Hilda Meldrum Brown, Richard Wagner and the ‘Zurich writings’ 1849–51: From Revolution to ‘Ring’

July 2014, Volume 8, Number 2, 28–42.

The term ‘writings’ needs clarification. For present purposes the focus is mainly on ‘essays’, that is, ‘theoretical writings’ examined alongside ‘writings’ of a more creative kind, that is, the prose and verse Textbücher that make up the Ring cycle (Wagner disliked the term ‘libretto’). Viewed entirely chronologically, the Textbücher were composed around the essays, that is, immediately before and immediately after the group of three (or, as I shall suggest, four) which occupied him between 1849 and 1851. The chronology of this group of essays associated with Zurich is well known; the rapidity with which they were written – almost en bloc – is remarkable: ‘Art and Revolution’ and ‘The Artwork of the Future’ (both in 1849), ‘Opera and Drama’ (1850–51) and ‘A Communication to my Friends’ (1851). Work on the Textbücher was not – and could not be – such a tidy affair.