David Trippett is a Lecturer in Music at the University of Cambridge. His work on Wagner's music and reception, the history of aesthetics and theories of technology has appeared in various journals including 19th-Century Music, the Journal of Musicology, Musiktheorie, the Cambridge Opera Journal and The Musical Quarterly, and has earned him the Alfred Einstein award of the American Musicological Society. He has also edited and translated texts in music history, including most recently Carl Stumpf's The Origins of Music (2012), and he performs regularly as a collaborative pianist, having given concerts throughout Europe and on both coasts of the USA.

'Trippett's work dispels the myth that there is nothing new to be written about Richard Wagner. He delves into uncanny underworlds of nineteenth-century thought, and shows how they underpin Wagner's compositional ideas. Nascent technologies, speculation on melody and meaning, the acoustic reality of theatrical sound - all this is woven into an account of Wagner's evolution that is both startling and illuminating. A tremendous achievement.' Carolyn Abbate, Harvard University

• Introduction; 1. German melody; 2. Melodielehre?; 3. Wagner in the melodic workshop; 4. Hearing voices: Wilhelmine Schröder-Devrient and the Lohengrin 'Recitatives'; 5. Vowels, voices, and 'original truth'; 6. Wagner's material expression; Excursus: Bellini's Sinnlichkeit and Wagner's Italy.

David Trippett is a Lecturer in Music at the University of Cambridge. His work on Wagner's music and reception, the history of aesthetics and theories of technology has appeared in various journals including 19th-Century Music, the Journal of Musicology, Musiktheorie, the Cambridge Opera Journal and The Musical Quarterly, and has earned him the Alfred Einstein award of the American Musicological Society. He has also edited and translated texts in music history, including most recently Carl Stumpf's The Origins of Music (2012), and he performs regularly as a collaborative pianist, having given concerts throughout Europe and on both coasts of the USA.

'Trippett's work dispels the myth that there is nothing new to be written about Richard Wagner. He delves into uncanny underworlds of nineteenth-century thought, and shows how they underpin Wagner's compositional ideas. Nascent technologies, speculation on melody and meaning, the acoustic reality of theatrical sound - all this is woven into an account of Wagner's evolution that is both startling and illuminating. A tremendous achievement.' Carolyn Abbate, Harvard University

• Introduction; 1. German melody; 2. Melodielehre?; 3. Wagner in the melodic workshop; 4. Hearing voices: Wilhelmine Schröder-Devrient and the Lohengrin 'Recitatives'; 5. Vowels, voices, and 'original truth'; 6. Wagner's material expression; Excursus: Bellini's Sinnlichkeit and Wagner's Italy.

David Trippett is a Lecturer in Music at the University of Cambridge. His work on Wagner's music and reception, the history of aesthetics and theories of technology has appeared in various journals including 19th-Century Music, the Journal of Musicology, Musiktheorie, the Cambridge Opera Journal and The Musical Quarterly, and has earned him the Alfred Einstein award of the American Musicological Society. He has also edited and translated texts in music history, including most recently Carl Stumpf's The Origins of Music (2012), and he performs regularly as a collaborative pianist, having given concerts throughout Europe and on both coasts of the USA.

'Trippett's work dispels the myth that there is nothing new to be written about Richard Wagner. He delves into uncanny underworlds of nineteenth-century thought, and shows how they underpin Wagner's compositional ideas. Nascent technologies, speculation on melody and meaning, the acoustic reality of theatrical sound - all this is woven into an account of Wagner's evolution that is both startling and illuminating. A tremendous achievement.' Carolyn Abbate, Harvard University

• Introduction; 1. German melody; 2. Melodielehre?; 3. Wagner in the melodic workshop; 4. Hearing voices: Wilhelmine Schröder-Devrient and the Lohengrin 'Recitatives'; 5. Vowels, voices, and 'original truth'; 6. Wagner's material expression; Excursus: Bellini's Sinnlichkeit and Wagner's Italy.