Early in Wagnerism: Art and Politics In the Shadow of Music, a history of the cult of fandom devoted to the operas of 19th-century German composer Richard Wagner, Alex Ross drops a charming anecdote from the 1850s. Poet and critic Auguste de Gasperini told of being “subjugated” by Wagner’s music, suffering what Ross calls “an unusually strong reaction to one of Wagner’s more innocuous pieces.” The passage that brought Gasperini to his knees was the wedding chorus from “Lohengrin,” known to most English-speakers, whether we care to know Wagner or not, as “Here Comes the Bride.”
The Ecstasy of Knowledge
On Alex Ross’s “Wagnerism: Art and Politics In the Shadow of Music”
