If we were seeking a context to help in understanding the music of Hugo Wolf, then one might wish for a less problematic one than his relationship to Wagner and the Wagnerian inheritance. As critics, we usually seek to go beyond composers' efforts at self-validation, however eloquent and moving they may be; one might say it is a sign of our serious regard that we do not simply accept their acknowledged and immediate stories of influence and intention, but look also for the unspoken aspects which reveal the human engagement behind their work. Yet it was precisely such critical activity that Wagner sought to bypass, offering his own view of music history that extended beyond personal actions; he purported to account for much of the broader working of culture and bring this also within a single fixed perspective. More striking still, Wagner made a conscious exhibition of his struggles for artistic coherence and identity both in his writings and in the music dramas themselves, offering himself as his own critic – an artist of complete awareness and control.

Wagner's claims, as the philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche recognised, helped provoke a crisis in criticism that we are still addressing today, a crisis that gives urgency to the uncovering of multiple layers in the interpretation of Wagner's work and in the pursuit of musical meaning in general.