Klarinet Archive - Posting 000329.txt from 2005/05
From: <robink7@-----.net>
Subj: Re: RE: [kl] Wagner!
Date: Tue, 24 May 2005 18:41:41 -0400
This is getting very political and overwhelming. Enough already about Wagner...... I know... let us talk about Clarinets!!!!!
Robin
>
> From: "Matthew Lloyd" <matthew@-----.uk>
> Date: 2005/05/24 Tue PM 04:26:33 EDT
> To: <klarinet@-----.org>
> Subject: RE: [kl] Wagner!
>
> This is, I am afraid to say, complete tosh.
>
> I'd be surprised if any musician would agree that "his music expresses
> the most beauty and passion of any composer past or present". Mozart?
> Need I say more?
>
> I have to say I have difficulty knowing exactly where to start with the
> rest. How the statements "his music expresses the most beauty and
> passion of any
> composer past or present" and "money couldn't pay me to sit through long
> hours of Wagner's operas" are supposed to sit side by side in the same
> paragraph is something that I cannot explain. Or understand. Nonsense
> like this - and it is nonsense whether you like Wagner or not - makes me
> wonder what sort of institution John Sheridan went to.
>
> Now I have - recently - "[sat] through long hours of Wagner's operas"
> and currently hold tickets for Covent Garden to see Walkure (twice) and
> Siegfried (twice), having seen Rheingold (twice), Walkure (twice),
> Parsifal, Tristan and Meistersinger in the last couple of seasons. I saw
> my first Wagner opera at the English National Opera when I was 14 - and
> that was Gotterdammerung. Until you have seen opera in the theatre, you
> can't really say that you have experienced the work. So for someone to
> profess love for the Wagnerian music drama, but not to want see it in
> the opera house? Madness. You, Mr. Sheridan, are an ignorant critic if
> you maintain the nonsense you wrote.
>
> The Bridal Chorus thing is a red herring. Played on an organ it has very
> little Wagner left in it. And a lot of people want it simply because
> it's "traditional". (I went for the March of the Priests from
> Zauberflote - now becoming a family tradition!)
>
> I don't want to be thought of as a Wagner enthusiast first and foremost.
> I would give every note he wrote for Die Zauberflote. Indeed I'd give
> every note Wagner wrote for the March of the Priests! Neither would I
> profess to be particularly knowledgeable - although I feel that seeing
> each instalment of the Ring twice is allowing me to gain some insight
> into this complex work.
>
> Now I know that a lot of people dislike Wagner for both music and
> non-musical reasons. That's fair enough. I don't agree with them,
> although I have a great deal of sympathy for some of the non-musical
> objections, but I respect their opinion. In essence this response isn't
> about music, but about clear thinking. And in your case, Mr. Sheridan,
> the lack of it.
>
> Like or dislike Wagner as you please. But you don't like it if all you
> experience is what Newman referred to as bleeding chunks.
>
> Matthew
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: John W. Sheridan [mailto:otare@-----.au]
> Sent: 24 May 2005 08:01
> To: klarinet@-----.org
> Subject: [kl] Wagner!
>
> I haven't written to this group in a number of years, but this Wagner
> slamming has got my pressure up. I totally agree the man was NOT a nice
> guy - so what! His music expresses the most beauty and passion of any
> composer past or present that I am aware of, and I have a university
> degree
> in the field! What person involved in music could deny the magic of
> Liebestod from Tristan and Isolde, the majestic and stirring themes like
> Ride of the Valkeries, Lohengrin, and others. The Pilgrims' Chorus
> from
> Tannhauser in monumental as a religious hymn. If our half vast critic
> has
> been married and marched in to the Bridal Chorus, then he's being two
> faced
> as well as a bigot!
> While money couldn't pay me to sit through long hours of Wagner's
> operas, he
> has to his credit added immeasurable to our rich music heritage. In
> being
> so ignorantly critical of music he isn't familiar with, our critic has
> proven himself equally offensive as the man he so strongly criticizes.
> Enough is enough.
>
> John W. Sheridan
>
>
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