Wagner's book-length essay on Beethoven is really about Wagner himself rather than Beethoven. It is generally regarded as the principal aesthetic statement of the composer's later years and is an essential text in the teaching of not only Wagnerian thought but also late nineteenth-century musical aesthetics. Until now the English reader has been obliged to work from two Victorian translations. This brand new edition provides for a new translation and comes along with a substantial introduction placing the essay in the wider political, historical and intellectual context of Wagner's later thought.
