When asked if she understands a work by this person, a character asks, “Who could?” and “Why should one?” This person titles a story in which a “stinging frenzy” breaks a thirty-year “inconceivable silence of the plains” for a woman who cries quietly and says, “I don't want to go!” at the end of the central event. In another story, Gabriele’s tuberculosis worsens after she plays a work by this (*) composer for Detlev Spinell. This composer’s influence (10[1])on authors such as W. E. B. Du Bois and Charles Baudelaire is discussed in an Alex Ross book titled for him. Aunt Georgiana visits from Nebraska and attends a matinee of this composer’s music in a Willa Cather story. This composer of an opera based on an epic by Wolfram von Eschenbach also wrote (10[1])the antisemitic essay “Jewishness in Music.” For 10 points, name this composer who inspired Thomas Mann’s story “Tristan.” ■END■