Wagner: Jewishness In Music

It is important to know that Wagner was clearly not without its controversy; quite the opposite, Wagner is remembered as an anti-semitic person that, out of jelousy and racism, wrote horrific statements about Jewish music. Perhaps the most notable and infamous example is the essay “Das Judenthum in der Musik” (German for “Jewishness in Music”). Its original publication in 1850 was under the pseudonym of K. Freigedank, as Wagner himself explains the reason behind it: “[I wanted] to prevent the question of being dragged down by the Jews to a purely personal level” (Wagner, 221-2). This means that he did not want to deal with the public’s reception in that moment, particularly not wanting to discuss with Jewish people. In this essay he states,