Arnold Whittall: A Public–Private Partnership: Wagner’s Voices in ‘Die Meistersinger’

However numerous the different tones of voice that might be teased out of the rich and complex musical fabric of Die Meistersinger, they are easily eclipsed in volume by the conflicting and occasionally confusing judgments of innumerable critics and commentators. Reading a large-scale, multivalent work of art for precise, permanently valid meanings rarely leads to simple statements or universal assent.