Wagner Nights: An American History by Joseph Horowitz
The life and works of Richard Wagner dominated American music-making at the close of the 19th century. Europe, too, was obsessed with Wagner, but - as Joseph Horowitz argues in this history of Wagnerism in the United States - the American passion was unique. Wagner himself predicted that the New World would prove especially receptive to his operas and ideas, and the enigmatic conductor Anton Seidl became his emissary.