Richard Wagner’s influence extended far beyond music. Writers, philosophers, other musicians and artists of all persuasions fell under his sway well into the 20th century. A slim but incisive book, Aspects of Wagner by Bryan Magee (1969), is worthy of attention a half-century after its publication, as is the recent and ambitious 784-page tome Wagnerism: Art and Politics in the Shadow of Music by esteemed New Yorker music critic Alex Ross (2020). Wagner was a great composer whose life exemplified the bromide “Do as I say, not as I do.” Several of his operas extol religious and spiritual virtues while his affairs with the wives of admirers and colleagues blemish his ethical and moral character. His opera Tannhäuser exemplifies the conflicts between the polar opposites of his life: the carnal appeal of his obsessive attraction to Venus, goddess of sensuous delight, vies with the purity of the woman Elizabeth. Many of the motifs from the opera appear in the overture to Tannhäuser, a veritable tone poem. The overture opens with a pilgrim’s hymn emerging from the clarinets, bassoons and horns, repeated but in a more stentorian manner by the trombones. The libidinous Venusberg music follows at a faster pace before one hears the reprise of the pilgrim’s hymn, now with a murmuring string accompaniment. A Heaven-sent peroration ends the overture, letting us know in advance that the Spirit is stronger than the Profane.