Wagner, Richard. Das Judenthum in der Musik.

AUCTION 58 | Thursday, May 02nd, 2013 at 1:00

Fine Judaica: Printed Books, Manuscripts and Autograph Letters

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Lot 47

(ANTISEMITICA).

Wagner, Richard. Das Judenthum in der Musik.

<<FIRST EDITION>> in book form (previously appeared as an article in the Neue Zeitschrift fuer Musik in Zurich, under the pseudonym “K. Friegedenk”) pp. 57. Lightly browned, signature on opening blank. Later boards, inner hinge starting, spine rubbed. 8vo.

Leipzig: J. J. Weber 1869

Est: $500 - $700

The brilliant composer Richard Wagner (1813-83) makes the charge in this blatantly anti-Semitic text, that the Jew is bereft of true artistic creation and to admit him into the world of art would result in the most pernicious consequences. The work is one of the first formulations of racial anti-Semitism. See P.R. Mendes-Flohr and J. Reinharz, Jewry in Music, in: The Jew in the Modern World (1980), pp. 268-71.