The Perfect Wagnerite: Free Audiobook and Listening Guide

The Perfect Wagnerite, credited to George Bernard Shaw, is available as a LibriVox volunteer audiobook. This guide identifies the recording, its source summary and its audio tracks.

About the work

The LibriVox catalogue summary, preserved with the recording, reads:

LibriVox recording of The Perfect Wagnerite, by George Bernard Shaw. Read by Bob Neufeld. The Perfect Wagnerite: A Commentary on the Niblung's Ring (originally published London, 1898) is a philosophical commentary on Richard Wagner's Der Ring des Nibelungen, by the Irish writer George Bernard Shaw. Shaw offered it to those enthusiastic admirers of Wagner who "were unable to follow his ideas, and do not in the least understand the dilemma of Wotan." He interprets the Ring in Marxian terms as an allegory of the collapse of capitalism from its internal contradictions. Musicologically, his interpretation is noteworthy for its perception of the change in aesthetic direction beginning with the final scene of Siegfried, in which he claimed that the cycle turns from Musikdrama back towards opera. (Introduction by Wikipedia)

Recording facts

• Recording title: The Perfect Wagnerite
• Author credits: George Bernard Shaw
• Language: English
• Original MP3 tracks: 11
• Listed recording duration: 4:46:28

Catalogue topics

• music

Track guide

1. 00 - Prefaces and Encouragements — 24:24
2. 01 - The Ring of the Niblungs/The Rhine Gold — 41:36
3. 02 - Wagner As Revolutionist — 14:35
4. 03 - The Valkyries — 21:43
5. 04 - Siegfried — 27:06
6. 05 - Back To Opera Again - Siegfried Concluded — 34:56
7. 06 - Night Falls On The Gods — 27:29
8. 07 - Forgotten Ere Finished/Why He Changed His Mind — 24:12
9. 08 - Wagner's Own Explanation/The Pessimist As Amorist — 17:18
10. 09 - The Music of The Ring — 39:37
11. 10 - Bayreuth/Wagnerian Singers — 13:41

Listen to this recording

Open the complete recording and player on Internet Archive. The player includes the full track list and available download formats.

Source and rights

This is a record from LibriVox's official Internet Archive collection, with a public-domain licence recorded in its metadata. LibriVox's policy includes its catalogue summaries as well as its recordings. Its public-domain assessment follows United States law; copyright status can differ elsewhere. The summary and track facts are reproduced and reformatted from that record. Dates attached to the archive upload are not treated as original book publication dates.