One of the common dangers of studying composers’ lives is finding out that some of the people whose music we love and admire turn out to have been very unadmirable human beings. Exhibit A in this category is usually Richard Wagner, an egomaniac and anti-semite, among other things, but a man who wrote lots of exquisitely beautiful music. What are we to make of such jarring disjunctions? Should we throw out the music with the maniac? I don’t have the answer. If your personal association with the