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Musical Offerings
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2016
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Volume 7
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Number 2
57
not by the standards of German Romanticism possess a culture.”
8
Wagner also refers to the Jews’ speech as outlandish and unpleasant, and
he questions how they would, then, be able to produce music of artistic
beauty through singing.
9
There was, in his opinion, no way that the
Jewish composer could fit the German Romantic view of greatness. If
Wagner was so quick to say that Jews had no place in music, is it not
also reasonable that Wagner most likely felt this way about German
culture at large: that the Jewish people did not belong?
Although it can be easy to fault Wagner for his feelings of German
superiority, he was not the first to express pride in his nationality. During
the Romantic Era, the spread of nationalism gave root to the perception
that one’s nation is better than other nations. Nationalism served as a
catalyst for national pride and political movements. People displayed this
in many different ways, including music. Following Germany’s part in
this nationalistic fervor in the nineteenth century, “Germanness” became
an ideal in music, and many people “privileged a German style of music
over French and Italian models.”
10
Wagner’s opinions did not keep only within the limits of his political
writings; he portrayed his anti-Semitic opinions very clearly in most of
his music. To understand this, a look must be given to some of his operas.
One of his most famous operas,
Die Meistersinger
(originally written in
1845), is frequently touted as his most anti-Semitic opera. It centers on
two main characters, named Beckmesser and Walther von Stolzing.
According to Barry Millington, author of the article entitled “Nuremberg
Trial: Is There Anti-Semitism in ‘Die Meistersinger?,’” Beckmesser is
said to be the quintessential picture of anti-Semitism:
The characterisation of Beckmesser draws directly on a
common fund of nineteenth-century anti-Semitic
stereotypes, specifically on the description of Jews in
Wagner’s pamphlet
Das Judentum in der Musik
(Jewishness in Music)
(1850). According to that
conventional image, the Jew shuffles and blinks, is
scheming and argumentative, and is not to be trusted. So
Beckmesser slinks up the alley behind the night
8
Loeffler, “Richard Wagner’s ‘Jewish Music,’” 6.
9
Wagner, “Judaism in Music,” 85–86.
10
Nicholas Vazsonyi, “Marketing German Identity: Richard Wagner’s
‘Enterprise,’”
German Studies Review
(Johns Hopkins University) 28, no. 2
(2005): 332.