Language:
English
Year of publication:
1991
Titel der Quelle:
Leo Baeck Institute Year Book
Angaben zur Quelle:
36 (1991) 219-228
Keywords:
Wagner, Richard,
;
Auerbach, Berthold,
;
Antisemitism History 1800-2000
Abstract:
Wagner first met Auerbach at Dresden in 1846, where Wagner had discussions with him about Judaism and found him friendly and amicable. After Wagner's conversion in 1848 to a new revolutionary kind of Jew-hatred, Auerbach found him repellent. Auerbach (1812-1882), the Jewish-German writer, had made it his mission to promote an understanding of Judaism as a humanitarian religion. Discusses Wagner's attack against Auerbach in the "Explanations" appended to the 1869 edition of "Judaism in Music, " probably prompted by Auerbach's failure to promote Wagner's "Ring" poem in 1859. Quotes from letters by both men addressed to friends and family, in which they each express dislike for the other. Auerbach came to regard Wagner as the epitome of the barbarous Jew-hatred which emerged in German public life in the 1870s, but he would or could not engage in polemics against this phenomenon. In May 1881, when Wagner's "Ring" cycle was staged under the patronage of Berlin Jews, Auerbach drafted a polemic against Wagner which he never published. The text is given on pp. 227-228.
DOI:
10.1093/leobaeck/36.1.219
URL:
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