Richard Wagner's Zurich: The Muse of Place (review)

In his new book Chris Walton has produced a close study of Richard Wagner's stay of nine years, 1849–58, in Zurich, then a city of refuge for those who had taken part in the uprisings of 1848–49. This subject confronts Walton with a hodgepodge of heterogeneous subtopics. However, with the author's marshaling of his material what results is both well argued and well organized.

Just to list the substantial works that Wagner carried out in Zurich is to recognize the scope of Walton's undertaking. As for prose writings, Wagner's published efforts range from the shameful Das Judentum in der Musik (1850) to the ponderous Oper und Drama (1851). As for poetry, he produced the texts of Der Ring des Nibelungen (printed in 1853) and Tristan und Isolde. After a hiatus in musical creativity that lasted into the Zurich years Wagner composed Das Rheingold (1854), Die Walküre (1856), and most of Siegfried and Tristan. In the same period, major events in Wagner's emotional biography were occurring, the most crucial being his infatuation with Mathilde Wesendonck and the concomitant collapse of his marriage.

Over the last century and a half each of these events and accomplishments has been intensively investigated, but Walton takes a fresh approach. He moves deftly from subject to subject, with a stress on circumstantiality, and so when he deals with decisive biographical events or outstanding artistic achievements he folds them largely into an everyday context. At the same time, the book as a whole has a clear super structure, which begins with an intro ductory chapter and concludes with two expansive chapters on Otto and Mathilde Wesendonck.

Between these first and last segments fall several chapters devoted to different aspects of Wagner's time in Zurich. Chapter 3 recounts the master's hiking expeditions in the Alps and speculates on how these various experiences may have infused his music at one or another point in the Ring and, more fundamentally, may have fostered his visionary concepts in matters of staging. Chapter 4 tracks Wagner's near-obsession with water cures designed to combat his skin complaints and bowel problems. (As Walton notes with almost humorous insight, both Der fliegende Holländer and the Ring end with aquatic redemptions.) Chapter 5 details Wagner's connections with Zurich publishers, and chapter 8 describes the composer's conducting assignments in the city.

Conducting in particular made Wagner part of the city's social and institutional scene. As an orchestral director he made it a practice to round up the best instrumentalists residing in the area, and programmed a weighty repertory made up principally of works by Beethoven. While he made diverse contributions to the musical life of Zurich, he concurrently seized chances to put his own music before the public, specifically productions of Der fliegende Holländer and Tannhäuser and concert excerpts from several of his operas. (In three meticulous tables Walton lays out the programs, places, and dates of Wagner's public music-making in Zurich.) Here at least we see the composer acting like a well-behaved careerist.

Going further, Walton pursues information about Wagner's interpretative concepts as conductor. Not relying solely on the master's own words, Walton also uses reports from listeners and associates of the 1850s. He even examines the orchestral parts that were marked up by musicians who played under Wagner's direction. (These parts are held in the archives of the Allgemeine Musikgesellschaft, Zurich.)

Deploying all manner of evidence like this is a fundamental trait of Walton's endeavor. Thus extensive quotations from Wagner's letters and published writings share space with a wide variety of contemporary accounts and subsequent reminiscences. Nor are institutional records neglected. More generally, the rich scholarly literature, past and present, that centers on Wagner is put to most discriminating use; this is one area among others in which Walton handles his sources like a virtuoso.

Well...