JOURNALfor the STUDYof ANTISEMITISM

246 JOURNAL FOR THE STUDY OF ANTISEMITISM [ VOL. 3:243
Wagner’s view on the Jew’s ability to contribute to the world of culture
is described in his essay “Jewishness in Music”: 5 He writes, “In this
language and this art the Jew can produce only imitative sounds and counterfeit
goods—he cannot write truly eloquent poetry or create works of true
art.”
Elsewhere in this essay, Wagner writes, “If the Jew [is] incapable of
articulating his feelings and intuitions through artistic speech, how much
more incapable he must be of articulating them through song.” Yet, like the
Jew who, in Wagner’s eyes, used devious and unscrupulous practices to
gain entry into German society, Beckmesser has somehow become a member
of the guild of singers, though how he passed the entrance examination
at some previous time is incomprehensible.
Unlike every other guild member, Beckmesser has no craft but earns
his living as the town notary. Despite his inadequacies, he has become a
Marker, measuring the worth of potential members for the guild and judging
the merit of aspiring candidates. He criticizes the slightest deviation
from doctrine, and is the very thing that Wagner hates, namely a critic. On
this matter, it is noted that an early name for the character of Sixtus
Beckmesser was “Veit Hanslich,” almost a duplicate of Wagner’s nemesis,
Eduard Hanslick, the so-called “Bismarck of critics.” The name change to
Sixtus Beckmesser occurred very early in the creative cycle, but the fact
that Wagner even considered this humiliation for a man he regarded as an
archenemy is notable. Beside the fact that Wagner’s detested Hanslick
because of his negative criticisms about Wagner’s music, equally noteworthy
is the fact that Hanslick’s mother was Jewish.
It is in Beckmesser’s singing style that the most revealing picture
makes itself known, for what he sings and how he sings it is a parody of the
rhythms and vocal inflections of synagogue chant. Further, it is music that
is very high—far too high, in fact, for the bass voice specified by Wagner.
It is an example of the effeminate high voice that parodied the imagined
result of castration, which, in the mind of the ill informed, was confused
with circumcision.
Beckmesser’s performance as a poet singer is so outrageously incompetent
that the reactions to him from the citizens of Nuremberg range from
cynical disrespect to outright ridicule. His ardent but pathetic serenading of
the wrong woman leads to a riot. And he is a thief as well, stealing a poem
that he uses as the text for his own song. But even in this he fails because,
in Wagner’s eyes, Beckmesser cannot be a musical person even when given
5. The English title is often given as “Judaism in Music.” But Wagner’s intent
was to describe alleged negative Jewish characteristics, not theological details,
which is the implication given by “Judaism in Music.”