Judaism in Music
An Essay from 1878
by
RICHARD WAGNER
Ostara, republished
102 pages
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.