Richard Wagner

Moses Mendelssohn’s grandson was raised a Christian, but his compositions reflect his Jewish roots.

Saul Jay Singer
April 29 2022 12:01AM

These two ex-friends saw Jews as the embodiment of the evils of liberalism.

Eric Nelson
Feb. 7 2022 12:01AM

More insidious than Wagner’s hateful ideas are his passions, which reside in his music and stir answering passions in others.

Jan. 26 2015 12:01AM

Hating Wagner is a debilitating Jewish habit. So is loving him.

Jan. 22 2015 12:01AM

Wagner’s totalizing anti-Judaism is still alive. It just has a new face, fully revealed in this month’s attacks in Paris.

Jan. 19 2015 12:01AM

As Wagner illustrates, anti-Semitism is more than a mere dislike of Jews—it’s a metaphysical condition that shapes the very way the world is perceived.

Jan. 12 2015 12:01AM

Two centuries after the great composer’s birth, his anti-Semitism remains a bitterly contested issue. Perhaps that’s because no one has yet come to grips with its, or his, true nature.

Jan. 5 2015 12:01AM

In addition to its poisonous political effects in Germany, the composer’s anti-Semitism helped solidify anti-Jewish myths in Western music that persist to this day. 

July 7 2014 12:01AM

Despite his contemptible beliefs and reprehensible behavior, the composer made a unique contribution to the world of music and expanded our awareness of human possibility.

Paul A. Cantor
Nov. 19 2013 12:00AM

While Wagner’s nationalist anti-Semitism is vilified, the anti-Semitism of contemporaneous Russian composers remains widely ignored.

Philip Hensher
Nov. 12 2013 12:00AM