Richard Wagner: The Musician’s Participation in German Anti-Semitism in Nineteenth-Century (1850-1873)

Abstract

The article examines the essay Judaism in music, by Richard Wagner, which was first published in 1850, also focusing on anti-Semitism and power relations inside of field of Concert Music fed by the essay. To carry out this article, it was necessary to place the musician and his text on a modern relatively autonomous artistic field and his intimate relationship with the context of Unification of Germany, as well as the delicate process of Jewish emancipation concomitant to intensification of hatred against the Jews. Therefore, by historically highlighting the form and content of the essay, it was found that Richard Wagner was another artist and writer who made a political weapon in defence of the German nation and in favour of anti-Semitism out of his work. One of the relevant points of Wagnerian anti-Semitism is that this rivals mentioned on the essay were romantic and Jewish artist. The cultural and political attacks against his rivals have shown that the wagnerian position have never been uniform or homogeneous.