Wagner or Verdi?

[Tsaraslondon]

I do enjoy Wagner's music, but could, if necessary, live without it. Verdi is life's blood to me. Take away Verdi and I am sure I would wither and die. This is, of course, my personal preference. I certainly don't expect everyone to feel as I do.

I also believe that Verdi was undoubtedly the greater man; a man with enormous humanity and compassion. It comes out in almost every bar of his work. Verdi I would love to have met. Wagner I'd probably have run a million miles from.

[Wanderer]

Are you attacking me for my imperfect English?

Of course not. I'm just curious about this rum-dum-tam-tim-tong thing. 

[MDL]

I also believe that Verdi was undoubtedly the greater man; a man with enormous humanity and compassion. It comes out in almost every bar of his work. Verdi I would love to have met. Wagner I'd probably have run a million miles from.

I don't think anybody would argue with you on that point. Is anybody going to stand up and say that Wagner wasn't a complete git?

[knight66]

Tasos,

If you listen to the earlier chorus work in Macbeth you will hear; uninspired padding to get through the requirements of having to use the chorus and embedding them into the narrative. I think three witches, three murderers and different music would have been more effective. But it remains one of my favourite operas. So, not unpleasant music, but a bit like painting by numbers with bounce.

Mike

[Wendell_E]

Is rum-ti-dum the same thing as oom pah pah, or is there some subtle disctinction?  Or is it something else entirely?

[knight66]

I think oom pah pah is more brass based, perhaps even more....... Wagnerian.

Mike

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

I don't think anybody would argue with you on that point. Is anybody going to stand up and say that Wagner wasn't a complete git?

He wasn't.

* sitting down again *

[DavidRoss]

I don't think anybody would argue with you on that point. Is anybody going to stand up and say that Wagner wasn't a complete git?

He wasn't.

Yes.  "Git" fails to capture the loathsomeness of Wagner's character.

I do enjoy Wagner's music, but could, if necessary, live without it. Verdi is life's blood to me. Take away Verdi and I am sure I would wither and die. This is, of course, my personal preference. I certainly don't expect everyone to feel as I do.

And that is how the advocates of virtually every other composer feel (with the exception of one besotted Elgar fan).  Why is it that only a perverse subset of Wagner fans tiresomely insist that their idol was the greatest and anyone who doesn't agree is an idiot?

[J.Z. Herrenberg]

Yes.  "Git" fails to capture the loathsomeness of Wagner's character.

Nice one.

Still, I can't get worked up about the loathsomeness or otherwise of a man who has been safely under the ground since 1883 and whose work - and that's the thing that counts - shows a power, sensitivity, humanity (mostly) and passion that, in the final analysis, redeem him. Why should great artists be saints? It's wonderful if they are lovely human beings, too, but that's a bonus for their contemporaries. Enjoy the fact that you belong to posterity and that the man Wagner can't pester you.

But if you regard his work as a pest, well, then you are in trouble, because his work is here to stay. You have my sympathy. 

(And no, I don't worship at the Wagnerian altar. I am a rabid polytheist.)

[Dancing Divertimentian]

Those of us with a healthy (read: normal) Wagner appreciation have an uphill battle when it comes to appreciating the man. We're either slammed by the "perverse subset" for enjoying Wagner's music for all the wrong reasons or we're slammed by the Wagner detractors for liking the music for all the wrong reasons.

We can't win but it certainly builds character.

[Sarastro]

oom pah pah

That is the characteristic I used to in Russia. But I presume Verdi has little variety, surely, La Donna e mobile and Libiamo are oom pah pah, and no, non udrai rimproveri or Merche dilette amiche - run-di-tum.

Is anybody going to stand up and say that Wagner wasn't a complete git?

Eventually, anybody is going to stand up and say we discuss Wagner's music, not his personality. For some reason people love to address to this argument very often, although it is out of proportion and not entirely true.

[PSmith08]

Still, I can't get worked up about the loathsomeness or otherwise of a man who has been safely under the ground since 1883 and whose work - and that's the thing that counts - shows a power, sensitivity, humanity (mostly) and passion that, in the final analysis, redeem him. Why should great artists be saints? It's wonderful if they are lovely human beings, too, but that's a bonus for their contemporaries. Enjoy the fact that you belong to posterity and that the man Wagner can't pester you.

What?! I am shocked - shocked and appalled - that you can't flog a dead horse, or, in this case, castigate a man who has been dead these 125 years for character flaws. It's so easy, and it's guaranteed to put the discussion firmly under your control because no one really wants to be seen as an apologist for a man who was not, shall we say, a shining exemplar of anything particularly good in his personal life. It's also an effective endgame strategy, since there's little to discuss on the subject.

Indeed, bringing Wagner's character into the discussion is more or less like saying "Puppies are great." Almost no one will disagree with you, either because they agree or because they are afraid of seeming awful, and there's really nothing more to discuss except variations on how great a given puppy or breed of puppy is.

[MDL]

Nice one.

Still, I can't get worked up about the loathsomeness or otherwise of a man who has been safely under the ground since 1883 and whose work - and that's the thing that counts - shows a power, sensitivity, humanity (mostly) and passion that, in the final analysis, redeem him. Why should great artists be saints? It's wonderful if they are lovely human beings, too, but that's a bonus for their contemporaries. Enjoy the fact that you belong to posterity and that the man Wagner can't pester you.

But if you regard his work as a pest, well, then you are in trouble, because his work is here to stay. You have my sympathy. 

(And no, I don't worship at the Wagnerian altar. I am a rabid polytheist.)

Hear hear! What a pithy and humane post.

[Anne]

I found it very helpful to "memorize" the names of Verdi's operas in chronological order or at least keep a list handy.  When you see that La Traviata, Rigoletto, Il Trovatore, were from his middle period, you will also know that the music from one opera is similar in style to one of the others.

In the same way Nabucco will be somewhat similar to Atilla and Ernani.  Macbeth will be more advanced stylewise than either of them.  It helps to see how Verdi was constantly improving at his craft.

I was always trying to answer the question: who is better - Verdi or Wagner?  It was interesting to see that Wagner's early works were copying others' styles.  The Dutchman had individual arias for the singers like the Italian operas did.  Lohengrin has massive choruses like the French grand operas.  When he writes The Ring and Tristan, he finally writes his music as he talks about it when writing his dissertations about how the music and the words intertwine and the scenery and everything else is all supposed to become one work of art. 

While Wagner is writing operas as mentioned above, Verdi is writing operas in the Italian way, more like The Dutchman and Donizetti but increasingly improving his music writing.  His early operas, as a friend said one time, were "oomp-pa-pa".  Eventually he leaves that style behind.  In Otello, he beautifully repeats the phrase about the kiss a second time at the ending of that opera.  In that way he was copying Wagner's style.

At the same time, Wagner is writing Die Meistersinger and Gotterdammurung  which are in the style Verdi has been using of individual arias for the singers.  So now we have Wagner using Verdi's style and Verdi using Wagner's style.  In Verdi's final opera, Falstaff, he has really switched over to the use of many recurring motifs and being through-composed as Wagner has been using all along.

I can't say anything about Parsifal because I don't know it well enough yet.   

[Hector]

Why are Wagnerites so rude about Verdi?

Why this constant need to prove who is the better of the two?

I could say that what Verdi has in his rum-ti-tum, Wagner more than makes up for with his pretentious longeurs. I like rum-ti-tum.

Wagner greatly admired Auber. Yes, I know, you wouldn't think so but try 'Die Feen.' Is this Auber or what?

Verdi was frequently accused of being in the line of Donizetti and his early operas are offered as evidence.

Not Bellini, Mercadante, Rossini, the Riccis or any other Italian opera composer operating at the same time as Verdi, note.

In fact Wagner stole copiously from Halevy, was heavily influenced by Marschner and Weber even up to and including Tristan but it is always the comparison with his completely different counterpart in Italy that prevails.

Actually, both fell under the spell of Meyerbeer and that's an essay on its own.

I shall vote for Verdi if only in the hope of balancing it out a bit but I wouldn't want to be without either although Verdi pulls more of the emotional strings for me.

[PerfectWagnerite]

Why are Wagnerites so rude about Verdi?

Which post(s) are you specifically referring to? I didn't really read that in this thread.

I have heard most of Verdi's works. I haven't heard Macbeth, Ernani, or Vespri. I find that I love Don Carlo and Ballo and I don't really like anything else. To me most of the time the music is just too flowery for me, like Gilda's Caro Nome.

[Hector]

Which post(s) are you specifically referring to? I didn't really read that in this thread.

I have heard most of Verdi's works. I haven't heard Macbeth, Ernani, or Vespri. I find that I love Don Carlo and Ballo and I don't really like anything else. To me most of the time the music is just too flowery for me, like Gilda's Caro Nome.

The accusations about rum-ti-tum.

Verdi was accused by his critics of looking backwards into the time of Mozart when 'Rigoletto' received its first performance and the floridity of 'Caro nome' may have been one of the reasons for the judgement, although the critics view seems extraordinary, today.

I always assume that 'Un Ballo' is a run-in for the greater 'La Forza del Destino.'

As I have said before the sheer power of some of the early operas, rum-ti-tum or not, never fails to hold my interest, although I could do without 'Un Giorno de Regno' and, except for the overture, 'La Battaglia di Legnano'.

[Mark G. Simon]

It's an amazing thing, when you think of it, that the two greatest musical dramatists of the 19th century* were born in the same year. It's like the gods got together in 1813 and said "Let there be opera".

I love the both of them too much to set one against the other.

* (with few rivals in any other century)

[max]

It all depends on whether you like spaghetti or sauerkraut. I've noticed allot of Germans like spaghetti but non tanto Italianos like sauerkraut.

Personally I think sauerkraut is more purifying and less fattening than spaghetti! There is simply more brain power behind the project.

[knight66]

1685 was the year that both G F Handel and J S Bach were born. Another odd coincidence.

Mike