The Shadow Within: Barry Millington reviews a revised study that examines Wagnerian secrets

Paul Dawson-Bowling’s two-volume The Wagner Experience is now offered as a three-volume Wagner: The Complete Experience. It’s an ambitious, all-encompassing endeavour, with the aim of penetrating to the ‘secrets’ at the heart of Wagner’s works: explaining not only how they function but what makes us respond to them in the way we do. In order to pursue that aim, the author draws on many decades’ experience as exponent of Wagner’s works, as well as a fund of medical and psychological knowledge (he was a medical practitioner prior to retirement).