Comments on: Anything But Wagner

By: Rowan Ford

Rowan Ford — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 07:30:34 +0000

Whatever Wagner`s personal views were,I don`t think this has any relevance to his Music ,to his great vision.It`s also said that Beethoven was not the nicest of chaps,but it`s totally irrelevant.
I also don`t see that Hitler`s lack of education is any reason to believe he was incapable of appreciating fine art(I am from a working class background and I love opera).
I totally agree with the comments on Sir Winston Churchill,from what I know about him,although he was a great leader and speaker,he was a warmonger,a racist and had very unpleasant views regarding the poorest members of the very Countries he led.

By: Gerhart Wiesend

Gerhart Wiesend — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 07:25:46 +0000

An opera friend drew my attention to a book by Marc A. Weiner “Richard Wagner and the Anti-Semitic Imagination” ( http://www.amazon.com/Richard-Wagner-Anti-Semitic-Imagination-Contexts/dp/0803297920/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1319526556&sr=1-4 ) in which a similar attitude to Wagner as mentioned by Leonard Bernstein is expressed. (“I hate him, but I hate him on my knees”)
Weiner rejects Wagner´s ideology and claims to have found many anti-semitic traces in Wagner´s libretti, but personally loves the music, adding that he even met his wife during a Meistersinger performance.
I have not read the book yet since I am currently busy with a number of Hoffmann productions in Germany, but would be interested to hear opinions about it.
Here some notes on Weiner: http://www.indiana.edu/~germanic/faculty/WeinerCVF10.pdf

By: Operafilly

Operafilly — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 15:22:18 +0000

“he prefers Bach and Mozart.” If there were only those 2 and Wagner I’d be thumbing my way to Bayreuth.

By: Gerhart Wiesend

Gerhart Wiesend — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 07:38:13 +0000

Well, there are exceptions like Helmut Schmidt (born 1918) and West German chancellor from 1974 until 1982 when he was overthrown by the provincial and corrupt Christian Democrat Helmut Kohl. Both were never seen at Bayreuth. Kohl, because he is uninterested in art and music generally, Schmidt because he prefers Bach and Mozart. Schmidt even recorded a Mozart piano piece ( http://www.omm.de/cds/klassik/helmut-schmidt-spielt-klavier.html and http://www.amazon.com/Mozart-Concertos-Three-Pianos-K242/dp/B000026D0X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1318491218&sr=8-1 ), even if it was only the part written for a child. Schmidt is 93 now, a chain smoker with a mind as brilliant as ever, and still analyses the world political situation like few other politicians.

By: Operafilly

Operafilly — Sun, 09 Oct 2011 15:43:11 +0000

Hitler also hated horses according to the commentator on a video clip I have of Hitler viewing the Lipizzans performing at the Spanish Riding School in Austria.

As for politicos and music…….uh……pretty hopeless. Altho Truman’s daughter “sang” opera (I have a clip somewhere) and Nixon played piano. And Eisenhower didn’t know who Elvis was.

By: Gerhart Wiesend

Gerhart Wiesend — Sun, 09 Oct 2011 05:16:14 +0000

It is interesting to observe how controversial Wagner still is well over a hundred years after his death. As I mentioned above, I am anything but a Wagner fan, but cannot help admiring his genius as a composer and innovator of music in the 19th century. As – Jewish – composer and conductor Leonard Bernstein said: I hate him, but I hate him on my knees.
I also like Woody Allen´s remark: Whenever I hear Wagner I feel like invading Poland.
What Neil meant by a “Wagner gene” is to be understood metaphorically, of course. But clearly there is a tendency among Wagner fans to be politically right wing. At the annual Bayreuth festival one can see all sorts of German right wing politicians and other conservatice characters, but hardly ever a social democrat or even communist. (I wonder what kind of music Tea Party followers listen to – if they listen to classical music at all)
Remains the question whether Hitler was all that much of a Wagner fan as is commonly believed. As I mentioned above, his favorite music was the Merry Widow.. Clearly Wagner´s legends about Germanic heroes fitted well into Hitler´s ideology. But I doubt if young Hitler ever saw an opera house from inside. He was such an uneducated person that one cannot imagine him as an opera fan. Also, he never attended a Wagner opera after he had started the War in 1939. But he had contacts to the Wagner family and to Siegfried Wagner´s English wife Winifred, one of the early Hitler fans, from 1923.
Whenever the Reichsrundfunk spread news from the War, it was not a Wagner motive that sounded, but Liszt´s Les Préludes.
If Hitler had known Wagner that well he would also have understood the message of the Götterdämmerung and the Ring, that in the end none of the heroes survive with only Alberich, the cursed dwarf, remaining on the scene.
Hitler never quoted from Wagner´s antisemitic writings. Thomas Mann said: There is much Hitler in Wagner. The question remains: How much Wagner is there in Hitler.
My contention is that there would certainly not have been a Hitler with only Wagner as an inspirational source. Much more important for Hitler´s rise to power were Houston Stewart Chamberlain´s writings, the US entry into world War I in 1917, the humiliating Versailles Treaty, the 1929 crisis, Mussolini´s example and money, and of course the German right wing establishment who wanted revenge for World War I.

By: Operafilly

Operafilly — Sun, 08 Aug 2010 16:36:29 +0000

“less to do with genes and more with complicated biochemical and neurophysiological reactions in your brain……”

Non so??? However, there is also a visual component that seems to be necessary for many. Pop promoters use visuals ad naseum. Perhaps the “music” is secondary, or maybe tertiary, after drugs. I dragged my mother to Faust and she loved it. But she couldn’t get it from the recording even with much superior voices. Did nothing for her. Opera, being so visual has quite an advantage over classical music. My super musician flutist friend only knew operas from the pit. I took her to Nabucco and she was astonished at the blend of music and drama. Declared Verdi a genius. This from someone who knows music academically, but never really got into opera.

Maybe the gifted or more passionate people don’t need the visual aspect. Perhaps they have more imagination that fills in a picture.

By: Operafilly

Operafilly — Sun, 08 Aug 2010 14:31:41 +0000

“simply the fact that much fewer humans in the western world can appreciate classical music”
Au Contraire!! At least in my provincial area. The opera company has grown to 4 world class productions yearly. And our tiny town’s music society puts on 6 concerts a year, from concertos with full orchestra, chamber music, various soloists, and a wonderful concert on the green of American music with the local symphony for even greater appeal. I love not being scrunched into a seat for 3 hours. Stretch out on the grass like a picnic. And very picturesque, with swans on the lake. And there is a similar music society only 30 miles away. These events are always sold out well in advance. There is a hunger for something pop music can’t satisfy.

And maybe Wagner had to be full of hate in order to produce that fantastic forging song!! The wonderful gardens and groves I produce from rotting compost……….

By: Neil Kurtzman

Neil Kurtzman — Sun, 08 Aug 2010 12:49:12 +0000

See Richard Wagner Wunderkind or Monster?. Here's an excerpt. Wagner's pathological hatred of the French and the Jews is a matter of record, and made him the idol of Adolf Hitler. Wagner had incredibly bad taste; most nineteenth century anti-Semites would have been horrified by Auschwitz, but one has the uncomfortable suspicion that Wagner would have wholeheartedly approved. There's no escaping the reality that Wagner is different from every other musical genius and that his personal repulsiveness inescapably contaminates his art, no matter how great it is. No other musical genius's music bores or repeals so many serious listeners. hence my invention of the Wagner gene. It is not surprising that his music is not played in Israel.

By: Heen Eddlinger

Heen Eddlinger — Sun, 08 Aug 2010 06:33:58 +0000

A gene for Wagner? Not at all. Of course the ability to listen to and appreciate classical music is biological – we are nothing but biochemical creatures – but since you can lose that ability and also get it, it has less to do with genes and more with complicated biochemical and neurophysiological reactions in your brain. Also hormonal – a healthy thyroid gland is essential. Today you will meet very few ppl that love classical music only, as late as 1980 there were many, many more. That has nothing to do with ‘less snobbery’, simply the fact that much fewer humans in the western world can appreciate classical music, Wagner included, nowadays, despite more exposure to it.

That goes also for the ones who were passionately listening to classical music around 1980, a very big percentageof those has today become quite indifferent to it, regardless of their age in 1980. Of course many of those still listen to Wagner, Mozart, Bach etc. But fewer, and fewer less is enamored of that music. A tragedy that one could see coming at that time, and it came…

If you PASSIONATELY listen to classical music, why then hating Wagner, why not Mahler, Berloz, Bizet, whatever, I detect predjudices here. Calling Wagner a monster is a bit thick, how was he supposed to know that his views was to be used in the Nazi creed? His antisemitism was regrettable, but was a part of the cultural struggle in Germany in that time, the whole setting in which the then not-yet-united Germany was placed. As a human being Wagner was obsessed with his mission, and he most certainly was selfish, whining,overly critical etc. But that you cannot separate a man from his work, is rubbish, how can great music be ‘noice’ if you’re really musical. The answer is that you aren’t really musical. Who then is the composer that I cannot stand? Noone of course, none of the great masters, as they compoed great music, it’s much believable that I’d say ‘this one of Mozarts isn’t quite as good as his usual stuff’ and the same of Wagner, Verdi, Bach etc. Everything Wagner, even the best, is then less than Mozart K19?

And Churchill was not much better, his greatness in the 1940s is overshadowing the fact that he as a human being was quite like Wagner when it comes to unpleasant characteristics. He most certainly isn’t worth any literature prize, and his writings from the early 20th century is filled with colonialism at it’s worst, glorification of war, and racism to say the least. Although not directed at jews, but rather at Africans. ‘But these were the times’. Yes, and in Wagner’s times it was the jews.