THESE ARE DANGEROUS ideas, and not always in a good way. Karol Berger sees them pointing towards a terrifying post-political future, arguing that “[i]t is the central paradox of Götterdämmerung, and hence of the Ring, that it demonstrates the hopelessly utopian nature of the anarchist ideal that it promotes.” He assumes the primacy of “naturally isolated and egoistic individuals” and insists that Wagner's ideal is a community of sovereign individuals “held together by spontaneous sympathy, without any … mediation” provided by a social contract or law. This, like Marx's early communism, must entail despotism: “the abolishing of legal limits on individual freedom cannot but lead to the domination of the strong over the weak.”

Berger takes it for granted that we are “naturally isolated and egoistic individuals,” and he dismisses the possibility that this construction of experience could be a “contingent product of recent historical development.” From a global perspective, however, that is exactly what it is, and it is what Fichte, especially, had sought to deconstruct. To take it as something selfevidently true, as Berger does, is to limit the range of thinkable social and political possibilities, and that is a genuine problem. Whatever the merits of his solutions, if he is really proposing any, Wagner's philosophy and drama raise issues which cannot be so easily dismissed.

Theory aside, the man who created the character of Alberich knew how easily the unfettered will of the strong could overpower the needs of the weak.

The situation that the Isle of Man was in from 1736 to 1830 was one of great enterprise and repercussion. The story is one of considerable intrigue, and its threads are linked with money and power. Both these factors dominated the situation and feature as continuing themes throughout the period.

For many years the Island had been in a unique position, ideally situated in all respects to provide an opportunity for making a profit through smuggling at the expense of its neighbouring countries. Its physical position gave easy access to Britain and Ireland, and its political status allowed the lords of Man and Tynwald to set laws without any interference by Britain. The financial losses to Britain as a direct result of smuggling were extensive, so it was inevitable that it would eventually do something to protect its own revenue. The lengthy spell of questionable Manx maritime trading was radically placed in check through the Revestment and Mischief Acts of 1765. As a result of these acts, the regalities and customs rights of the lords of Man ended, and the sovereignty of the Island was revested solely in the British Crown. The Crown consequently appropriated the Manx customs revenue which was then used to help offset its costs in regaining the sovereign rights and to secure a continuing incomeproducing asset for the British exchequer, little of which was intended ever to come back to the Island. John Murray, the determined fourth duke of Atholl, was resolute in his fight to gain more and more compensation for his family's losses as a consequence of revestment. Before and after his appointment as governor-in-chief and captain general in 1793 his relationships with many of the self-elected members of the House of Keys and a large number of officials were at times unhappy ones.

British Library Add MS 12488

Volume II of A Journal Kept during a Tour in England, France and Italy, in Danish, commencing 21 July 1669 at Dover

[2r] Anno 1669 The 21st July. Dover is the key to England on this side, even more so, if the harbour were better. There, ships of 500 tonnes may enter. The magazine lies in the middle of the town with water all around it. The harbour was brought into the state it now is, by King Henry IV of England, and then by Queen Elizabeth. There lies a castle on a hill, and across on another hill a Pharos or lighthouse was standing for those at sea.

Travelled by horse on the road to London, with a part of the suite: Moth remained behind with the rest of the suite and the luggage, to follow on by wagon.

On the way, at Canterbury, visited the great cathedral, is very extensive in [terms of its] length, but not in its breadth nor height. It is divided into 3 parts. The first is the lower part, without any ornament, outside there is a baptistery on the left hand side [2v] between two pillars. The other part is raised, in which there is to be found a separate choir, where Service of le College de la SS Trinite is held three times a day, with singing and reading from the Bible. The tombs of the old Archbishops etc are placed at intervals also around this part. The third part is higher still, there, the royal tombs are situated. Viewed the sepulchre of Henry IV, of Prince Edward, the son of Edward III. Examined also the sepulchre of Cardinal Polus etc. Is notable that beside all of the bishops’ tombs there is an official notice with a description of their lives. Prince Edward lies above his tomb in copper, in armour.

Any material book is a thing written and a thing made. The argument of The Making and Meaning of a Medieval Manuscript has proceeded, throughout, from an examination of making to an examination of writing in critical analysis of the medieval book. In Chapter 1, I described my procedure in its material aspect as analytical codicology and in its critical aspect as recomposition. These two terms, analytical codicology and recomposition, form two sides of the same methodological coin. Analytical codicology describes processes of observation and inquiry necessary to answer the ostensibly straightforward book-historical question: “How did this book come to be?” Recomposition describes processes of analysis and interpretation necessary to answer a separate hermeneutic question: “How does this book come to mean?” Between these two terms lies the simple fact that material composition and lexical composition are non-identical, and so, in turn, that any recovery of meaning from a manufactured book, and not solely some authorial or scribal text, depends upon the close examination of non-identical forms of evidence. When we ask, “how do you read a medieval book?” the answer must account for material things and material words together, in inextricable relation to one another, without collapsing the features of codices and the features of texts into a single indistinct evidentiary category. The fundamental contribution of The Making and Meaning of a Medieval Manuscript to literary study is a flexible method for moving between categorically distinct types of evidence in consideration of the significance of manuscript books.

Misha Donat's splendid book on Beethoven's piano chamber music ploughs a neglected field. His familiarity with this repertoire seems, at least in part, the result of many years of experience as a recording producer for the BBC and other institutions. For a performer whose concerts are being recorded there is no greater favour than to be able to rely on a producer's technical knowledge, his musical intuition, and his ear for the quality and three-dimensionality of sound, on his alertness as a critical listener as well as his appreciation of performances that spontaneously hit the right note. With Misha Donat, I invariably found myself in the safest hands. Besides this, I have much enjoyed Misha Donat's analytical notes, which count among the finest. At a time when live recordings are no longer the exception, introductory texts take on a new significance. The question arises as to whether and how such texts can be helpful to the listener, and the player, at all. In Misha Donat's case, there are three things I particularly admire: his professionalism that goes far beyond the notes in the score; the familiarity with the material as a whole, that enables him to compare, point out, and synthesise a grasp that generates insights both formal and historical; and, last but not least, the luminous clarity of his style. Programme notes can be a respectable bread-and-butter task or, in rare cases, provide the springboard for a comprehensive framework. Misha Donat's book, representing the work of a lifetime, is an all-embracing summing up of this kind.

Such mistakes are of course only possible in the case of a reader who substitutes his own ideas for those of the poet, while the simpleminded reader, perhaps unconsciously to himself, takes in the matter more easily, just as it is.

—Wagner to August Röckel, January 26, 1854

This book does not look at Wagner's Ring cycle through concepts drawn from contemporary philosophy, as Philip Kitcher and Richard Schacht do in Finding an Ending. Nor does it begin with the philosophers that Wagner was known to have read “and show in what ways their ideas got into Wagner's work,” which was Bryan Magee's intention in Wagner and Philosophy. Instead, it is a kind of experiment in interpretation. I begin with Wagner's own philosophy and then think through the Ring with the ideas that he himself had set out while preparing to write its text. I have made use of the secondary literature when it serves my argument, but the guiding thread is spun from Wagner's own words.

That is to say: I take Wagner seriously as a thinker, as a creator of philosophical theories rather than as a consumer of other people’s. He was not a philosopher of the first rank, it is true, but his talents in that direction were substantial. Though he was strongly influenced by many of the better-known thinkers of his day, he developed his own theories on topics as diverse as humanity's place in the larger world, the limitations of human knowledge and the pitfalls of self-consciousness, the social function of art, the historical and cultural influences and constraints on artistic creativity, and the prospects for political transformation. More impressive than that was his ability to bring those ideas together into a single, surprisingly coherent world view.