New to Wagner - Just purchased this big box set.

[Elgarian Redux]

My teaching assistantship at Buffalo was the Music History for non-majors, and the professor's prime example for Wagner was the closing scene for Die Walküre, so I've known where this was headed. Now, having seen the whole, I find it magnificent.

Fabulous. I'm so pleased the effort was rewarded.

[Karl Henning]

Just finished Siegfried. Now I know whence the Siegfried-Idyll. Highly gratifying. Separately: "May your end be blissful, immortal race!" A meaning of "immortal" with which I was hitherto unfamiliar....

[Florestan]

Separately: "May your end be blissful, immortal race!" A meaning of "immortal" with which I was hitherto unfamiliar....

Reminds me of these lines from a Romanian nationalist song:

The brave Dacians, immortal race,
Once ruled this land.

Makes one wonder how did king Decebalus manage to kill himself...

[Elgarian Redux]

Just finished Siegfried. Now I know whence the Siegfried-Idyll. Highly gratifying. Separately: "May your end be blissful, immortal race!" A meaning of "immortal" with which I was hitherto unfamiliar....

Hey, you are ripping along! Hoorah!
(Just between you and me, Siefried is the part of the Ring that I find hardest to get involved in.)

[Karl Henning]

Götterdämmerung Gotta say: I love the color of that  opening chord. I'm really just starting it. I've got a Henning Ensemble rehearsal at 6:30 and then my Utah première at 9:30.

[(poco) Sforzando]

Götterdämmerung Gotta say: I love the color of that  ooening chord. I'm really just starting it. I've got a Henning Ensemble rehearsal at 6:30 and then Mt Utah première at 9:30.

Three oboes, three clarinets, four horns, and a bass trumpet.

[Karl Henning]

Three oboes, three clarinets, four horns, and a bass trumpet.

Do they make bass trumpets anymore, or what is swapped in?

[Karl Henning]

The featurette, "The first Ring for television" is narrated by Twilight Zone veteran Geo. Grizzard ("The Chaser," "In His Image.")

[AnotherSpin]

Götterdämmerung Gotta say: I love the color of that  opening chord. [..]

I was reminded of Baudelaire's words on Wagner's music: "...it seemed to me that this music was mine, and I recognized it in the way that any man recognizes the things he is destined to love."

[(poco) Sforzando]

Do they make bass trumpets anymore, or what is swapped in?

Adler and Piston (great name for someone discussing brass instruments) both say it is in effect a trombone with valves. It is scored for by Wagner, Strauss, and Stravinsky among others.

[San Antone]

Adler and Piston (great name for someone discussing brass instruments) both say it is in effect a trombone with valves. It is scored for by Wagner, Strauss, and Stravinsky among others.

Valve trombones are common.

[Karl Henning]

Adler and Piston (great name for someone discussing brass instruments) both say it is in effect a trombone with valves. It is scored for by Wagner, Strauss, and Stravinsky among others.

I was thinking tenor trombone.

[Karl Henning]

Valve trombones are common.

I think they should exist, if only so that "slide trombone" should not be pointlessly redundant. 😉

[(poco) Sforzando]

My teaching assistantship at Buffalo was the Music History for non-majors, and the professor's prime example for Wagner was the closing scene for Die Walküre, so I've known where this was headed. Now, having seen the whole, I find it magnificent.

I just listened to the whole of Walküre the other day (in the very fine Leinsdorf version with Jon Vickers at his greatest), and while I find much of the second act (at least Wotan's monologue) musically something of a letdown, Act One is practically perfect - the most ardent love music Wagner ever wrote, Tristan nonwithstanding, and Act Three despite some klunky bits is pretty good too. ("Boring!" we are told.) All I could think while experiencing that huge four-hour time span was, "My God, that man could compose!" One does not have to be a Wagner fanatic to appreciate what he achieved in this and the other Ring operas.

[Karl Henning]

I just listened to the whole of Walküre the other day (in the very fine Leinsdorf version with Jon Vickers at his greatest), and while I find much of the second act (at least Wotan's monologue) musically something of a letdown, Act One is practically perfect - the most ardent love music Wagner ever wrote, Tristan nonwithstanding, and Act Three despite some klunky bits is pretty good too. ("Boring!" we are told.) All I could think while experiencing that huge four-hour time span was, "My God, that man could compose!" One does not have to be a Wagner fanatic to appreciate what he achieved in this and the other Ring operas.

Indeed.

[Karl Henning]

I just listened to the whole of Walküre the other day (in the very fine Leinsdorf version with Jon Vickers at his greatest), and while I find much of the second act (at least Wotan's monologue) musically something of a letdown, Act One is practically perfect - the most ardent love music Wagner ever wrote, Tristan nonwithstanding, and Act Three despite some klunky bits is pretty good too. ("Boring!" we are told.) All I could think while experiencing that huge four-hour time span was, "My God, that man could compose!" One does not have to be a Wagner fanatic to appreciate what he achieved in this and the other Ring operas.

Well, and this was the risk I walked into with open eyes: my scoffing days are done. 

[San Antone]

I think they should exist, if only so that "slide trombone" should not be pointlessly redundant. 😉

There are several, but one famous jazz musician who made a career playing one:

Robert Edward "Bob" Brookmeyer (December 19, 1929 – December 15, 2011) was an American jazz valve trombonist, pianist, arranger, and composer.

[Karl Henning]

Götterdämmerung Gotta say: I love the color of that  opening chord. I'm really just starting it. I've got a Henning Ensemble rehearsal at 6:30 and then my Utah première at 9:30.

It's long enough since I did any reading about Der Ring, that I'd clean forgot Gunther, Hagen and Gutrune, so the freshness of this episode is an added bonus.