242 music, philosophy, and modernity
varying degrees of illumination of the works. Does one, though, have
to adhere to the underlying theoretical commitments of an interpre-
tation to find it enlightening, and, if not, how does one avoid mere
syncretism?
Consider the following two claims. Adorno comments that Wagner’s
work ‘is the first in which the superiority of the single work, and in the
single work that of the concretely thoroughly shaped form, in opposi-
tion to every schema of whatever kind, asserts itself’ (Adorno 1997 : 16 ,
548 ). SlavojZiˇzek thinks that Michael Tanner is right to claim that ‘ifˇ
one is to make sense ofTristan, one has to approach it not simply as a
work of art but as an ontological statement about the last things, about
the meaning of life’ (Ziˇzek and Dolarˇ 2002 : 114 – 15 ). The easy – and
false – way of responding to this clash is to regard such divergent views as
confirming that all interpretations – particularly of music – are indeed
just projections of the interpreter onto the Romantic mirror. Adorno,
the Critical Theorist, thinks the capitalist world abolishes particular-
ity and individuality;Ziˇzek, the Lacanian critic of postmodernism, seesˇ
the postmodern attitude as based in the attempt to evade inescapable
metaphysical questions about human existence. Wagner is therefore a
means of conveying their pre-existing ideas. The mistake here derives
from subject–object assumptions, in which there is the objective work,
and subjective interpretations that are projected onto it. However, as
Gadamer shows, there would be no way of understanding the work at all
if its recipients were not in some measure already imbued with the kind
of meanings it involves. I want now to consider a few examples of how
Dahlhaus interprets Wagner, which contain useful lessons for the issue
of music and philosophy. Dahlhaus suggests how to encompass both
Adorno’s idea of Wagner’s ‘musical nominalism’, and his addressing of
‘the last things’.
Dahlhaus regards the content of music as inseparable from other
aspects of cultural life, and his work is notable for its revelations about
the historical entanglement of ideas and music. He also, though, anal-
yses differences between musical and linguistic articulation in terms
of their effects on how musical drama works. This Hegelian approach
means that he does not always give enough weight to how music affects
philosophical thought, rather than vice versa. However, this does not
matter so much in his investigation of Wagner, because Dahlhaus explic-
itly seeks to understand them on the basis of the music, rather than just
of the texts. The simple advice is, then, to read Dahlhaus on Wagner
(in particular 1971 , 1988 , 1990 ; and Deathridge and Dahlhaus 1984 )!