Judaism in Music
An Essay from 1878
by
RICHARD WAGNER
Ostara, republished
102 pages
Print: Ostara
Online/Download: Internet Archive
Famous “Ring” Trilogy composer Richard Wagner argues in this essay that  Jewish involvement in European culture always had a negative and distorting impact. Jews, Wagner wrote, did not have the European “folkish soul” required to create genuinely European art, and, as a result, were only imitators who crassly deformed all that they produced. As a result, he said, all art—be it musical or otherwise—from Jewish sources was always shallow and a mockery of true art. Along the way, he discusses the Jewish type, and their broader influence in society.
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