Klarinet Archive - Posting 000098.txt from 1998/10

From: Roger Shilcock <roger.shilcock@-----.uk>
Subj: Re: [kl] Wagner
Date: Fri, 2 Oct 1998 04:31:39 -0400

Do you mean that Wagner was a coward because when the political situation
became unpleasant for him around
1848. he left the country - unlike Richard Strauss, much later?
Interesting!
Roger S.

On Thu, 1 Oct 1998 HatNYC62@-----.com wrote:

> Date: Thu, 1 Oct 1998 23:57:16 EDT
> From: HatNYC62@-----.com
> Reply-To: klarinet@-----.org
> To: klarinet@-----.org
> Subject: [kl] Wagner
>
> Interesting opinions. Wagner seems to loom larger in music history with every
> passing year as his innovations in harmony, counterpoint and orchestration are
> studied and discovered anew. For years he was grouped with Liszt and Berlioz
> as one of many innovators. Now he towers above them, and with good reason.
>
> I just don't see how Wagner can be held responsible personally for what
> happened after his lifetime. He was an egomaniac, often out of touch with
> reality, and when it came time to put himself in personal danger for his
> political beliefs, a coward. He alienated everyone who got near him, including
> most of his most ardent admirers. There is no way to know what his reaction to
> Hitler might have been. He might have thought him an idiot.
>
> Ironically, his most often played work is the prelude to Meistersinger, the
> music of which represents the Entry music of the Nuremberg Mastersingers, who
> set the rules for what is art song and what is not. Intentionally overly
> pompous and grand, I don't think he intended it to be seen as his greatest
> achievement. So the last laugh there is on him.
>
> We don't regard Shakespeare nearly as comtemptibly for the Merchant of Venice,
> nor Dickens for Oliver Twist and other works. These works are much more widely
> known and studied than Wagner's, and present a much more readily absorbed
> version of anti-semitism than what is found in Wagner's operas.
>
> As for the Ring, maybe some of it seems absurd. But compared to the opera that
> came before it (and much that came after)? And it all came from one brain,
> words and music. Remarkable. I can't imagine the number of hours it must have
> taken just to copy it down. Parsifal? Having played it, 6 hours of heavenly
> harmonic never-never land (as in never quite finding the tonic). What can I
> say, I have been seduced.
>
> David Hattner, NYC
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>

-------------------------------------------------------------------------