Klarinet Archive - Posting 000172.txt from 1998/12

From: mgustav <mgustav@-----.com>
Subj: Re: [kl] Wagner's Ring again
Date: Fri, 4 Dec 1998 16:52:31 -0500

I do understand your premise. However, I do not find the message. The myths
that Wagner created are based on his collecting and remaking of myths, his
interpretation of ancient myths. But we bring to myths our own interpretation
(Freud) there is no preexisting and set meaning of a myth. If you view
Wagner's operas this way, it is because that is what you want them to mean
regardless as to what Wagner saw. Joseph Campbell offers great insight into
this area and consequently he is labeled as a racist and anti-Semite which he
found to be irrational.

Mark Gustavson

>
>
> Nice post Mark. But it misinterprets the premise I suggested. I do
> very much separate the man (and his ideals) from his music. If his
> work product were not so blatanly racist I would very much enjoy
> listening to and playing his music.
>
> What I cannot separate is the message of his operas from the music. It
> has nothing to do with Wagner the man, Wagner the racist, or Wagner, the
> author of Das Judentum in Musik. It has to do with the plot of
> Siegfried, Meistersinger, Gotterdammerung, Parsifal, etc.
>
> This entire problem has nothing to do with the man's beliefs, as
> repugnant as they are. It has everything to do with the fact that
> his operas are a constant and public restatement of repugnant racist
> and antisemitic views.
>
> Wagner does not bother me. His operas bother me.
>
> >
> >
> > -------------------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> =======================================
> Dan Leeson, Los Altos, California
> leeson@-----.edu
> =======================================
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------------------

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