wagner’s birth, with
a complete performance of all four operas, almost, but not quite in sync
with the unrolling of my book chapters. I have Lizzie and Martin Graham—
and of course Anthony Negus—to thank for this truly inspiring event

which came at just the right time.
h. m. b.


Contents

List of Figures and Plates 
Abbreviations 
A Note about Musical Examples 
Introduction: The Nature of the Quest 

ix
xi
xii
1

I. Approaches to the Gesamtkunstwerk
before Wagner
1. The Landscape Garden
17
2.Romantic Drama and the Visual Arts
38
3.Goethe’s Faust: Gesamtkunstwerk or Universaltheater?59
II. Wagner and the Gesamtkunstwerk:
Moment and Motiv
4.Eighteenth- and Nineteenth-Century Theoretical Approaches
5. Moment and Motiv: Critical Approaches to the Ring Cycle
6.Analysis of the Erda Scenes

87

112
143

III. Wagner, the Gesamtkunstwerk, and
Performance of the Ring
7.Adolphe Appia: A Watershed in the Evolution of
the Gesamtkunstwerk173
8. Wieland Wagner: The Appia Heritage and the Gesamtkunstwerk188
9. The Centenary Ring: Deconstruction and the Gesamtkunstwerk222
Conclusion263


viii

contents

Appendix—The Genesis of Goethe’s Faust271
Bibliography273
Index283


List of Figures and Plates

Figures
1.1. Wörlitz Toleranzblick: view over the Golden Urn
28

© Kulturstiftung DessauWörlitz. Photo: Heinz Fräßdorf
2.1. Der kleine Morgen, by Philipp Otto Runge, oil on canvas (1808)
49

© bpk—Bildagentur für Kunst, Kultur und Geschichte,
Berlin/Hamburger Kunsthalle
3.1.Erscheinung des Erdgeistes (Appearance of Earth Spirit). Drawing
by Carl Zimmermann, lithograph by K. Loeillot de Mars (1835)
78
Reproduced by kind permission of Klassik Stiftung Weimar/
Herzogin Anna Amalia Bibliothek
4.1. Laocoön and His Sons, Marble, c.50–20 bc (Museo Pio-Clementino
(Vatican Museums),Vatican City)
93

© Marie-Lan Nguyen (2009)
4.2.Detail from Laocoön and His Sons, Marble, c.50–20 bc
(Museo Pio-Clementino (Vatican Museums),Vatican City)
94

© Marie-Lan Nguyen (2009)
4.3. Wagner’s diagram to explain his progression of ideas in Oper
und Drama110
6.1. ‘Erda Bids Thee Beware’, illustration from The Rhinegold and
the Valkyrie, Arthur Rackham (1910)
145
Reproduced by kind permission of The Bodleian Libraries,
The University of Oxford, (Vet.) 3874 d. 20/1, opp. p. 66
7.1.Appia’s schematic representation of his ‘hierarchical principle’.
German version, French version, English version
178
8.1.Sketch for Das Rheingold, scenes ii and iv, by Wieland Wagner
(Bayreuth, 1951)

195
Reproduced by kind permission of Nationalarchiv der RichardWagner-Stiftung, Bayreuth mit Zustiftung Wolfgang Wagner
8.2.Sketch for Das Rheingold, scene i, by Adolphe Appia (Basel, 1924)
196
8.3.Set for Die Walküre, Act I (Bayreuth 1957)
209
8.4.Set for Die Walküre, Act I (Bayreuth 1965) 
210


x

list of figures and plates

8.5. Brünnhilde’s Oath, Götterdämmerung, Act II (Bayreuth, 1957)
212
Reproduced by kind permission of Nationalarchiv der RichardWagner-Stiftung, Bayreuth mit Zustiftung Wolfgang Wagner
8.6. Brünnhilde’s Oath, Götterdämmerung, Act II (Bayreuth, 1965)
214
9.1.  Windsor Castle, by J. W. M. Turner, watercolour on paper (c.1828)251
Reproduced by kind permission of The British Museum

Plates
1. Wörlitz Toleranzblick: view over the Golden Urn
© Kulturstiftung DessauWörlitz. Photo: Heinz Fräßdorf
2.Der kleine Morgen, by Philipp Otto Runge, oil on canvas (1808)
© bpk—Bildagentur für Kunst, Kultur und Geschichte, Berlin/Hamburger
Kunsthalle
3.(a) Laocoön and His Sons, Marble, c.50–20 bc (Museo Pio-Clementino
(Vatican Museums),Vatican City); (b) Detail from Laocoön and His Sons

© Marie-Lan Nguyen (2009)
4.Windsor Castle, by J. W. M. Turner, watercolour on paper (c.1828)
Reproduced by kind permission of The British Museum


Abbreviations

Appia, ŒcAdolphe Appia, Œuvres complètes, ed. Marie L. Bablet-Hahn
(Bonstetten: L’Âge d’Homme, 1986.)
Goethe, SW-MA Johann Wolfgang Goethe, Sämtliche Werke nach Epochen seines
Schaffens, Münchener Ausgabe, 21 vols. (Munich: btb Verlag, 2006).
Hoffmann, SWE. T. A. Hoffmann, Sämtliche Werke, 6 vols. (Frankfurt am Main:
Deutscher Klassiker Verlag, 1985–2004).
Lessing, LWGotthold Ephraim Lessing, Lessings Werke, ed. Franz
Bornmüller, 5 vols. (Leipzig and Vienna: Bibliographisches
Institut, n.d.).
Wagner, EERichard Wagner, Edition Eulenburg musical scores of Der Ring
des Nibelungen:
Das Rheingold (WWV 86 A, ed. Egon Voss, Edition Eulenburg
No. 8059; London: Ernst Eulenberg, 2002).
Die Walküre (WWV 86 B, ed. Christa Jost, Edition Eulenburg
No. 8055; London: Ernst Eulenberg, 2009).
Siegfried (WWV 86 C, eds. Klaus Döge and Egon Voss, Edition
Eulenburg No. 8056-01; London: Ernst Eulenberg, 2013).
Götterdämmerung (WWV 86 D, ed. Hartmut Fladt, Edition
Eulenburg No. 8057; London: Ernst Eulenberg, 2003).
Wagner, GSDRichard Wagner, (Gesammelte) Schriften und Dichtungen von
Richard Wagner, 9 vols. (Leipzig: Siegel, n.d.).

A Note about Musical Examples

Musical examples are based on the piano reductions by Otto Singer,
(Leipzig: Breitkopf & Härtel, n.d.) and Karl Klindworth, (Mainz: B. Schotts
Söhne, n.d.). All German-English translations from the score are by Ernest
Newman.


Introduction
The Nature of the Quest

W

hy does Wagner inspire so much debate and evoke so much controversy? No other opera composer—not even Mozart,V
  erdi, or Puccini—
has ever produced a comparable response.
The answer, I argue, lies in the fact that as an opera composer Wagner is
unique. His mature operas, especially the Ring cycle, have no counterpart in
the musical arts. Many enthusiasts sense this (though their enjoyment would
not invariably be enhanced by delving into the reasons). The source of this
uniqueness lies, I believe, in Wagner’s spectacular success in articulating a lofty
vision by means of a fusion or synthesis of two major art forms, drama and
music. The distinctive term for this has come, by devious routes, and not
entirely as Wagner himself intended,1 to be Gesamtkunstwerk. Various other
attempts at synthesis or fusion of different art forms, knowingly or not, had
been attempted before him in German opera of the 19th century, as well as in
those other combinations of the arts which form the first part of this book,
for example, landscape gardening and the visual arts. Wagner, however, succeeded in developing techniques which radically transformed the make-up
and scope of the genre of opera from the format in which it had traditionally
existed, and which had developed in Italy and France since the 17th century.

Two major ingredients stand out of W
  agner’s operatic revolution (which
is most amply exemplified in the Ring cycle). Firstly, the creation over the
entire tetralogy of a ‘web’ of interconnected musical Motive2—generally
short phrases, capable of considerable melodic and harmonic development.

1. As will become evident from my argument, a salient feature of the term gesamt lies not in the
notion of a plurality of art forms, but rather a completeness of the process of integration or fusion of two
or more major forms.
2. I use the German word Motiv (plural: Motive) throughout to avoid confusion with ‘motif ’ and
‘motive’. For a clarification of the terminology in general, see Thomas Grey, Wagner’s Musical
Prose (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 319–26.


2

introduction

Through their contextual associations these Motive acquire meaning and dramatic import.Wagner’s second revolutionary innovation is his transformation
of the orchestra into a major vehicle for the transmission of these motivic
networks, whereby it assumes the role of a commenting ‘voice’ responding to
the action as it unfolds.These twin innovations, reinforced by the application
of subject matter based on a highly individualized form of mythology, power
a comprehensive vision of the human condition and its relation to external
forces, a vision which is communicated with an intensity of utterance and a
range of expressiveness—nowhere more evident than in the orchestration—
hitherto unparalleled in the history of opera.The grandness of the total effect
is commensurate with Wagner’s ambition to create a modern equivalent to
Greek tragedy, specifically Aeschylus’ great trilogies, the Oresteia and, to a
lesser extent, the Prometheus. To his mind these dramas constituted models of

what he had on one occasion in his early writings termed the Gesamtkunstwerk,
being examples of a harmonious fusion of their individual components—
which in the case of the Greek tragedians were dance, music, and drama.
According to Wagner, this success of the ancients could act as a model to
modern artists, encouraging them to engage in a Quest to bring about, in a
suitably updated form, a similar process of integration of those major art
forms, music and drama, which were considered to be especially suitable.The
acquisition of separate, clearly defined boundaries between these art forms, it
seemed, had in no way staved off their present-day decline—and the remedy
seemed clear. In first setting out this idea in theoretical form,Wagner attached
to it a utopian dimension, according to which the new drama form was to
be a vehicle for social change. This would later rebound and leave him open
to much misunderstanding when the idealistic programme for music drama
outlined in his theoretical writings remained fairly constant, even as his political and revolutionary zeal yielded to a more sober reflection, and by 1854 the
quietist philosophy of Arthur Schopenhauer had come to replace the political fervour of Bakunin and Marx.
Unlike the specialized and distinct art forms of literature and music,
opera, as a ‘hybrid’ form, appears not to have developed the critical tools
appropriate to its specific ‘joint’ needs and, most especially, to fit the complex case of Wagner’s music dramas. A more serious problem which has
recently arisen is that, with the advent of critical theory in all its various,
fragmented guises, aesthetic theory and contemporary trends in the arts
have now moved well beyond notions of distinctive genres. The consequence is that from this new theoretical perspective no bounds or barriers


introduction

3

exist, nor challenges of the kind that Wagner was addressing in devising
intricate ways in which to bridge the separate art forms in his recreation
of a hybrid Gesamtkunstwerk. A particularly striking feature of this cultural

revolution is its approach to the past. As with the ideas of the French
Revolutionaries, the past has no valency when the present considers itself
superior to all that has ever been achieved in the realms of culture.
Even before this situation had arisen and traditional scholarship had been
seriously discredited, the special problems of methodology posed by joint or
‘hybrid’ forms such as opera in critical analysis had been identified by leading Wagner scholars, such as Arnold Whittall and Carolyn Abbate. The former sums up in general terms the position of analysis of large-scale musical
compositions with texts, and in particular the case of Wagner’s operas, as
being in an ‘even more primitive state than analysis of symphonic music’.3
The latter notes in her article on ‘Analysis’ in the New Grove Dictionary of
Opera that ‘opera combines three basic systems’ but no ‘analytical methodology’ has yet been developed that is ‘capable of discussing these as they exist
in an ideal experiential reality, as aspects of a single and simultaneously perceived entity’.4
Since these doubts about methodologies were raised, few signs of improve­
ment have emerged in the reception of Wagner’s works towards bridging the
ever-increasing gap in the critical evaluation of the two art forms which Wagner
so assiduously brought together to form his music drama. Decon­struction, and
other related forms of critical theory which have played such a dominant role
in literary studies over the past 40 years or so, have not addressed the problem
convincingly when applying these theories to opera. No portmanteau theory
has been forthcoming which can do service to a Quest for making common
cause across the arts, while retaining their distinctive qualities. Consequently,
the ‘complex simultaneities of opera’ (Abbate) remain unresolved.
Since many branches of critical theory originate in philosophies dating
from the 1970s, in particular the works of Roland Barthes and Jacques
Derrida, and since they and their followers had originally used the novel as
the basis for their theorizings, it would be surprising if a breakthrough
could have been achieved in applying these approaches convincingly to

3. Arnold Whittall, ‘Wagner’s Great Transition from Lohengrin to Das Rheingold’, Musical Analysis,
2/3 (1983), 269.
4. Carolyn Abbate, ‘Analysis’, in Stanley Sadie (ed.), The New Grove Dictonary of Opera (London:

Macmillan, 1992), i. 116–20, here 118.


4

introduction

such a complex poeto-musical art form as opera. Drama, in particular,
(which, of course, is at the heart of any operatic libretto text) has proved for
theorists to be a particularly hard nut to crack, the approach via semiotics5
being especially weak and unconvincing. From the angle of operatic production, where all the critical problems come to a head, the answer offered
to explain the lack of progress in achieving an appropriate ‘analytical methodology’ would seem to rest, entirely and inevitably, with the Zeitgeist. As
Patrick Carnegy explains:
The dominant strategy for staging Wagner is still essentially analytic and critical, and it is one in which design is playing a major role. Its rationale is that
the distance between ourselves and Wagner is now so great that any attempt
to capture or recreate a unifying vision that Wagner might have recognized is
impossible.6

The present study is written from a rather different position than that of
resignation to the status quo as implied by Carnegy in the extract just quoted.
It is based on the assumption that there is still room for building on the many
useful insights into the Ring which have come down to us from our predecessors (who were not always wrong) and those who are still working in the
field. There is surely room for more inclusive approaches, which draw on
the interaction of the respective art forms implicit in the concept of the
Gesamtkunstwerk, thus broadening the scope of the old ‘Words versus Music’
debate and presenting it in a new light. This debate has never really been
concluded, and probably never will be, but that does not mean that it cannot
be updated. The contribution to the debate by Pierre Boulez, for example, a
commentator with impeccable credentials as a theorist, some of whose writings are discussed in Chapter 9, is testimony to the resilience of this issue in
late 20th-century Wagner scholarship. As a fellow composer, full of admiration for Wagner’s musical wizardry and versatility in the field of music drama,

Boulez could certainly be accredited with approaching Wagner’s works
through eyes which—as much as those of the deconstructionists and others—
see things differently from those of previous generations, but without the
wholesale rejection (or tabula rasa) which has become de rigueur, and comes
automatically in much contemporary criticism.
5. An example is J.-J. Nattiez’s laborious effort to demonstrate the ‘tripartite conception of semiology’ in Barry Millington and Stewart Spencer (eds.), Wagner in Performance (New Haven and
London:Yale University Press, 1992), 75–98, here 80.
6. Patrick Carnegy, ‘Designing Wagner’, in Millington and Spencer (eds.), Wagner in Performance, 73.


introduction

5

Some of the problems and suggested approaches to them can be summarized as follows: firstly, musicological analysis cannot avoid dealing with the
basic ‘grammar’ of music, that is, melody and harmony. It is a self-contained,
highly technical discipline. Cases, as in opera, where the music enters into a
close relationship with other art forms, for example, drama, cannot, however,
be fully interpreted by musical analysis alone. On the other hand, in the case
of the Ring, neither is it sufficient to focus on ‘extramusical’ approaches,
whether literary, philosophical, or political, without, at some level, having regard
for and contact with the substantial contribution of music and its function
within the work as a whole. Wagner’s presentation certainly constitutes a
serious challenge to interpreters and critics. In our attempts to juggle the
various artistic disciplines involved—verbal, musical, and dramatic—we cannot as critics expect to match his own virtuosity as a master of the process of
fusion, but neither should we shirk trying reclaim the sense of wholeness (or
Gestalt, as Boulez puts it, using this term from cognitive psychology in a metaphorical sense,7) which is shared by many Wagner enthusiasts when listening
to great recordings or experiencing an imaginatively presented live performance in the opera house. To peel the Ring off in segments, whether in the
theatre or verbally, simply leaves audiences or readers frustrated and puzzled.
Secondly, Wagner has himself provided us with a number of routes which

might be taken in approaching the Ring. There is the evidence and guidance
which can be extracted from his theoretical works, especially Oper und Drama
(1851) and Über die Anwendung der Musik (1879).The first of these was written
not only to help the composer to articulate his new, revolutionary programme, at the same time as he was writing the libretto for ‘Siegfried’s Tod’,
but also with an eye on his potential audience, which had been reared on
Rossini and Meyerbeer. The second essay is in many ways a reinforcement
and restatement of those key principles expounded in the first piece but from
the retrospective standpoint of the near fulfilment of his major life’s work (by
1879 Parsifal was nearly complete). Long ignored, parodied, or derided
because of Wagner’s often tortuous syntax, and not helped by out-of-date
translations, some of the key essays are now gradually appearing in the form
of new, updated editions and translations.8 Oper und Drama, arguably the
most challenging of them all, however, still awaits its deliverance.This treatise
7. See Ch. 9.
8. Two important additions have recently appeared: Roger Allen, Richard Wagner’s ‘Beethoven’
(1870), a new trans. (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2014), and The Artwork of the Future, a new trans.
by Emma Warner, Wagner Journal (special issue, 2013).


6

introduction

contains Wagner’s most detailed analysis of the process of fusion of the two
main art forms involved, and was regarded by Wagner in his later years as the
most authoritative text he could recommend to interested inquirers.
The theoretical works, and especially Oper und Drama, are a major source
of information about Wagner’s invention of the leitmotivic web (Gewebe),
one of the most revolutionary concepts in his entire œuvre. It has certainly
not been entirely ignored in recent Wagner studies, for example, those of

Thomas Grey.9 What has not been fully developed, however, is the extent to
which this brilliant bridging device, linking words and music together, is
intricately bound up with the ongoing, developing dramatic action of the
Ring. In Chapters 5 and 6, I aim to describe how deeply the motivic patterns
are embedded in the structural development of the tetralogy and, specifically,
contribute to its gradual adoption of the contours of a tragic enactment. To
assist in illuminating this process, I have investigated the neglected role of the
concept of Moment alongside the more familiar Motiv, as expounded in Oper
und Drama. In order to identify the specific way in which Wagner is using the
term throughout this text, I have in Chapter 4 traced its evolution as a critical
concept more generally in German writings from the 18th century onwards
which were known to Wagner.
On the basis of a sample of analyses of the Ring, Chapter 5 aims to identify
the signs of a movement towards the application of Moment and Motiv as a
joint critical concept. Whether the distinguished authors of the analyses discussed here have consciously or unconsciously adopted Wagner’s own link
between Moment and Motiv is unclear. While using a range of other critical
criteria in their very different essays, they do, however, to varying degrees,
seem to be bringing this connection to bear when dealing with both the dramatic and the verbal aspects alongside the musical. In Chapter 6, which presents a comparison of the two Erda scenes along similar, possibly more ‘joint’
lines, I have added to the more musically orientated approaches appearing in
Chapter 5 my own specimen approach, which may bear signs of its literary
origins, but also an attempt to combine these with some, hopefully not inappropriate, musical observations. In identifying Wagner’s skill in processing
the means of Vermischung (fusion) of music and drama/text these different
approaches, literary and musicological, may be moving along similar lines.
If Chapters 4, 5, and 6 illustrate, in the form of an experimental analysis, how
the different elements of text, music, and the dramatic can be brought closely
9. Wagner’s Musical Prose.


introduction

7

together in critical approaches to the Ring in the light of Wagner’s own proposals for combining Moment and Motiv, Chapters 7, 8, and 9 are concerned with
the more public aspect of the reception process—the performance of the Ring
in the 20th century. In three major phases between the 1890s and 1976 and set
against the measuring rod of the Gesamtkunstwerk and Wagner’s ideal of ‘fusion’,
these chapters demonstrate a steady weakening of the concept as a lodestar for
performance. To be sure, Adolphe Appia enthusiastically accepted Wagner’s
idea of fusion of text and music in what he termed ‘Le Wort-Tondrama’.
But this enthusiasm is, nonetheless, tempered by his deep concern about the
omission from all Wagner’s theoretical writings of any detailed presentation of
the production side of performance. Appia’s account, as presented in diagrammatic form, can be regarded as a ‘correction’ or ‘alternative’ to Wagner’s
own schema, which was originally appended to Oper und Drama. It is based on
his own theories for inclusion of the—for Appia—crucially important aspect of
stagecraft. In attempting to define Appia’s legacy, it is this emphasis on staging, and the daring alternatives he suggested in his sketches to accompany
Wagner’s music dramas, which posterity has seized on. Appia, however, has
much to say that is illuminating about Wagner’s music and its dramatic quality.
In Chapter  8, the work of Wieland Wagner, so markedly indebted to
Appia’s theories, reflects Wieland’s ambivalence about the Gesamtkunstwerk
concept (while experimenting with the idea of fusion of words and music).
This is largely, but not entirely, because of Wieland’s own tangled relationship with his past, and the association he made between the concept of the
Gesamtkunstwerk and the audiences who had applauded the ultra-realistic
productions of Wagner’s works during the Old Bayreuth period under
Cosima Wagner’s stewardship. Building on Appia’s insistence on the importance of the stage accompaniments and technical effects such as lighting
which make up the performance, Wieland places this on an equal footing
with Wagner’s original pair, words and music. Finally, Chapter  9, which
focuses on the so-called ‘Centenary Ring’ (1976), illustrates how staging has
increasingly become a major constituent of operatic performance. A development, which had originally been sparked off by Appia around 1900, was
indeed by 1976 assuming such importance that the regisseur, Patrice Chéreau,
could overturn Appia’s original prioritization of music within the mixture

of ingredients. The filming of this performance and its worldwide circulation, would appear to have confirmed the general sense of the visual ascendency of the production. This is combined with an alignment of Chéreau’s
Regie—eclectic in style—to postmodernist and deconstructionist sources,


8

introduction

among others (for example, Brecht). While this Ring is nowadays popularly
referred to as the ‘Chéreau Ring’, its distinguished conductor, the composer
Pierre Boulez, in his own considerable body of theoretical writings, presents
a rather different approach to Wagner’s Ring from that of the regisseur,
though how far this difference of outlook might have been reflected in the
musical production of the Bayreuth Ring is difficult to determine.
Chapters 4–9 are all concerned with Wagner’s Ring and its relationship to the
theme of fusion within the Gesamtkunstwerk. In Chapters 1–3, however, the net
is cast beyond art forms which focus on words and music, and a step back is
taken from Wagner’s mid-19th-century pedestal and seeming monopoly of the
concept to determine whether it might also have had currency in some earlier
examples, this time based on various combinations of art forms, such as landscape gardening (Chapter 1) and the visual arts (Chapter 2), or, alternatively
(Chapter 3), on a massive, completed dramatic poem (like Goethe’s Faust) whose
creator made determined but vain attempts to unlock its operatic potential.
To focus on works of outstanding distinction—despite, in some cases, incompleteness—in the light of the concept of the Gesamtkunstwerk seems to me a
more fruitful approach than attempting to identify the small steps by means of
which minor composers could wean German opera away from Wagner’s own
bêtes noires, the French and Italian models, via such devices as Melodram or the
sporadic use of illustrative Leitmotiv. That, conceivably, might have brought composers like E.T. A. Hoffmann, Heinrich Marschner, and Carl Maria von Weber
a shade closer to achieving music drama (though most found it difficult to shake
free of their native Singspiel and spoken ­dialogue). But to compare Undine, Der
Vampyr, or even Der Freischütz (the most interesting and only surviving relic of

German Romantic opera which is still in the repertoire), with Wagner’s largescale innovations in opera such as Durchkomponierung, unendliche Melodie, a leitmotivic web which extends over the entire trilogy, revolutionary orchestration
involving the creation of new instruments—all combined with dramatic skills
of the highest order—is to confuse pygmies with a giant.10
10. Exhaustive and expert studies on the development of German music drama already exist. See John
Warrack, German Romantic Opera: From the Beginnings to Wagner (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2001) and Siegfried Goslich, Die romantische Oper (Tutzing: Schneider, 1975). Composers like
E. T. A. Hoffmann (Undine, 1826), Ludwig Spohr (Faust, 1816), Heinrich Marschner (Der Vampyr,
1828), and Carl Maria von Weber (Der Freischütz, 1821) may well have made modest contributions
to the general process of liberation and greater expressive freedom of opera from the stranglehold
of the Italian and French models. However, to my knowledge they have never been credited with
having produced a Gesamtkunstwerk of the kind which is the subject of this study. Even if all the
incremental changes they introduced were integrated, the gulf separating them from Richard
Wagner’s conception and realization of the Gesamtkunstwerk would be immense.


introduction

9

In lieu of this I have, therefore, chosen to focus on a few free-standing
examples of what, according to my definition of Gesamtkunstwerk, might be
construed as a small group of candidates who were knocking at the door,
though for various reasons, mostly through chance, some narrowly failed to
succeed.Thus Chapter 1 argues the case for considering outstanding examples
of 18th-century landscape gardening, both English and German, as measuring up in terms of artistry, diversity of genres, and substance (as well as
public accessibility) to achievements commensurate with the demands of
the Gesamtkunstwerk. Chapter 2 addresses examples of ‘mixed’ genres from
German romanticism to assess their ‘candidature’. Contrary to expectation,
and despite a body of strongly promulgated theoretical writings which opened
the door wide to interdisciplinary experimentation, the results in this context

are meagre. Artists of sufficient calibre to excel in the strongly structured genres such as drama just did not exist (though a great many dramas were written). Romantic drama also rules itself out of Gesamtkunstwerk status by turning
its back on the stage, having responded to the call for ‘mixing’ genres by virtually becoming a variant of the novel, the Lesedrama (drama for reading).
Instead I have chosen to consider the work of Philipp Otto Runge, a
Romantic artist whose work, though incomplete, is so promising and innovative, and, from his ambitious unfinished cycle Die Tageszeiten, a tetralogy
involving the four times of day, have selected his masterpiece, Der kleine
Morgen. This painting illustrates the depth, breadth, and intensity of Runge’s
visual imagination and the originality of his technique, such as his use of the
frame as an integral, commenting part of the whole composition.To illuminate
the theoretical basis for Runge’s unashamedly symbolic, forward-looking,
and non-representational artistic imagery, I briefly discuss his corre­spondence
and planned collaboration with the Romantic poet Clemens Brentano and
their illuminating discussions on the role of symbolism in the relationship
between text and image in book illustration.
Chapter 3 on Goethe’s Faust which follows is included for several reasons. Ironically, this greatest of creative artists, whose lyric poetry has been
set by countless composers, came up against major problems in his numerous efforts, extending over a lifetime, to set his enormous drama Faust to
music. This was a project which, bearing such a pedigree, might have been
thought to be set fair to become a Gesamtkunstwerk. The explanations for
this non-event are complex, but, in the context of an examination of the
concept itself, highly instructive, in terms both of Goethe’s personal creativity and of fundamental aesthetic issues concerning the relationship between
words and music. By investigating the background to a series of partial and


10

introduction

failed collaborations between the poet and a number of different composers, including a near-miss collaboration with Beethoven, light can be shone
on some of the main obstacles—both personal and aesthetic—which stood
in the way of Faust being set to music on the scale Goethe intended. This
analysis in turn serves to highlight the specific criteria and boundaries

which define the Gesamtkunstwerk.
Illuminating here is the question of collaboration. Goethe’s own unwillingness to collaborate with either a librettist or a composer of high quality,
can be traced to a fear he shared with other artist-collaborators that his poetic
texts might lose out to music if they entered into a close alliance with a poeto-­
dramatic text or, alternatively, were to be brutally stripped down to libretto
format. By taking—and, unlike most creative artists, being equipped to take—
sole charge of the entire process himself,Wagner had the answer to this problem. However, for historical reasons, and in Goethe’s defence, it is questionable
whether a Gesamtkunstwerk involving music could have succeeded prior to
Wagner.The form of music drama was still in an embryo state, and composers
of distinction—apart from Beethoven—were in such short supply.
Chapters 1–3 examine combinations based on the visual arts as well as the
musical and the verbal, using as examples works of quality and distinction
which come close to achieving the status of Gesamtkunstwerk.They also raise
the question whether any features might be held in common across the
different genres which help to clarify the concept further. This matter will
be addressed in the Conclusion.
Finally, we come to the question of definitions. In the context of Das
Kunstwerk der Zukunft, Wagner had used the term Gesamtkunstwerk to
emphasize the idea of synthesis or fusion of different art forms, and to promote the idea that this ‘reunion’ of what for the Greeks had been a natural
process of integration might have a rejuvenating effect on latter-day Western
culture (and, specifically, German opera). Fusion between different art forms
within the Gesamtkunstwerk, and the means of achieving it, is at the heart of
the concept—hence its centrality throughout this book.
But fusion of art forms of itself is not enough to convey all the associations and nuances which have now gathered around the term Gesamtkunstwerk.
Wagner coined it an early stage, when the Ring was still on the drawing
board. Later, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, it was to become
ossified by the Old Bayreuth Wagnerians.
Nowadays, if, for critical purposes, we are to turn to the Gesamtkunstwerk,
we must also include the matter of performance in any criteria we lay down

introduction

11

(it was, of course, implicit, in the Greek example).The matter is fraught with
difficulty, however, because of the ephemeral nature of this part of the process. Perhaps Wagner himself realized this. Performance was always on his
mind, but at the more practical level of whether a suitable stage or opera
house—and good singers and a large orchestra—to accommodate the Ring
would ever be accessible to him. As we know, the problem was resolved
eventually and very satisfactorily by the munificence of King Ludwig II of
Bavaria in making available the finance to build the Festspielhaus according
to Wagner’s specifications. Meanwhile, although it is basically a modest and
practical building, the ‘story’ of the Festspielhaus has come to assume almost
mythical status, and it has become embedded in many people’s minds as the
tangible receptacle for Wagner’s ideals, and thus, by association, with the
presentation and performance of the Gesamtkunstwerk. The social dimension to his art, the ‘making manifest’, was dear to his heart, and, although he
abandoned his youthful ideal of making performances of his works freely
available to all, it was always his wish that the ‘Bayreuth experience’ (and all
that it entailed) would reach out to a wide audience and have an enriching
and beneficial effect. Associations with both the building and its architecture, therefore, are also wrapped up in the term Gesamtkunstwerk.
As for the Quest: this reminds us of the elusive, will o’ the wisp—but
seemingly enduring—nature of the concept of Gesamtkunstwerk which has
been so eloquently summed up by Pierre Boulez. Much used in the period
after Wagner’s death and during the period of Cosima’s direction at
Bayreuth (1883–1930), it soon ceased to function as the dynamic, interactive
principle defined by Richard Wagner. The generation of the 1920s were
understandably disrespectful in view of the ossified Bayreuth productions
with which the term had become associated, while in the 1930s it became
politicized, and was hoisted up into a monumental emblem of the ‘German

spirit’. It is no wonder that Wieland Wagner’s post-war generation, which
had to deal with this legacy, rejected a term which had become so
compromised.
Perhaps enough clear water has now been created between ourselves and
these past legacies and distortions, however, to enable its usefulness, or otherwise, to be considered dispassionately.Viewed as a critical concept which
is only brought out on exceptional occasions, the Quest might seem helpful
both in our appreciation of the nature and magnitude of Richard Wagner’s
achievement, as well as steering us towards a better understanding of the
complex relationship he created between the relevant art forms.


12

introduction

In the course of such a reconsideration, it is timely also to distinguish
between the terms Gesamtkunstwerk and ‘multimedial’ which are fast becoming synonymous. In Friedrich Kittler’s much-quoted and multifarious publications on this theme,11 the development of his theory of the displacement
of traditional art forms by computerized communication technologies has
led to the coining of the term Gesamtmedienkunst. On another plane, the
musicologist Nicholas Cook has pioneered the application of a cross-medial
theory to musical works—including in his remit the analysis of Madonna’s
pop-music video of  ‘Material Girl’.12 Few might disagree about the ascendancy of the visual in popular culture, and the comparative dethronement of
the verbal in the contemporary works of our time. However, when applied
to historical works of art which were produced with very different criteria
in mind to our own, one is on much weaker ground. Without having to
embrace Herder’s and Ranke’s ideas of historicism which might seem a shade
too remote from our sights, it could be argued that a Gesamtkunstwerk worth
its salt is fully charged to speak in its own voice across the centuries, from the
Greeks onwards, and for it to be open to new generations to extract ever new
inspiration from this source. In short, it could be argued that approaches to

the Ring which accommodate perspectives from both present and past are
valid and welcome. That, however, would demand a greater openness to the
historical dimension than at present seems to be evident.
Clarification of the term Gesamtkunstwerk in its original meaning, then,
would be helpful not only for scholars and commentators, but also for those
involved in the musical and theatrical aspects of performance of what should
be, but often is no longer regarded as, a unique amalgamation of textual and
musical material of supremely expressive force, employed in the service of
themes of universal appeal and a rich characterization, and presented with a
dramatic skill comparable with the greatest. Consideration of the Ring as
Gesamtkunstwerk, as my book argues, must surely involve some awareness of
the need to bring together, and illuminate, in performance as well as in analysis, some of the most fundamental features of Wagner’s legacy.
It is clear from the above that I regard the term Gesamtkunstwerk as an
ongoing creative concept as problematic in the 20th–21st-century context.
Recently, however, it has been claimed for mass culture and technology. A
11. Friedrich Kittler, Gramophone, Film, Typewriter, trans. Geoffrey Winthrop-Young and Michael
Wutz (Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1999), 23.
12. Nicholas Cook, Analyzing Musical Multimedia (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), 156–7.