Klarinet Archive - Posting 000053.txt from 1998/10

From: "George Landis" <George@-----.org>
Subj: Re: [kl] Wagner
Date: Thu, 1 Oct 1998 22:18:05 -0400

As always, I find your point of view interesting and well-reasoned.
It's refreshing to hear from someone who has actually performed "Der =
Ring...." in whatever role.

We are doing the cycle over the next four years. It will be interesting to =
see if I agree with you after seeing it all again.

Regards.

>>> "Dan Leeson: LEESON@-----.edu> 10/01 9:18 =
PM >>>

Before we go too far under the assumption of a universal agreement
on the excellence of Wagner's music, let me share with you my
opinion for what it is worth. And I focus only on one item, "The
Ring." I've played it a number of times and moments of it are
simply magnificent, but overall I think the entire effort is simply
not worth anyone's time or trouble.
=20
I find The Ring to be a pagan tale of sorcery and incest that
presents an incomprehensible mythology as a rational philosophy for
the world, even though it is strong enough stuff to allow the
modern listener to become drunk in its embrace. Rarely has the
art-loving world been presented with such a deceit as this attempt
at a complete work of art, for it is a tangle of falsehoods and
pathetic arrogance run amok, where trivial opinions are made into
pompous and ponderous utterances, and bankrupt personal pursuits
are elevated to matters of universal significance. Like every
other written utterance of Wagner, The Ring is largely egocentric.=20
But here it of such vast proportions as to be a stage work in which
Wagner's personal fantasies were transformed into the future of the
German people.
=20
So all of this hooting and hollering that Wagner has to be
preserved because he is such a magnificent composer might very well
be true, but not for all of us. Meistersinger I find incredible
and wonderful from first note to last. But The Ring and Parsifal
are works of monumental ego and minimal comprehensibility.

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Dan Leeson, Los Altos, California
Rosanne Leeson, Los Altos, California
leeson@-----.edu=20
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=20

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