Wagner's Valhalla

Started by Greta, April 07, 2007, 08:09:57 PM

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Haffner

This was really cool, Sarge. Thanks!

J.Z. Herrenberg

Thanks for the Merrill poem, Sarge. I have his Selected Poems 1946-1985, and Divine Comedies. But this one must be a late poem from the 1990s. Correct?
Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination and life to everything. -- Plato

Sergeant Rock

Quote from: Jezetha on February 22, 2008, 07:37:10 AM
Thanks for the Merrill poem, Sarge. I have his Selected Poems 1946-1985, and Divine Comedies. But this one must be a late poem from the 1990s. Correct?

Very late. It's from his last book of poetry, A Scattering of Salts, published after his death actually, in 1995. He died too young.

Sarge
the phone rings and somebody says,
"hey, they made a movie about
Mahler, you ought to go see it.
he was as f*cked-up as you are."
                               --Charles Bukowski, "Mahler"

Haffner

Quote from: marvinbrown on May 20, 2007, 02:47:08 PM
    Look forward to it too.  Why Verdi as my avatar? Because Verdi is my other love interest.  He epitomizes Italian Opera (rivalling Mozart in my opinion) as Wagner epotimizes German opera.  Some interesting facts: both Verdi and Wagner were born the same year 1813, both were rivals but never met.  Somehow I believe they  had great respect for each other.  Both Verdi and Wagner had a sense of drama and could convey powerful emotions through their music.  Both wrote one hit opera after the next.  Verdi's mature operas are true masterpeices (Otello, Aida, Falstaff, Rigolleto, Don Carlo,  La Traviata to name a few) as are Wagner's (The Ring Cycle, Tristan und Isolde, Meistersingers, Parsifal, Tannhauser even Lohengrin and The Flying Dutchman).  I own a little under 50 operas, 11 from Wagner and 10 from Verdi (my collection is lop-sided   :)


    I will change my avatar to something related to Wagner some day in the near future  :)

   marvin


I was right with you on Vedi and Wagner back when you wrote this, and I remain so today. After my being obsessed with Wagner so much recently, I threw on La Traviata and Otello last week. And was again full of admiration. I think both Wagner and Verdi each pushed each other. Otello shows Wagner's influence just as much as Gotterdammerung and Parsifal show Verdi.

marvinbrown

Quote from: Haffner on February 26, 2008, 03:11:08 AM

I was right with you on Vedi and Wagner back when you wrote this, and I remain so today. After my being obsessed with Wagner so much recently, I threw on La Traviata and Otello last week. And was again full of admiration. I think both Wagner and Verdi each pushed each other. Otello shows Wagner's influence just as much as Gotterdammerung and Parsifal show Verdi.

  It is very difficult for me to imagine my music collection without Verdi and Wagner.  It seems my whole musical universe rotates around those two composers with Wagner being the more addictive of the two at the moment....at the moment.  I believe in the concept of opera with a symphonic score and a highly dramatic element.  That to me is the ultimate in artistic musical expression- "Total Art Work" 0:).

  marvin

Haffner

Quote from: marvinbrown on February 26, 2008, 05:07:48 AM
  It is very difficult for me to imagine my music collection without Verdi and Wagner.  It seems my whole musical universe rotates around those two composers with Wagner being the more addictive of the two at the moment....at the moment.  I believe in the concept of opera with a symphonic score and a highly dramatic element.  That to me is the ultimate in artistic musical expression- "Total Art Work" 0:).

  marvin



I have to agree. I have a degree in Creative Writing, but I personally feel that even Shakespeare is trumped on every level by the great operas/music dramas. I tried re-reading Shakepeare's Otello after having experienced the incredible Verdi opera, and found it sorely lacking. La Traviata, Rigoletto, Otello, The Ring, Parsifal, etc. just seem to strike deeper. But maybe that's just me.

The great writers like Poe, Hemingway, Joyce, Mailer, Vonnegut, etc. remain superior overall to the great librettists in terms of literature. However, when someone like Mozart, Verdi, Richard Strauss, or Wagner couples music with an above average libretto, the effect completely puts the former mentioned greats of literature out of the running. "Total Art Form", indeed.

Chaszz

#466
Quote from: Haffner on February 26, 2008, 05:25:24 AM


I have to agree. I have a degree in Creative Writing, but I personally feel that even Shakespeare is trumped on every level by the great operas/music dramas. I tried re-reading Shakepeare's Otello after having experienced the incredible Verdi opera, and found it sorely lacking. La Traviata, Rigoletto, Otello, The Ring, Parsifal, etc. just seem to strike deeper. But maybe that's just me.

The great writers like Poe, Hemingway, Joyce, Mailer, Vonnegut, etc. remain superior overall to the great librettists in terms of literature. However, when someone like Mozart, Verdi, Richard Strauss, or Wagner couples music with an above average libretto, the effect completely puts the former mentioned greats of literature out of the running. "Total Art Form", indeed.

I heard yesterday on the Met broadcast of Otello that the libretto is only one-quarter as long as the original play! This may account for Otello's appeal in contrast with Othello. I think with Macbeth the situation is reversed. I find the play superior to the opera, which to me is long-winded. IMO, the best classical tragedies are short and unfold quickly, like machines. This goes for Sophocles' Oedipus Rex, Aeschylus' Agamemnon, and Macbeth, which I feel are perfect tragic plays. I don't think any of these need fear comparison with any opera. So the differentiation might be in the specific play or opera, rather than in a generalization about either form being better than the orher.   

I think you also have to consider that you are reading the text of the play but hearing a performance of the opera rather than reading the score. A vital performance might make any play stronger than in the reading of it.   

knight66



This is a disc with a difference; I am not sure it is a positive difference. Here the four opera are treated as though they were a symphony. So instead of getting the absolutely expected bits, the concept is to produce a symphonic structure. Siegfried is treated as the slow movement, Forest Murmurs and Brunhilde's awakening. Seemingly it makes a satisfying disc. It is topped off with the an arrangement of the Siegfried Idyll.

Mike
DavidW: Yeah Mike doesn't get angry, he gets even.
I wasted time: and time wasted me.

marvinbrown

Quote from: knight on March 03, 2008, 06:26:16 AM


This is a disc with a difference; I am not sure it is a positive difference. Here the four opera are treated as though they were a symphony. So instead of getting the absolutely expected bits, the concept is to produce a symphonic structure. Siegfried is treated as the slow movement, Forest Murmurs and Brunhilde's awakening. Seemingly it makes a satisfying disc. It is topped off with the an arrangement of the Siegfried Idyll.

Mike

  Good Lord Mike wherever did you find that recording  :o.  I often get accused of being a purist, refusing to listen to anything that's been altered from the state in which it was conceived- that said I am intrigued by that recording!  Do you own it? Have you heard it?  If yes how did you find it?

  marvin

knight66

Marvin, no to all. It is on the list of new Chandos recordings. It was reviewed quite favourably in this month's Gramophone Mag.

Mike
DavidW: Yeah Mike doesn't get angry, he gets even.
I wasted time: and time wasted me.

marvinbrown



  I did not know where to post this so I figured here would be the best place.  As most of you who are reading this now probably know Tristan und Isolde is my favorite opera of all time. I have been addicted to the Furtwangler Flagstad recording from EMI for many years now convinced that it is unsurpassed. Well I just received in the post the following CD that I had ordered many weeks ago:

 

  Now this is what it had say on the sticker that came on the CD- I am copying this word for word:

  By common consent, the finest live recording ever made of Tristan und Isolde. "Birgit Nilsson sings the Liebestod at the end of the long evening as though she was starting afresh, radiant and rising to an orgasmic climax...Opposite Nilsson is Wolfgang Windgassen, the most mellifluous of Heldentenoren"- Penguin Guide

  It is the three words "by common consent" that I found most daring if not audacious....by common consent..hmmm...Wagner fans I would like to ask you how many of you are consenting that this recording is the finest recording of Tristan und Isolde ever made??


  PS:  I shall listen to this recording with an open mind and ears  ;) this weekend!
  marvin   

 

J.Z. Herrenberg

Don't know the Furtwängler yet (have it, but have delayed the pleasure of listening to it so far...)

But even so, the Böhm is excellent. I was completely overwhelmed by it when I heard it for the first time, more than 20 years ago.
Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination and life to everything. -- Plato

Sergeant Rock

Quote from: marvinbrown on March 12, 2008, 06:08:53 AM
It is the three words "by common consent" that I found most daring if not audacious....by common consent..hmmm...Wagner fans I would like to ask you how many of you are consenting that this recording is the finest recording of Tristan und Isolde ever made??

The finest live recording...maybe. It's well regarded by most Wagnerites. But the finest recording? No, I don't think so.

Sarge
the phone rings and somebody says,
"hey, they made a movie about
Mahler, you ought to go see it.
he was as f*cked-up as you are."
                               --Charles Bukowski, "Mahler"

Chaszz

Quote from: marvinbrown on March 12, 2008, 06:08:53 AM

  I did not know where to post this so I figured here would be the best place.  As most of you who are reading this now probably know Tristan und Isolde is my favorite opera of all time. I have been addicted to the Furtwangler Flagstad recording from EMI for many years now convinced that it is unsurpassed. Well I just received in the post the following CD that I had ordered many weeks ago:

 

  Now this is what it had say on the sticker that came on the CD- I am copying this word for word:

  By common consent, the finest live recording ever made of Tristan und Isolde. "Birgit Nilsson sings the Liebestod at the end of the long evening as though she was starting afresh, radiant and rising to an orgasmic climax...Opposite Nilsson is Wolfgang Windgassen, the most mellifluous of Heldentenoren"- Penguin Guide



  It is the three words "by common consent" that I found most daring if not audacious....by common consent..hmmm...Wagner fans I would like to ask you how many of you are consenting that this recording is the finest recording of Tristan und Isolde ever made??


  PS:  I shall listen to this recording with an open mind and ears  ;) this weekend!
  marvin   

 

This was my frst Tristan. It's been described as "incandescent" and "white hot," apt descriptions. When I discovered it I did little else for three weeks but listen to it over and over again, even taking days off from work to spend with it. It made such an impression on my psyche that other versions cannot touch it, although I can't know if I'm being objective or not.

Sergeant Rock

Quote from: marvinbrown on March 12, 2008, 06:08:53 AM
I shall listen to this recording with an open mind and ears  ;) this weekend!
marvin   

What did you think, Marvin? And which other Tristans have you heard?

Sarge
the phone rings and somebody says,
"hey, they made a movie about
Mahler, you ought to go see it.
he was as f*cked-up as you are."
                               --Charles Bukowski, "Mahler"

marvinbrown

Quote from: Sergeant Rock on March 25, 2008, 02:38:25 PM
What did you think, Marvin? And which other Tristans have you heard?

Sarge


  It overwhelmed me!!  Bohm's pace is a bit too fast for me, but he drives the music with intensity and the opera reaches "white hot" climaxes most notably in ACT 2 that are rarely heard on other recordings. When I compare it to Furtwangler's Tristan with Flagstad, Reiner's Tristan again with Flagstad, pictured below, and Barenboim's Tristan at Bayreuth DVD that Bohm recording's intensity is in a class all on its own.  At times I wished he would slow down a bit and let the music "breath" but that would have defeated the purpose- sweeping the listener away with waves of emotion. The Bohm recordsing is a MUST HAVE for any collection as the interpretation is truly unique but I feel that the Furtwangler Tristan is also required to provide a more balanced appreciation of this opera. This is the Reiner recording I was referring to above:
     
 

  marvin

J.Z. Herrenberg

Great write-up, Marvin!

It's high time I listened to the Furtwängler, as the Böhm has always been my yard-stick... But 'Tristan' is a work that requires a certain mood which, at the moment, I can't summon.

Later.
Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination and life to everything. -- Plato

Haffner

Quote from: Jezetha on March 25, 2008, 03:42:24 PM
Great write-up, Marvin!

It's high time I listened to the Furtwängler, as the Böhm has always been my yard-stick... But 'Tristan' is a work that requires a certain mood which, at the moment, I can't summon.

Later.

The Furtwangler is excellent all around. The 1st act knocks out in a big way. I have that, and the Kleiber and Barenboim. The Barenboim was also really good in the 1st act, but the 2nd just didn't make it for me.

I liked the Kleiber all the way through, but the sound wasn't exactly great. Really liked the singing on that one.

Chaszz

To me the love duet in the second act is the high point part of the work, and together with the Liebestod at the end of the opera (which is really a continuation of the love duet) reaches a plateau of genius few other musical works do. Can those who love other versions besides the Bohm recommend another love duet which can be compared with it? As I said above, my intense initiation at Bohm's hands has spoiled me for other versions, but perhaps it is time to make a good try!   

knight66

I think that the Kleiber studio recording succeeds well in providing a contrast to the Bohm. It is like a narcotic experience, a trance...which does not mean it is slow. But it has a lot of ebb and flow.

I enjoy the studio Karajan a great deal and his act 3 is singular due to the partnership with Vickers, that is an unusually intense experience.

Mike
DavidW: Yeah Mike doesn't get angry, he gets even.
I wasted time: and time wasted me.