Richard Wagner: Self Promotion and the Making of a Brand (review)

In an 1807 letter, Wordsworth quoted Coleridge’s dictum that “every great and original writer, in proportion as he is great and original, must himself create the taste by which he is to be relished.” This aphorism gets to the heart of an issue that composers as well as writers were forced to confront in the nineteenth century. Those who self-identified as progressive figures frequently found the way to success beset with roadblocks of various kinds: the scarcity of opportunities to secure performances, especially of large-scale works; recalcitrant musicians and singers who often were not up to the demands of the scores; critical hostility, which was a near constant element in responses to “advanced” music; vested interests whose favor needed to be curried; as well as the usual competition for audiences with other forms of entertainment. Small wonder that the matter of “creating a taste” for one’s works occupied so much of these composers’ time and effort. This might be done by journalistic proselytizing (Berlioz and Schumann), or by personally directing exemplary performances (Liszt and Mahler). In his monograph, Nicholas Vazsonyi demonstrates that Richard Wagner employed an unprecedented variety of means to win acceptance for his art; or, to rephrase this in the “business speak” he adopts throughout, Wagner undertook a multi-fronted advertising campaign to establish and promote his brand. That he was so successful is what makes a study of his methods so interesting.

This accessibly written study highlights the extent to which Wagner’s activities can be interpreted as deliberate efforts at self-promotion. The book follows a chronological path, starting in chapter 1, “Image,” with his unsuccessful Parisian years. Wagner is seen to have “instrumentalized his failure” by establishing in his short stories and reviews from the period the idea of “financial disinterestedness” as a necessary component of true artistry (p. 12). This trait is aligned with Germanness, a mental configuration which is expressed in various jingoistic jibes at the French and Italian traditions (p. 19). Beethoven, as the arch-representative of Germanic art, is conscripted to Wagner’ s nascent project, most obviously in the short story “Eine Pilger -fahrt zu Beethoven” (1840), where “Beethoven” endorses Wagner’s dismissal of operatic practices of the day in favor of a yet-to-be achieved union of instrumental and vocal styles. However, as Vazsonyi demonstrates in chapter 2, “Publicity” (perhaps the most compelling chapter of this study), even the performance of the Ninth Symphony in Dresden in 1846 can be read as an act of self-advertisement: Wagner’s multifaceted involvement, which included mounting a carefully orchestrated press campaign and was capped by his appearance on the podium, ensured that his name was indelibly linked with his great German forebear. Only a few years previously, he had established a potent association with another Germanic icon through his involvement with the ceremonies that brought Weber’s remains from London back to Dresden. Nowadays it is common to describe Wagner as the prime mover in this repatriation, but this is demonstrably false. The inflation of Wagner’s role has come about thanks to his having left “the definitive account of the event” (p. 51). This is a vivid illustration of how the dull chronicle of history can get overwritten by a compelling narrative, or how “spin” can “[shape] our historical memory” (pp. 59, 62).

Chapter 3, “Niche and Branding,” focuses on the years around 1850, the time of the Zurich writings in which Wagner established new parameters for his art. The openly propagandistic nature of these essays has been much discussed, although no one previously has framed this in such overtly commercial terms. Vazsonyi compares his revolt against contemporary operatic practices to “in business terms, the energetic innovative ‘start-up’ against the monopolistic mega-corporation; or, more starkly, a mom-and-pop operation against global capital” (p. 82). These comparisons with later corporate entities proliferate: “as with Disney, the full Wagnerian experience...