On Conducting (üeber Das Dirigiren): A Treatise on Style in the Execution of Classical Music

In 1869, Richard Wagner detonated a manifesto. The composer who had already revolutionized opera now turned his fury on the podium, arguing that conducting was not mere timekeeping but an act of creative will. This treatise pulses with Wagner's legendary intensity: he lambastes conductors who treat scores as "routine" rather than living art, who drone through Beethoven like metronomes, who lack the knowledge to interpret the classical masters they claim to serve. Wagner demands a conductor who absorbs the score until it becomes part of him, who commands the orchestra not as a beat-giver but as an interpretive sovereign. Reading these pages, you encounter the man who invented the cult of the conductor as omnipotent artist. This is not a dry musicological text. It is a battle cry from one of history's most brilliant perfectionists, a window into the mind that reshaped how we understand musical performance. Whether you are a conductor, a musician, or simply someone who has ever felt a orchestra move under a great interpretative will, Wagner's passion remains as electric today as it was over a century ago.