In Defence of Eric Hobsbawm

On Good Friday I went along to Birmingham’s magnificent Symphony Hall to hear a performance of Richard Wagner’s final (and in my opinion greatest) work, Parsifal. The Mariinsky Opera under the baton of Valery Gergiev performed brilliantly, all rasping brass and sinuous reed, and one or two of the singers were world class.

What has this got to do with history, one asks? Well, the case of Wagner raises some interesting questions. Though plainly a man of extraordinary charisma and one of the very greatest geniuses of western culture, Wagner had some thoroughly unpleasant ideas, which he often propagated in public, not least his virulent antisemitism. It is hard to square the beauty and profundity of a work like Parsifal with such repellent and stupid views.