In my opinion the true hardcore Wagnerian listens to Wagner's music dramas merely as absolute music - tissues of instrumental and vocal sound - and derives intense aesthetic pleasure from the ceaseless glow and richness of the musical/vocal fabric.
One could go further and assert that we love and are more sensitive towards these masterpieces since we don't need the "props" of the libretto, staging and acting.
And I'm not just talking about the bleeding chunks and famous 'highlights' from Tristan , Meistersinger , The Ring and Parsifal.
There is a test:
If he or she loves Siegfried (all 240 minutes) as much as the other operas and prefers to listen to it on CD....
Someone who adores the raspy voice of the Mime, Siegfried, The Wanderer, Erda and so on....
That, ladies and gentleman, is a hardcore Wagnerian.
(http://cursors3.totallyfreecursors.com/thumbnails/rofl.gif)
So the hardcore Wagnerite, who should, by all rights, be most familiar with Wagner's dramatic and musical theories, shows his true colors by ignoring a fair-sized chunk of those same dramatic and musical theories? The true devotee, then, ignores everything about that to which he is devoted except the parts he finds most agreeable. In other words, the true lover of art bends the art to his will, that its appreciation might be made all the more facile by the breaking down of its own structure.
Next thing I know, you'll be accusing Wagner of sinking down before the Christian cross with his Parsifal.
I'll give you this much, Eric, you're never wanting for inventiveness in your notions.
Quote from: Operahaven on June 24, 2008, 07:18:00 PM
In my opinion the true hardcore Wagnerian listens to Wagner's music dramas merely as absolute music - tissues of instrumental and vocal sound - and derives intense aesthetic pleasure from the ceaseless glow and richness of the musical/vocal fabric.
One could go further and assert that we love and are more sensitive towards these masterpieces since we don't need the "props" of the libretto, staging and acting.
And I'm not just talking about the bleeding chunks and famous 'highlights' from Tristan , Meistersinger , The Ring and Parsifal.
There is a test:
If he or she loves Siegfried (all 240 minutes) as much as the other operas and prefers to listen to it on CD....
Someone who adores the raspy voice of the Mime, Siegfried, The Wanderer, Erda and so on....
That, ladies and gentleman, is a hardcore Wagnerian.
You're talking about a superficial Wagnerian. Can't you tell the difference?
Quote from: Don on June 24, 2008, 10:00:41 PM
You're talking about a superficial Wagnerian. Can't you tell the difference?
Do you even have to ask?
QuoteOperahaven
In my opinion the true hardcore Wagnerian listens to Wagner's music dramas merely as absolute music - tissues of instrumental and vocal sound - and derives intense aesthetic pleasure from the ceaseless glow and richness of the musical/vocal fabric.
I don't consider myself as a "true hardcore Wagnerian". Just a person who deeply loves most of Wagner's operas. And no, it is not only a matter of sound. Wagner's operas are OPERAS, real operas. With a rich orchestral part but also requiring glorious voices with a good diction in order to make the text understandable.
QuoteThere is a test:
If he or she loves Siegfried (all 240 minutes) as much as the other operas and prefers to listen to it on CD....
Someone who adores the raspy voice of the Mime, Siegfried, The Wanderer, Erda and so on....
That, ladies and gentleman, is a hardcore Wagnerian.
I prefer to listen those operas on CD, the same way I prefer to listen to Don Giovanni or Fidelio on CD. I can't stand the way that most operas are put on scene today.
The "raspy voice" of Mime is necessary according to the character and the action. About Siegfried and the Wanderer: try to listen to Max Lorenz singing Siegfried and Friedrich Schorr singing Wotan and you will discover beautiful voices singing - not bawling - beautiful music.
Quote from: Operahaven on June 24, 2008, 07:18:00 PM
In my opinion the true hardcore Wagnerian listens to Wagner's music dramas merely as absolute music - tissues of instrumental and vocal sound - and derives intense aesthetic pleasure from the ceaseless glow and richness of the musical/vocal fabric.
There is a test:
If he or she loves Siegfried (all 240 minutes) as much as the other operas and prefers to listen to it on CD....
That's me! Siegfried is my favorite opera in the Ring...never a dull moment 0:), pure German power!
marvin
Quote from: Don on June 24, 2008, 10:00:41 PMYou're talking about a superficial Wagnerian. Can't you tell the difference?
What are you talking about ?
Wagner has always been at the center of my musical universe since I was 16.
(And you are not a Wagner enthusiast anyway)
Quote from: DavidRoss on June 24, 2008, 07:39:58 PM
(http://www.sobermusicians.com/forums/imagehosting/49467ed3214df5c.gif)
Why are you laughing ?
Val and Patrick,
I still disagree.
The music is always the paramount definer, shaper, and transmitter of the drama.
Quote from: Don on June 24, 2008, 10:00:41 PM
You're talking about a superficial Wagnerian. Can't you tell the difference?
Don, meet Eric, aka "Pink Harp"
Quote from: Operahaven
The music is always the paramount definer, shaper, and transmitter of the drama.
Quote from: Operahaven
One could go further and assert that we love and are more sensitive towards these masterpieces since we don't need the "props" of the libretto, staging and acting.
Do you see how these statements are mutually inconsistent?
If the libretto, etc. is merely a "prop," why did Wagner invest so much time and energy into writing
his own libretti? Why was he at such pains to coin the terms "music drama" and "Gesamtkunstwerk"? Why did he write theoretical treatises such as "Opera and Drama"? What purpose if any do you see for the libretto, staging, and acting?
Quote from: val on June 25, 2008, 01:45:42 AM
Wagner's operas are OPERAS, real operas. With a rich orchestral part but also requiring glorious voices with a good diction in order to make the text understandable.
Beg pardon, but I don't see how
Wagner's operas are at all distinct in requiring good enunciation.
BTW, thank you for calling them operas. They are that (they're certainly not chamber music, or
Lieder, or symphonies).
Quote from: Sforzando on June 25, 2008, 05:06:49 AM
Do you see how these statements are mutually inconsistent?
Sforz, meet
Eric, quite possibly the most frankly and obliviously inconsistent discusser of music on the planet.
Quote from: karlhenning on June 25, 2008, 05:08:19 AM
BTW, thank you for calling them operas. They are that (they're certainly not chamber music, or Lieder, or symphonies).
Or for that matter "music dramas," a term that I regard as a smokescreen on Wagner's part. Wagner's works are not the only operas that achieve drama by means of music, either before or since his time.
Quote from: Sforzando on June 25, 2008, 05:14:17 AM
Or for that matter "music dramas," a term that I regard as a smokescreen on Wagner's part. Wagner's works are not the only operas that achieve drama by means of music, either before or since his time.
Much agree. The man was a propagandist almost before he was an artist. A century past his death, to insist on calling them "music dramas" strikes me as next-door to a fetish.
Sforzando,
Quote from: Sforzando on June 25, 2008, 05:06:49 AMWhat purpose if any do you see for the libretto, staging, and acting?
None really.
I understand the goals Wagner had but would you agree that musical compositions lack a specific, agreed upon reference to the contents of the world ?
Yes, of course... And opera is no different because opera is
defined by music.
When we engage with these works we bring our own life situations to it and make of music what we will... Music
idealizes our emotions (positive and negative) and by doing so it momentarily perfects our individual emotional lives.
Quote from: Operahaven on June 25, 2008, 05:25:44 AM
None really.
I understand the goals Wagner had
How can you understand Wagner's goals if you say his texts had no purpose?
Quote from: Sforzando on June 25, 2008, 05:28:54 AM
How can you understand Wagner's goals if you say his texts had no purpose?
What I'm saying is that his texts are trivial compared to his transcendent musical genius.
Quote from: Operahaven on June 25, 2008, 05:30:35 AM
What I'm saying is that his texts are trivial compared to his transcendent musical genius.
Which most sentient beings would consider something other than "no purpose." See:
Quote from: karlhenning on June 25, 2008, 05:08:19 AM
. . . quite possibly the most frankly and obliviously inconsistent discusser of music on the planet.
Quote from: karlhenning on June 25, 2008, 05:32:16 AMWhich most sentient beings would consider something other than "no purpose." See:
Karl,
You know what I meant... I miswrote that.
Wagner's librettos mean absolutely nothing to me.
Quote from: Operahaven on June 25, 2008, 05:39:15 AM
Karl,
Wagner's librettos mean absolutely nothing to me.
OH NO, operahaven I was agreeing with you up and until you wrote this.......
marvin
Quote from: Operahaven on June 25, 2008, 04:45:01 AM
Val and Patrick,
I still disagree.
The music is always the paramount definer, shaper, and transmitter of the drama.
You're welcome to disagree. In this case, however, it's rather like disagreeing with the Second Isomorphism Theorem or Euclid's proof of the infinitude of prime numbers: whether or not
you accept it is ultimately irrelevant. So, then, whether or not you take Wagner at face value is of no consequence. I don't mean to be unnecessarily unpleasant, but there is no way around this: You might really dig Wagner, but your appreciation appears to be the most superficial and trivial sort possible. Heckfire, Wagner might even be "the center of [your] musical universe," but your Wagner is not the Wagner of history or the Wagner who wrote the music you profess to adore.
Now, that's fine, you can replace anything with anything else these days, and if the real Wagner doesn't much suit your taste, then you can make up a new Wagner that does - as you seem to have done. If, however, we're playing the game where you reinterpret music to fit your aesthetic "theories" (I'm being generous), then we really shouldn't speak in absolute terms. We really shouldn't speak in absolute terms about music anyway, but I'm not going to point out that speck while I've got a similar [log] in my eye. So, you're welcome to recast Wagner so he is more easily digestible given your musical predilections, but you really should either keep it to yourself or be as subjective as possible.
My compliments, however, for stirring the pot in a slightly more creative way than your latest efforts. While I'd rather you found a constructive use for your time (e.g., puzzles), if you're going to create controversy for its own sake, then I want you at your tip-top "best."
QuoteOperahaven
Val and Patrick,
I still disagree.
The music is always the paramount definer, shaper, and transmitter of the drama.
Even if that was true, it could be also applied to Fidelio, Aida, Tosca or Wozzeck. In opera it is the music, more than the words, that characterizes better the characters, but that doesn't mean that music is enough to define them and the situations that made the plot of the drama.
I agree that Wagner's systhematic use of leitmotiv in the Ring, gives the music a greatest importance defining the situations in which the characters are involved.
But, even if in a more modest scale, Verdi also uses leitmotiv in Traviata or Otello, Puccini in Tosca, Mussorgsky in Khovantchina.
What I am trying to say is that the text, the plot, have the same importance in Wagner's operas that they have in all other operas, from Incoronazione di Poppea to Die Soldaten.
Quote from: Operahaven on June 25, 2008, 05:30:35 AM
What I'm saying is that his texts are trivial compared to his transcendent musical genius.
By all accounts, he would disagree with you. Perhaps you don't know that he was a dramatist, born to a family of actors, before he was a composer...? :o Or why do you think he concentrated so exclusively on opera? If he were an "absolute musician," his purposes would have been much better served by writing symphonies, chamber music or other purely instrumental music. (Among the top-rated composers, ironically enough, Chopin is perhaps the nearest qualifier for the term "absolute musician," since he concentrated so exclusively on piano music. But even he insisted on using dance forms--hardly "absolute." ;D)
Your remarks show that your appreciation of Wagner rises only to the level of profound emotional response. It's perfectly valid to stop there, but it hardly qualifies you to pass that kind of judgment on his art, nor does it necessarily qualify you as a "hardcore Wagnerian."
BTW, what do YOU think of "What's Opera, Doc?" ;)
Quote from: PSmith08 on June 25, 2008, 10:23:04 AMYou're welcome to recast Wagner so he is more easily digestible given your musical predilections, but you really should either keep it to yourself or be as subjective as possible.
Easily digestible ?
What on earth are you talking about ?
My friend, I can assure you that my adoration and love for Wagner goes beyond yours.
Let us get some things straight:
First, Wagner as a dramatist was insignificant and inferior.... He was essentially a dramatic symphonist, a writer of programme-music who used drama and its appurtenances for the most part as a mere stalking-horse for his magnificent orchestral tone poems. Yes, he called his operas by the proud title of "music-drama" yet it is impossible to find the drama
because of the music. He smothered his dramas in a welter of magnificent and inspired music.... filled up every possible space in them with his wonderful
tonal commentary.
In reality Wagner was the first and only Wagnerite. As a matter of fact he was one of the most formidable antagonists that Wagnerism ever had.
Gorgeous and exquisite, epical and tender, sublimely noble, and earthly as passion and despair, the music of Wagner is still, at its best, unparalleled and unapproached.
Nothing can ever dim the glory of Wagner, the conjurer of tones.
Quote from: Operahaven on June 29, 2008, 08:37:40 AM
Easily digestible ?
What on earth are you talking about ?
Wagner's MUSIC is more-or-less easily digestible; his philosophy and drama, which by many accounts he considered the more important part of his work, are much less so.
Quote from: Operahaven on June 29, 2008, 08:37:40 AM
My friend, I can assure you that my adoration and love for Wagner goes beyond yours.
Let us get some things straight: ...
See my post above. What you say is true only in your own experience. Some would say that "one's own experience" is the only valid measure of greatness; but how do you set your experience against anyone else's? How can you possibly say that PSmith08, or marvinbrown, or I, have less or more or otherwise differing "adoration and love for Wagner" than you?
Quote from: Operahaven on June 29, 2008, 08:37:40 AM
Easily digestible ?
What on earth are you talking about ?
My friend, I can assure you that my adoration and love for Wagner goes beyond yours.
Eric, I don't doubt that you absolutely adore the Wagner you have created for yourself. Now, it's trivial and painfully obvious that
your Wagner bears little resemblance to the Wagner of fact and history. It is then eminently reasonable (and this is the only time I can use that phrase in relation to your ramblings) that you love "Wagner" far more than I do, if only because you're adoring your own creation. That's fine, as I have said, but let's not pretend that the Wagner you have turned into Debussy has much in common with the Richard Wagner about whom the rest of us have discussed here. I'll ignore your traditional gambit (and this isn't the first time you've pulled it on me alone) of asserting that you
love Wagner more than the rest of us and implying that that fact gives your gobbledygook some sort of authority. You might, but that doesn't mean anything at all.
QuoteLet us get some things straight:
First, Wagner as a dramatist was insignificant and inferior.... He was essentially a dramatic symphonist, a writer of programme-music who used drama and its appurtenances for the most part as a mere stalking-horse for his magnificent orchestral tone poems. Yes, he called his operas by the proud title of "music-drama" yet it is impossible to find the drama because of the music. He smothered his dramas in a welter of magnificent and inspired music.... filled up every possible space in them with his wonderful tonal commentary.
Now, this comment bears out my assertion that you have created a Wagner for yourself that bears such little resemblance to Wagner in his
own words that he has ceased being Wagner. Your nonsense, and I am being generous there, exists in a vacuum where none of Wagner's voluminous writings on the subject of drama are allowed. In other words, you've either never bothered to slog through Wagner's theoretical writings, or you're incapable of the exertion. In either case, and it really doesn't matter which, your thoughts on Wagner are crippled by a lack of understanding and a lack of context. To put it another way, you've taken three wheels off a car and then entered it in the Indianapolis 500.
As to your assertions about Wagner as a dramatist, I'll assume you just don't have much familiarity with drama throughout the ages. You really shouldn't make judgments without some context, but that hasn't stopped you before. No, if you had any familiarity with historical drama, you'd have rather a different view of Wagner's skills in that department. Since you don't, I really can't discuss the matter with you: no shared frame of reference, you see.
QuoteIn reality Wagner was the first and only Wagnerite. As a matter of fact he was one of the most formidable antagonists that Wagnerism ever had.
Gorgeous and exquisite, epical and tender, sublimely noble, and earthly as passion and despair, the music of Wagner is still, at its best, unparalleled and unapproached.
Nothing can ever dim the glory of Wagner, the conjurer of tones.
Now this bit, this peroration of yours, is so irrational, confused, and silly that no one should be subjected to the indignity of replying to it in any substantive manner. I'll just say that the gulf between reality and fantasy is pretty apparent here.
O.k. Patrick fair enough.
True, if there is one principle that is definite, positive and unmistakable in his theoretical position it is that, in the evolution of a true music drama, the dramatist should be the controlling, the composer an accessory, factor.... But as someone who has adored Wagner since age 16 I still stand by my position that in his music-dramas the music is supreme, both in its artistic quality and effect, while the drama is a mere framework for its splendors.
Quote from: Operahaven on June 29, 2008, 05:30:33 PM
O.k. Patrick fair enough.
True, if there is one principle that is definite, positive and unmistakable in his theoretical position it is that, in the evolution of a true music drama, the dramatist should be the controlling, the composer an accessory, factor.... But as someone who has adored Wagner since age 16 I still stand by my position that in his music-dramas the music is supreme, both in its artistic quality and effect, while the drama is a mere framework for its splendors.
I still don't see what the duration of your Wagner-adoration has to do with anything, nor do I particularly care, as the final word on this subject was given by Wagner himself. The implicit appeal to authority, therefore, you're making is hopelessly doomed, as Wagner trumps Eric on matters of Wagner. That doesn't seem, however, to bother you much, and that's fine. As I said before, though, let's not take one's deeply unorthodox notions of Wagner and attempt to make them normative by saying you've adored Wagner since you were knee-high to a grasshopper. You could adore Wagner until the end of days, but that won't make your positions any more factually consonant to Wagner's own theories.
Patrick,
Does Wagner the librettist fascinate you more than Wagner the composer ?
Wagner's theories are of secondary interest to Wagner's practice. In fact, by Tristan and the last operas of The Ring he turned away from some of his most cherished original theories (such as the notion that only one voice could sing at a time - good thing he did, else we'd never have the Meistersinger quintet). As for the overall role of music in opera, of course it is central, but the drama is never irrelevant or a framework; otherwise the composer would not care about what librettos he set and he might just as well use the telephone book. Opera is a form of drama in which music performs a function analogous to poetry in spoken drama - that is, to create characterizations, control the pace and momentum of the action, and establish a tone for the opera as a whole. And this is as true for Monteverdi, Gluck, Mozart, Berlioz, Verdi, and Berg as it is for Wagner - despite the latter's smokescreen use of the term "music drama" to set his operas apart from all others.
Quote from: Sforzando on July 01, 2008, 04:07:48 AM
Wagner's theories are of secondary interest to Wagner's practice. In fact, by Tristan and the last operas of The Ring he turned away from some of his most cherished original theories (such as the notion that only one voice could sing at a time - good thing he did, else we'd never have the Meistersinger quintet).
Probably in the case of all composers, the verbiage about the music is of little significance compared to the actual music — only, since he was such a pamphleteer, (a)
Wagner managed to make himself more tiresome about it than your average composer, and (b) since words are easier to produce, discuss and latch onto than is music, his logorrhea spawned an enormous cesspool of secondary literature.
The "only one voice singing at a time" is a great example of
1.) a neat Idea being unnecessarily imposed upon artistic Practice, and
2.) a major composer of opera failing to understand a fundamental difference in What Goes On, between spoken drama, and opera.
Quote from: Operahaven on July 01, 2008, 04:03:22 AM
Does Wagner the librettist fascinate you more than Wagner the composer ?
Thanks for yet another irrelevant question,
Eric!
Quote from: Operahaven on July 01, 2008, 04:03:22 AM
Patrick,
Does Wagner the librettist fascinate you more than Wagner the composer ?
Eric, you're trying to make an impossible case, as it's based on the dubious premise that a highly conspicuous element in opera is completely irrelevant.
Quote from: Sforzando on July 01, 2008, 04:18:53 AM
Eric, you're trying to make an impossible case, as it's based on the dubious premise that a highly conspicuous element in opera is completely irrelevant.
Yes, especially since in the case of Wagner, the interminably turgid libretti are all-too conspicuous!
Quote from: Operahaven on July 01, 2008, 04:03:22 AM
Patrick,
Does Wagner the librettist fascinate you more than Wagner the composer ?
Karl
is right. That question is pretty consarned irrelevant as such things go. I think you deserve an answer, though: Why do I have to separate Wagner? I don't have an agenda (e.g., turning Wagner into a Debussy who wrote more music for the voice), and I have a surprisingly high tolerance for Romantic hero "business" (I was going to say "nonsense," but I realized that such usage would really undermine my position). In other words, I can deal with the verbal part of the drama as well as the musical part. There's no reason to make your silly division. Unless of course you're pulling a Pierre Boulez and rewriting musical history.
Quote from: Sforzando on July 01, 2008, 04:07:48 AM
Wagner's theories are of secondary interest to Wagner's practice. In fact, by Tristan and the last operas of The Ring he turned away from some of his most cherished original theories (such as the notion that only one voice could sing at a time - good thing he did, else we'd never have the Meistersinger quintet).
Or the vengeance trio at the end of act 2 in
Götterdämmerung. That is, though, another discussion.
Quote from: Operahaven on June 24, 2008, 07:18:00 PM
In my opinion the true hardcore Wagnerian listens to Wagner's music dramas merely as absolute music
I'm coming late to this discussion (my computer died the day it began) and I have little to add. But I will say that what you've defined, Eric, is actually a softcore Wagnerian...well, not even a Wagnerian. My dad liked the music too but had no interest in opera.
You seem to have very little understanding of the relationship in Wagner's works between words (meaning) and music. You're actually doing yourself an intense disservice by refusing to engage with the text.
Quote from: Operahaven on June 24, 2008, 07:18:00 PM
If he or she loves Siegfried (all 240 minutes) as much as the other operas and prefers to listen to it on CD....
Someone who adores the raspy voice of the Mime, Siegfried, The Wanderer, Erda and so on....
That, ladies and gentleman, is a hardcore Wagnerian.
Not at all. The true hardcore Wagnerite is one who adores Act 2 of
Walküre, with all those long-winded "debates" between central characters. This act is, in fact, the heart of the Ring, the place where difficult, life and death decisions are made that will eventually impact every character. Without a knowledge of what the characters are saying at any given moment, the act itself is boring, the barking and yodeling meaningless. With an understanding of the text (and that means having a libretto in your hand), it provides the most gripping drama in the entire cycle. If you don't adore this act, you are no Wagnerite, hardcore or softcore.
The other way to know a hardcore Wagnerite is this: if you own a succession of German Shepherd bitches and name them Senta, Elsa and Kundry, and name your only daughter Elisabeth (an American child but the name spelled with an S) then you are a true hardcore Wagnerite. I personally know these people, and their dogs ;D
Sarge
. . . and their little dogs, too!
Once again M. Operahaven has proven himself to be immeasurably above all of us in intellect and musical sensitivity! In fact, so mighty and irrepressible was this intellect, that it managed to escape the constraints of logic which imprisons our minds... Contrary to what his ignorant detractors assert, M. Operahaven is always consistent, and consistently inventive: One endlessly marvels at his ability to breathe new life into ideas long consigned by fools into the dustbin of history. The idea, in this case, of freeing music from the shackles of that vilest obstacle to Art: context – such a noble cause, which we have all but forgotten! M. Operahaven's achievement is all the more remarkable when considering the fact that he achieved it at the tender age of sixteen; we sincerely hope that he has not since grown too fond of his lone throne in Oz, such that he may still care to bring a little light into our wretched world, and cast away the dark clouds of intellectualism that hang over our Art!
Quote from: PSmith08 on July 01, 2008, 10:44:59 AM
turning Wagner into a Debussy
What do you mean by "turning Wagner into Debussy?" Are you suggesting that it is O.K. to ignore the libretto for Pelleas et Melisande now? Truth be told, I have yet to see a single composer M. Operahaven failed to trivialize. 8)
Quote from: Sergeant Rock on July 01, 2008, 11:46:46 AM
Not at all. The true hardcore Wagnerite is one who adores Act 2 of Walküre
I suppose I don't qualify then; I prefer
Parsifal. 0:)
Quote from: Monsieur Croche on July 01, 2008, 11:05:44 PM
What do you mean by "turning Wagner into Debussy?" Are you suggesting that it is O.K. to ignore the libretto for Pelleas et Melisande now? Truth be told, I have yet to see a single composer M. Operahaven failed to trivialize. 8)
Well, much as I would like to ignore the libretto for
Pelléas, I wouldn't be very logically consistent if I did, would I? No. No, I wouldn't. What I meant was that Wagner, minus the textual parts of his drama, would be a composer of music (rendered absolute by the machinations of an intellect revenging itself upon art -
pace Sontag) with something not insubstantial in common with Debussy's absolute music.
Quote from: Monsieur Croche on July 01, 2008, 11:05:44 PM
What do you mean by "turning Wagner into Debussy?" Are you suggesting that it is O.K. to ignore the libretto for Pelleas et Melisande now?
Patrick has not, but
Eric certainly has. And hasn't. You know
Eric, he'll say one thing, and say nearly the exact opposite two posts later. It's the Logic & Rhetoric wing of ADD.
Quote from: Monsieur Croche on July 01, 2008, 11:05:44 PM
Quote from: SargeNot at all. The true hardcore Wagnerite is one who adores Act 2 of Walküre
I suppose I don't qualify then; I prefer Parsifal. 0:)
Depends.
What are your dogs called? 8)
Quote from: karlhenning on July 02, 2008, 03:55:33 AM
I suppose I don't qualify then; I prefer Parsifal. 0:)
Depends.
What are your dogs called? 8)
The chihuahuas are called Fasolt and Fafner; the English Mastiff is called Cosima, a name he clearly enjoys.
Quote from: Monsieur Croche on July 01, 2008, 11:05:44 PM
I suppose I don't qualify then; I prefer Parsifal. 0:)
Preference isn't the point. We all have preferences (I
prefer Act 1) but if you don't love Act 2 of Walküre
too (along with
Parsifal or whatever opera or bit of opera you prefer) then you don't qualify as hardcore. That's not my opinion, that's actually written in the Wagnerian Bible; it's gospel, the Gospel According to Richard, chapter 8 verses 14-16.
Sarge
Monsieur, Sforzando and Patrick,
Once again, the only reason for producing an opera is for the vocal and orchestral sounds.
I do not give a rat's ass about the primacy of the dramatic element/libretto in Wagner's mind.
The aesthetic qualities of those vocal and orchestral sounds is the only thing that matters.
Quote from: Sergeant Rock on July 02, 2008, 06:42:15 AM
...but if you don't love Act 2 of Walküre too (along with Parsifal or whatever opera or bit of opera you prefer) then you don't qualify as hardcore.
That's not my opinion, that's actually written in the Wagnerian Bible; it's gospel, the Gospel According to Richard, chapter 8 verses 14-16.
Sarge
Trust him to take three verses to say what you expressed in one sentence.
Mike
Quote from: Operahaven on July 02, 2008, 06:47:33 AM
Once again, the only reason for producing an opera is for the vocal and orchestral sounds.
Once again, that is a peculiar
assertion, and your irrational insistence,
Eric, does
not imbue the assertion with
factuality.
Quote from: knight on July 02, 2008, 06:53:25 AM
Trust him to take three verses to say what you expressed in one sentence.
Mike
;D :D ;D
Quote from: Operahaven on July 02, 2008, 06:47:33 AM
Monsieur, Sforzando and Patrick,
Once again, the only reason for producing an opera is for the vocal and orchestral sounds.
I do not give a rat's ass about the primacy of the dramatic element/libretto in Wagner's mind.
The aesthetic qualities of those vocal and orchestral sounds is the only thing that matters.
The second and third statements are valid: that's how
you see opera. The first statement is utter nonsense...but surely you must see that. You can't be
that unhinged.
Sarge
Quote from: Sergeant Rock on July 02, 2008, 07:08:22 AM
You can't be that unhinged.
That sunny optimism is one of your finest qualities,
Sarge!
Quote from: Operahaven on July 02, 2008, 06:47:33 AM
Once again, the only reason for producing an opera is for the vocal and orchestral sounds.
I do not give a rat's ass about the primacy of the dramatic element/libretto in Wagner's mind.
The aesthetic qualities of those vocal and orchestral sounds is the only thing that matters.
If this is true, as you say, then it seems to me that Wagner wasted a lot of time on his libretti, writing staging instructions into his scores, giving meticulous instructions for building Bayreuth... He should have stuck to writing oratorios and songs without words and the like, as Mendelssohn did. ;D
Seriously, Wagner may (or may not) have many faults as a musical dramatist, but it's beyond belief to think he could be so hideously un-self-aware as to continue to add literary and dramatic qualities to his music if the music were the only important thing to him. If we are to take his art on its own terms--something you consistently refuse to do--we must deal with Wagner the dramatist as well as Wagner the composer. Especially since they are the same person. :)
Quote from: Operahaven on July 02, 2008, 06:47:33 AM
Monsieur, Sforzando and Patrick,
Once again, the only reason for producing an opera is for the vocal and orchestral sounds.
I do not give a rat's ass about the primacy of the dramatic element/libretto in Wagner's mind.
The aesthetic qualities of those vocal and orchestral sounds is the only thing that matters.
While many things here can be reduced to the point of educated people disagreeing on matters of art, this is not one of those things.
No, to be as precise as possible, this mess is, in fact, objectively and horribly wrong. In fact, despite your assertions of having adored Wagner (or anything else) since you were 16, I have to think that you've not actually done anything more than listened to a record and said "My, isn't this nice?" Had you done more than that, you would not hold ideas so wrong as to circle back on themselves and become monuments to unintentional irony.
There is no way to redeem it or make it somehow rational. My only suggestion is to refrain from discussing things about which you have such "unconventional" opinions, lest those who do, in fact, have some grip on the truth of the matter become enraged and rend your "ideas" asunder like a roast goose at a party thrown by Henry VIII.
Quote from: Operahaven on July 02, 2008, 06:47:33 AM
Once again, the only reason for producing an opera is for the vocal and orchestral sounds.
Then, as others have said, why would have Wagner have encumbered his work with such elaborate dramatic settings, and go so far as so build his own opera house to properly realize these dramatic settings? There is no point in discussing such points if you are not able to grasp this reality.
I keep hearing this clunking sound....it is people banging their heads off a brick wall. We have been round these bushes with Eric so often, I can count the leaves.
Eric probably regards the words as the extra help that the intellectually challenged need in order to retain interest in the works. Eric has risen above needing such spoonfeeding, he has absorbed the abstract sounds and made an alternative sense of them.
No amount of attempts to elucidate will...elucidate.
Mike
"Hope springs eternal..." I keep thinking (silly me!) that one of these days something one of us says will get through...
I more see the operation of 'Hope triumphing over experience.' 0:)
Mike
Quote from: knight on July 02, 2008, 09:37:25 PM
I more see the operation of 'Hope triumphing over experience.' 0:)
Mike
Well, there's more than an outside chance that the next sunrise (relatively speaking) will bring us a correspondent contrite and totally willing to accept the importance of text to Wagner's music-dramas.
Yes it is true, there is precedence, 'The Pauline Convertion' and if any composer can inspire it anew, it would be have to be Wagner. It sure ain't gonna be Sullivan.
Mike
Quote from: knight on July 02, 2008, 09:44:25 PM
Yes it is true, there is precedence, 'The Pauline Convertion' and if any composer can inspire it anew, it would be have to be Wagner. It sure ain't gonna be Sullivan.
Mike
Beyond that, at the risk of revealing a state secret, our correspondent isn't exactly noted for being rigidly consistent.
I am sure a little drop of waterboarding would determine whether he was wavering. On the issue of words not being relevent other than to allow singers to contribute abstract sounds to the picture......I have not seen Eric shift by one Iota.
Mike
Quote from: PSmith08 on July 02, 2008, 01:28:51 PM
. . . In fact, despite your assertions of having adored Wagner (or anything else) since you were 16, I have to think that you've not actually done anything more than listened to a record and said "My, isn't this nice?"
QuoteNot that there's anything wrong with that.
Quote from: knight on July 02, 2008, 09:58:58 PM
I am sure a little drop of waterboarding would determine whether he was wavering. On the issue of words not being relevent other than to allow singers to contribute abstract sounds to the picture......I have not seen Eric shift by one Iota.
No; stones will evolve into sentience first.
Quote from: karlhenning on July 03, 2008, 04:47:28 AM
No; stones will evolve into sentience first.
They did. And they're still touring.
Quote from: knight on July 02, 2008, 09:58:58 PM
I am sure a little drop of waterboarding would determine whether he was wavering. On the issue of words not being relevent other than to allow singers to contribute abstract sounds to the picture......I have not seen Eric shift by one Iota.
Mike
Well, that was like me, really. I didn't know what they were singing, so I treated it as "sound."
Quote from: Jezetha on July 03, 2008, 04:55:22 AM
They did. And they're still touring.
I'll never be your beast of burden.
Quote from: Mn Dave on July 03, 2008, 04:55:50 AM
Well, that was like me, really. I didn't know what they were singing, so I treated it as "sound."
Do you remember to bring your towel to the sonic bath? 8)
Quote from: karlhenning on July 03, 2008, 05:23:21 AM
Do you remember to bring your towel to the sonic bath? 8)
That boy needs some Stokowski.
Quote from: Mn Dave on July 03, 2008, 04:55:50 AM
Well, that was like me, really. I didn't know what they were singing, so I treated it as "sound."
And me. Sometimes I
do know what they're
singing shrieking, and regard it as so stupid that I prefer hearing it as just sound. Works for
P&M, too. And for Eric's posts, which are so much better if one can ignore their content (or lack of same) and just enjoy the patterns of pixels.
Quote from: DavidRoss on July 03, 2008, 05:27:44 AM
And me. Sometimes I do know what they're singing shrieking, and regard it as so stupid that I prefer hearing it as just sound.
Amen, brutha.
Quote from: karlhenning on July 03, 2008, 05:23:21 AM
Do you remember to bring your towel to the sonic bath? 8)
My sonic bath provides
exquisitely embroidered towels to the clientele.
Quote from: DavidRoss on July 03, 2008, 05:27:44 AM
Sometimes I do know what they're singing shrieking, and regard it as so stupid that I prefer hearing it as just sound.
Quote from: MN DaveAmen, brutha.
I profit from listening to and thinking about
Wagner's libretti from time to time; it is a lesson in the artistic limitations of even a musical genius, and a caution against unedited egoism.
Quote from: karlhenning on July 03, 2008, 05:37:53 AM
I profit from listening to and thinking about Wagner's libretti from time to time; it is a lesson in the artistic limitations of even a musical genius, and a caution against unedited egoism.
Yeah, too bad da Ponte was dead, he probably could've made something grand out of that material--and
intentionally funny, as well!
Quote from: DavidRoss on July 03, 2008, 05:27:44 AM
And me. Sometimes I do know what they're singing shrieking, and regard it as so stupid that I prefer hearing it as just sound. Works for P&M, too. And for Eric's posts, which are so much better if one can ignore their content (or lack of same) and just enjoy the patterns of pixels.
And yet you, MnDave, and Karl (to a lesser extent) basically agree with Eric...that the words are unimportant. And you are definitely not hardcore Wagnerians...which is my contention about Eric: that he's no Wagnerian, in any sense.
I'm not going to try to convince you of Wagner's genius, not only as a composer but as a writer of drama (I gave up proselytizing many moons ago). I'll just say his works concern love, sin, redemption and are not in the least silly despite the fact his characters are sometimes mythical and almost always archetypal.
Sarge
Quote from: Sergeant Rock on July 03, 2008, 05:56:09 AM
And yet you, MnDave, and Karl (to a lesser extent) basically agree with Eric...that the words are unimportant. And you are definitely not hardcore Wagnerians...which is my contention about Eric: that he's no Wagnerian, in any sense.
I'm not going to try to convince you of Wagner's genius, not only as a composer but as a writer of drama (I gave up proselytizing many moons ago). I'll just say his works concerns love, sin, redemption and are not in the least silly despite the fact his characters are sometimes mythical and almost always archetypal.
You mistake my meaning, Sarge. I think the words are very important, and I think the thematic intent of the Ring is admirable...I just think Wagner was a lousy librettist and a shoddy craftsman, and that his egocentric excesses mitigated against his artistic success.
This thread is akin to the tourists that visited Bedlam in the 18th century to 'marvel' at the mad.
They were not allowed to poke them with pointed sticks, though ;D
I think I am going to be hardcore against both Operahaven and the Wagner lovers who are bashing his librettos.
To appreciate the librettos, to see where they are flawed and where they still 'work' remarkably well, it helps to know German - although Wagner's German is dated and often intentionally archaic - and to know the dramatic tradition(s) to which Wagner belongs. If you don't know your Greek tragedians (AND Aristophanes), Shakespeare, Schiller, Goethe, Racine and Caldéron (to mention only the most important), you won't be able to place Wagner nor what he was trying to achieve.
I personally like reading (verse) drama, so I don't have any problem with reading Wagner's. Seen from a purely literary perspective, yes, his dramas are flawed, stylistically and sometimes also dramatically, but that is because the librettos are also 'pretexts', literally, for music. And Thomas Mann has pointed out that Wagner often is more epic than dramatic and that his operas could be seen as German counterparts to the great 19th-century novels.
Anyone who is interested and able to read German, should read Dieter Borchmeyer's Das Theater Richard Wagners (don't know if it has been translated).
Edit: I see Sarge has written something with which I concur.
Quote from: DavidRoss on July 03, 2008, 06:11:13 AM
You mistake my meaning, Sarge. I think the words are very important...
Understood. We'll agree to differ then (on the
quality of the words and the merits of the libretti).
Sarge
Quote from: Jezetha on July 03, 2008, 06:13:38 AM
...Wagner's German is dated and often intentionally archaic...
And even that is not always a fault. One of my favorite (literary) authors is William Morris (also inventor of the Morris chair), who in three great fantasy novels used a positively Medieval English that had next to no relation to current parlance of the 1890s when he wrote them. Consider also (brace yourselves!) Tolkien's rather archaic language in The Lord of the Rings. :)
Quote from: jochanaan on July 03, 2008, 06:22:50 AM
And even that is not always a fault. One of my favorite (literary) authors is William Morris (also inventor of the Morris chair), who in three great fantasy novels used a positively Medieval English that had next to no relation to current parlance of the 1890s when he wrote them. Consider also (brace yourselves!) Tolkien's rather archaic language in The Lord of the Rings. :)
Hear, hear!
Quote from: jochanaan on July 03, 2008, 06:22:50 AM
And even that is not always a fault. One of my favorite (literary) authors is William Morris (also inventor of the Morris chair), who in three great fantasy novels used a positively Medieval English that had next to no relation to current parlance of the 1890s when he wrote them. Consider also (brace yourselves!) Tolkien's rather archaic language in The Lord of the Rings. :)
I have read
The Wood beyond the World and
The Water of the Wondrous Isles and I admire Tolkien. So - my remark ('intentionally archaic') was just a statement of fact. ;)
Quote from: Sergeant Rock on July 03, 2008, 05:56:09 AM
And yet you, MnDave, and Karl (to a lesser extent) basically agree with Eric...that the words are unimportant.
Not a whit,
Sarge. The words, unimportant? He wouldn't have written the music, unless he had written the words. They are of crucial, formative
importance; they're just of questionable literary
merit.
Quote from: Jezetha on July 03, 2008, 06:25:40 AM
I have read The Wood beyond the World and The Water of the Wondrous Isles and I admire Tolkien. So - my remark ('intentionally archaic') was just a statement of fact. ;)
Of course--I doubt anyone would have imputed any judgment to the statement.
The question of the literary quality of the intentional archaism remains 8)
Quote from: karlhenning on July 03, 2008, 07:01:33 AM
The question of the literary quality of the intentional archaism remains 8)
How many librettos can stand up as serious literature? Not many, not even Da Ponte. (Does anyone actually read them divorced from the music?) We judge both the words and music of an opera by how well they relate, and if they convey the characters adequately. We aren't talking undying literature here, divorced from the music (there are damn few librettos that have that stand alone quality). If Wagner's words and drama were without merit, the operas would have died long ago. If Wagner had been a bad or even mediocre librettist, his work would have died long ago (look what happened to poor Schubert: glorious music brought down by seriously bad librettos). I submit that no one today would sit though five hours of Wagner if the text had no serious merit. But try to get a ticket to Bayreuth...or try to get a ticket to any Ring produced anywhere in the world. You better be quick.
Quote from: karlhenning on July 03, 2008, 06:35:13 AM
Not a whit, Sarge. The words, unimportant? He wouldn't have written the music, unless he had written the words. They are of crucial, formative importance; they're just of questionable literary merit.
I stand corrected twice. My apologies gentlemen.
But we do differ on the merit of the words. I agree with everything Jezetha wrote. Serious negative criticism of Wagner's words have been countered by other Wagner scholars...to my satisfaction anyway. That doesn't mean I don't get a little antsy too sometimes. King Mark's long...LONG...speech after he discovers T & I in
flagrante delicto just seems to go on and on, with too many words, too little action. If Verdi had written that scene, Marco would have yelled,
Bastardo! Vendetta! and leaped on Tristano with sword drawn. The act would have been over in ten seconds ;D Wagner drags it out for ten minutes. But Wagner has a purpose: to show us how deeply, emotionally and psychologically, Mark's been hurt, and why he feels that way. Dramatically ineffective? Maybe. But we gain something: a true understanding of Mark's character. To me that's worth the extra time spent before swords are drawn and the act ends. And it is, I think, a mark of Wagner's genius. It's one reason why his operas should be called music dramas...to set them apart from the mediocre and downright bad librettos of so much French and Italian opera of the time with their one-dimensional cardboard characters.
Sorry for the sermon (sometimes the preacher does still emerge ;D ). I'll step down from the pulpit now.
Sarge
Quote from: Sergeant Rock on July 03, 2008, 07:43:31 AM
King Mark's long...LONG...speech after he discovers T & I in flagrante delicto just seems to go on and on, with too many words, too little action.
But I think the real problem with that speech is that musically it fails to rise to the occasion (if you'll forgive the eructile pun).
Quote from: Sforzando on July 03, 2008, 07:55:33 AM
But I think the real problem with that speech is that musically it fails to rise to the occasion (if you'll forgive the eructile pun).
;D :D ;D
I agree with you. That's the real reason I get antsy: boring music at that point.
Sarge
Quote from: Sforzando on July 03, 2008, 07:55:33 AM
But I think the real problem with that speech is that musically it fails to rise to the occasion (if you'll forgive the eructile pun).
Unforgiveable in hardcore.
Quote from: DavidRoss on July 03, 2008, 08:00:12 AM
Unforgiveable in hardcore.
That gave me a hardcore laugh, David. Thanks. ;D :D ;D
Off to cook Mrs. Rock a hardcore dinner now.
See ya all later
Sarge
Quote from: Sergeant Rock on July 03, 2008, 07:43:31 AMIf Wagner's words and drama were without merit, the operas would have died long ago. If Wagner had been a bad or even mediocre librettist, his work would have died long ago.
I submit that no one today would sit though five hours of Wagner if the text had no serious merit.
What on earth are you saying here ?
My friend, what have you been smoking today ?
Quote from: Jezetha on July 03, 2008, 06:25:40 AM
I have read The Wood beyond the World and The Water of the Wondrous Isles and I admire Tolkien. So - my remark ('intentionally archaic') was just a statement of fact. ;)
Quote from: DavidRoss on July 03, 2008, 06:59:09 AM
Of course--I doubt anyone would have imputed any judgment to the statement.
I certainly didn't. My remarks were aimed at others--not necessarily the thread originator, but anyone who may be lurking and wondering what to make of all this. :)
Quote from: Operahaven on July 03, 2008, 09:46:47 AM
What on earth are you saying here ?...
What the rest of us have been saying all along: That Wagner's music, at least the music in his music dramas, cannot be divorced from the drama without doing serious damage to the complete art work. Granted, it's not a crime to enjoy Wagner's music while ignoring the words, as you do; but the claim that you understand Wagner at any deep level while ignoring his words is an empty one.
Quote from: Sergeant Rock on July 03, 2008, 07:43:31 AM
How many librettos can stand up as serious literature? Not many, not even Da Ponte. (Does anyone actually read them divorced from the music?) We judge both the words and music of an opera by how well they relate, and if they convey the characters adequately. We aren't talking undying literature here, divorced from the music (there are damn few librettos that have that stand alone quality). If Wagner's words and drama were without merit, the operas would have died long ago. If Wagner had been a bad or even mediocre librettist, his work would have died long ago (look what happened to poor Schubert: glorious music brought down by seriously bad librettos). I submit that no one today would sit though five hours of Wagner if the text had no serious merit. But try to get a ticket to Bayreuth...or try to get a ticket to any Ring produced anywhere in the world. You better be quick.
The music and the story must have a consistent emotional logic. Wagner's work satisfies that at some level, although weakness in the drama sometimes sabotages the music. In my opinion, Wagner's work could have been more successful if he had used someone to shape the words and drama into something more worthy of the music. The main problem I have is over-long monologues and dramatically redundant scenes which leads to tedious and dramatically redundant music.
Quote from: scarpia on July 03, 2008, 10:39:33 AM
The music and the story must have a consistent emotional logic. Wagner's work satisfies that at some level, although weakness in the drama sometimes sabotages the music. In my opinion, Wagner's work could have been more successful if he had used someone to shape the words and drama into something more worthy of the music. The main problem I have is over-long monologues and dramatically redundant scenes which leads to tedious and dramatically redundant music.
I knew if we kept at it long enough we'd finally find something on which we agree wholeheartedly. 8)
Quote from: scarpia on July 03, 2008, 10:39:33 AM
The music and the story must have a consistent emotional logic. Wagner's work satisfies that at some level, although weakness in the drama sometimes sabotages the music. In my opinion, Wagner's work could have been more successful if he had used someone to shape the words and drama into something more worthy of the music. The main problem I have is over-long monologues and dramatically redundant scenes which leads to tedious and dramatically redundant music.
You should prepare new, improved editions of his operas then! Just cut and abridge the dramatically redundant music, and rewrite the texts so they are more worthy of the music. Since you already know exactly what is wrong with the texts and the music, that shouldn't be too much work. Oh, wait, you would have to learn German on a literature level first in order to actually fully understand and rewrite/improve the texts. So I guess we can look forward to your improved versions in around, let's say, 10-12 years or so?
Quote from: M forever on July 03, 2008, 12:54:09 PM
You should prepare new, improved editions of his operas then! Just cut and abridge the dramatically redundant music, and rewrite the texts so they are more worthy of the music. Since you already know exactly what is wrong with the texts and the music, that shouldn't be too much work. Oh, wait, you would have to learn German on a literature level first in order to actually fully understand and rewrite/improve the texts. So I guess we can look forward to your improved versions in around, let's say, 10-12 years or so?
Ad hoc abridgement can be attained using the "skip track" function. I certainly have my notions as to what parts seem to drag, be obviously we won't know what Wagner would have produced if he had been working for an impresario who gave him to directive to "keep things moving."
What's this I am reading, Wagner's operas are too verbose, too long, in need of editing ??? ? The way I see it those operas aren't long enough- I want more, more Wagner, longer operas, more Wotan monologues , more King Mark monologues , more Siegfried monologues- MORE, MORE, MORE!!!!!! I WANT MORE!!!!
Verbose enough for you ;D??
marvin
Quote from: marvinbrown on July 03, 2008, 01:47:00 PM
What's this I am reading, Wagner's operas are too verbose? The way I see it those operas aren't long enough- I want more, more Wagner, longer operas, more Wotan, more King Mark, more Siegfried etc. monlogues- MORE, MORE, MORE!!!!!! I WANT MORE!!!!
Verbose enough for you ;D??
Point taken. (http://smileyjungle.com/smilies/glasses14.gif)
Quote from: marvinbrown on July 03, 2008, 01:47:00 PM
What's this I am reading, Wagner's operas are too verbose, too long, in need of editing ??? ? The way I see it those operas aren't long enough- I want more, more Wagner, longer operas, more Wotan monologues , more King Mark monologues , more Siegfried monologues- MORE, MORE, MORE!!!!!! I WANT MORE!!!!
Verbose enough for you ;D??
marvin
More Siegfried?
Talk about fates worse than death.
Quote from: PSmith08 on July 03, 2008, 01:59:46 PM
More Siegfried?
Talk about fates worse than death.
Well, the funny thing is - and here I can understand Marvin - once you know the Wagner operas very well, they
can seem quite
short...
Quote from: marvinbrown on July 03, 2008, 01:47:00 PM
What's this I am reading, Wagner's operas are too verbose, too long, in need of editing ??? ? The way I see it those operas aren't long enough- I want more, more Wagner, longer operas, more Wotan monologues , more King Mark monologues , more Siegfried monologues- MORE, MORE, MORE!!!!!! I WANT MORE!!!!
More of Wotan's endless whining? That guy needs Oprah and Dr. Phil big time.
Quote from: knight on July 02, 2008, 01:56:30 PMEric probably regards the words as the extra help that the intellectually challenged need in order to retain interest in the works.
Eric has risen above needing such spoonfeeding, he has absorbed the abstract sounds and made an alternative sense of them.
Thank you Mike. That is exactly right.
But everyone, given the requisite aesthetic sensibility, will eventually come to absorb those sounds because we each have our own 'theatre of the imagination'
Quote from: scarpia on July 03, 2008, 02:07:22 PM
More of Wotan's endless whining? That guy needs Oprah and Dr. Phil big time.
What's wrong with a little psycho therapy ;D? So the guy likes to talk about his problems, its healthy 8).
marvin
Quote from: Jezetha on July 03, 2008, 02:07:06 PM
Well, the funny thing is - and here I can understand Marvin - once you know the Wagner operas very well, they can seem quite short...
I understand that, believe me, but Siegfried is not exactly Wagner's deepest or broadest character. Granted, there are equally shallow characters in the repertoire, but the characterization of Siegfried (or the lack thereof) is one of the more jarring flaws in the
Ring.
Quote from: Operahaven on July 03, 2008, 02:12:44 PM
Thank you Mike. That is exactly right.
But everyone, given the requisite aesthetic sensibility, will eventually come to absorb those sounds because we each have our own 'theatre of the imagination'
Or, since 'theatre' implies 'drama,' "we each have our own tone-generator of the imagination."
By the way Mike, those people are not 'intellectually challenged'.
If someone is enticed by the libretto/drama at first that's fine. But hopefully they will come to see that the value of an opera lies in the blending of the vocal and orchestral sounds.
It's very dispiriting to see directors today (i.e. Peter Gelb at the Met) trying to make opera more dramatically convincing because they are trying to attract an audience that is more comfortable with television and cinematic drama... ::)
Quote from: Operahaven on July 03, 2008, 02:32:14 PM
By the way Mike, those people are not 'intellectually challenged'.
If someone is enticed by the libretto/drama at first that's fine. But hopefully they will come to see that the value of an opera lies in the blending of the vocal and orchestral sounds.
It's very dispiriting to see directors today (i.e. Peter Gelb at the Met) trying to make opera more dramatically convincing because they are trying to attract an audience that is more comfortable with television and cinematic drama... ::)
God knows that the last thing opera needs is to be made more dramatically convincing since
dramma per musica means, literally, "Romantic absolute music with voices as instruments."
What silliness!
Quote from: PSmith08 on July 03, 2008, 02:18:31 PM
I understand that, believe me, but Siegfried is not exactly Wagner's deepest or broadest character. Granted, there are equally shallow characters in the repertoire, but the characterization of Siegfried (or the lack thereof) is one of the more jarring flaws in the Ring.
I don't care for Siegfried very much either, to be honest... And the whole riddle game between Wotan and Mime isn't the most exciting quiz ever, though it is nice to hear the music for the giants and the Nibelungs and the Wälsungen once again. The second act has the famous Forest Murmurs, where the whole atmosphere of 'Das Rheingold' returns in a new guise - magical. But the best thing about 'Siegfried' the opera is the third act, where Wagner, after an interval of 12 years, shows all he has learned from 'Tristan' and 'Meistersinger and puts it into masterly practice.
Quote from: Operahaven on July 03, 2008, 02:32:14 PM
It's very dispiriting to see directors today (i.e. Peter Gelb at the Met) trying to make opera more dramatically convincing because they are trying to attract an audience that is more comfortable with television and cinematic drama... ::)
Wagner built an entire opera house to make it more dramatically convincing. There is no reason an opera house should not do their utmost to present the work in the most dramatically compelling way practical. Experiencing the opera as you seem to prefer is best done alone in your room with your headphones on, not in an opera house.
Quote from: scarpia on July 03, 2008, 03:10:02 PMWagner built an entire opera house
I know... It's on the green hill.
QuoteTo make it more dramatically convincing
That was not necessary because his mature works are utterly enthralling on their own. (But the acoustics in the Festspielhaus are supposed to be fabulous)
QuoteThere is no reason an opera house should not do their utmost to present the work in the most dramatically compelling way practical
Opera houses should not exist anymore. And definitely not with those silly translation systems.
QuoteExperiencing the opera as you seem to prefer is best done alone in your room with your headphones on, not in an opera house
Yes, or a live performance in a
concert hall with amplification and surround sound.
Quote from: Operahaven on July 03, 2008, 03:31:55 PM
Opera houses should not exist anymore. And definitely not with those silly translation systems.
I see, the sellout crowds at the great opera houses around the world should be turned away because you don't get it. Now I know where we stand.
Quote from: Operahaven on July 03, 2008, 09:46:47 AM
My friend, what have you been smoking today ?
Nothing to compare with the weed favored by the fellow who concocted the barbarism
non-angstness.
Quote from: karlhenning on July 03, 2008, 03:50:23 PM
Nothing to compare with the weed favored by the fellow who concocted the barbarism non-angstness.
First, I do not smoke anything.
Two, it's a neologism and I like it.
Quote from: PSmith08 on July 03, 2008, 02:18:31 PM
I understand that, believe me, but Siegfried is not exactly Wagner's deepest or broadest character. Granted, there are equally shallow characters in the repertoire, but the characterization of Siegfried (or the lack thereof) is one of the more jarring flaws in the Ring.
Testify, brother.
Quote from: Jezetha on July 03, 2008, 02:50:50 PM
I don't care for Siegfried very much either, to be honest... And the whole riddle game between Wotan and Mime isn't the most exciting quiz ever . . . .
That's a folk tradition which it takes some literary skill to make fresh, to make other than flat-out predictable.
Quote from: Operahaven on July 03, 2008, 03:52:43 PM
Two, it's a neologism and I like it.
Your 'neologisms' would benefit greatly from the absence of the words,
Eric.
Angst is already a state, so angstness doesn't make sense.
Quote from: M forever on July 03, 2008, 04:02:45 PM
Angst is already a state, so angstness doesn't make sense.
O.k. I'll make a note of that.... But I'm still looking for a way to describe utter 'carefreeness' with innocent pleasure and 'pastoralness'
Quote from: Operahaven on July 03, 2008, 04:07:31 PM
O.k. I'll make a note of that.... But I'm still looking for a way to describe utter 'carefreeness' with innocent pleasure and 'pastoralness'
You think "non-angstness" expresses "carefreeness with innocent pleasure and pastoralness?" I think it mainly expresses lack of familiarity with English usage. What's wrong with carefree, pastoral pleasure, except that fact that the adjectives are used as adjectives.
Quote from: Operahaven on July 03, 2008, 03:31:55 PM
Opera houses should not exist anymore.
Thank you, Pierre Boulez.
Quote from: Sforzando on July 03, 2008, 04:26:13 PM
Thank you, Pierre Boulez.
But I never said 'bomb them' as he did.
Quote from: scarpia on July 03, 2008, 03:49:31 PMI see, the sellout crowds at the great opera houses around the world should be turned away because you don't get it. Now I know where we stand.
There is nothing to 'get' in the libretto or on stage. There may be some occasional frivolous delight but that's it.
My friend, one more thing:
You are looking at a guy who for years now adores listening to Schoenberg's
Moses und Aron and Messiaen's
Saint Francis of Assissi on CD..... And finds utter perfection those two works.
My friend, I am a dyed-in-the-wool opera person, o.k.?
I know my stuff, o.k. ?
Quote from: scarpia on July 03, 2008, 04:15:37 PMWhat's wrong with carefree, pastoral pleasure
You're right.... I am going to emend it now.
Quote from: Operahaven on July 03, 2008, 04:07:31 PM
O.k. I'll make a note of that.... But I'm still looking for a way to describe utter 'carefreeness' with innocent pleasure and 'pastoralness'
My ex used to call those folks "bliss ninnies." All that's required to qualify is a sufficiently low IQ and high dose of thorazine. Maybe you should change your meds.
Quote from: DavidRoss on July 03, 2008, 04:56:02 PMMy ex used to call those folks "bliss ninnies." All that's required to qualify is a sufficiently low IQ and high dose of thorazine. Maybe you should change your meds.
(http://cursors3.totallyfreecursors.com/thumbnails/rofl.gif)
You are such a comedian, David.
Quote from: Operahaven on July 03, 2008, 04:28:41 PM
There is nothing to 'get' in the libretto or on stage. There may be some occasional frivolous delight but that's it.
My friend, one more thing:
You are looking at a guy who for years now adores listening to Schoenberg's Moses und Aron and Messiaen's Saint Francis of Assissi on CD..... And finds utter perfection those two works.
My friend, I am a dyed-in-the-wool opera person, o.k.?
I know my stuff, o.k. ?
Your appeals to authority are, though you might already expect this, fairly
tedious. I, for example, really dig Pierre Boulez' stuff, but I wouldn't say that I
know my serialism or that I am a candidate for a chair in composition at the Indiana University School of Music. What I should say is that, while you might consider yourself quite the expert in matters operatic, that is ultimately irrelevant. Your "ideas" are going to stand or fall on their merits. You can save yourself the trouble of hauling out your credentials, which aren't really credentials by any meaningful standard. More like boasts intended to lend credence to your "theories." And speaking of those, surely you realize that you've ceased discussing opera or music-drama or any such work at this point, right?
Quote from: Operahaven on July 03, 2008, 04:28:41 PM
...You are looking at a guy who for years now adores listening to Schoenberg's Moses und Aron and Messiaen's Saint Francis of Assissi on CD..... And finds utter perfection those two works...
Yet can you not accept that there may be a greater, more complex perfection in the blend of music, verbal meaning, singing actors' body language, and dramatic scenery? Granted, it doesn't happen often in lesser operas, but in the greater works like these and some others, it's all there. Your musical enjoyment will not be any less if you also revel in these other aspects.
If you can't yet accept this, I challenge you (I assume you're a native English-speaker): Find a DVD of Benjamin Britten's Peter Grimes. (Any of his operas would work, but Grimes is probably the most obvious.) Since it's in English, you can hardly avoid catching a word here and there; see if it doesn't enhance the total experience. You may find yourself desperately wanting to understand what Grimes, Ellen Orford, Balstrode and the others are thinking--and what will happen... :)
Thanks for the recommendation.
:)
Quote from: karlhenning on July 03, 2008, 03:55:13 PM
That's a folk tradition which it takes some literary skill to make fresh, to make other than flat-out predictable.
Indeed. Just asking 'who live in the ground, who live on the earth's back, who live in the heights?' aren't the most difficult of questions. Tolkien, drawing on the same tradition, does a far better job in
The Hobbit.
Quote from: Jezetha on July 03, 2008, 02:50:50 PM
I don't care for Siegfried very much either, to be honest... And the whole riddle game between Wotan and Mime isn't the most exciting quiz ever, though it is nice to hear the music for the giants and the Nibelungs and the Wälsungen once again.
Actually that quiz has a fair amount of wisdom in it. If you have the opportunity to ask a know-it-all individual 3 questions you should at least ask one question you don't have the answer to ;). In other words one of Mime's questions should have been
Who can fashion Notung from its shattered fragments? ;)
marvin
Quote from: marvinbrown on July 04, 2008, 01:29:49 AM
Actually that quiz has a fair amount of wisdom in it. If you have the opportunity to ask a know-it-all individual 3 questions you should at least ask one question you don't have the answer to ;). In other words one of Mime's questions should have been Who can fashion Notung from its shattered fragments? ;)
Mime isn't the brightest Nibelung in history (he meets his match in Siegfried, though, who isn't the brightest Wälsung).
Quote from: Jezetha on July 04, 2008, 01:47:05 AM
Mime isn't the brightest Nibelung in history (he meets his match in Siegfried, though, who isn't the brightest Wälsung).
So, in other words, instead of another hour of plot-device development, Mime and Siegfried should have done "If I Only Had A Brain" as a duet. Anything to get from
Walküre to
Götterdämmerung without leaving too many loose threads.
Quote from: PSmith08 on July 04, 2008, 01:55:24 AM
So, in other words, instead of another hour of plot-device development, Mime and Siegfried should have done "If I Only Had A Brain" as a duet. Anything to get from Walküre to Götterdämmerung without leaving too many loose threads.
;D
Wagner(ians) and humour - an inexhaustible subject.
Quote from: Jezetha on July 04, 2008, 02:00:55 AM
Wagner(ians) and humour - an inexhaustible subject.
Although not nearly as amusing as Wagnerhoids, some of whom should come equipped with a sign like those seen in zoos:
"Please don't tease the Wagnerhoids." (I know I shouldn't tease the poor dears, but I can't help it! It's so much fun to watch them turn purple and sputter!)
Quote from: DavidRoss on July 04, 2008, 02:09:57 AM
"Please don't tease the Wagnerhoids."
"Wagnerhoids" ??? ?? I think they have a cream for that ;D!
marvin
Quote from: Operahaven on July 03, 2008, 04:27:28 PM
But I never said 'bomb them' as he did.
That just means that
Boulez was more honest in his cultural Nazism than you,
Eric.
Why, in short, should opera houses cease to exist, just because
you have no use for them?
Quote from: PSmith08 on July 04, 2008, 01:55:24 AM
So, in other words, instead of another hour of plot-device development, Mime and Siegfried should have done "If I Only Had A Brain" as a duet. Anything to get from Walküre to Götterdämmerung without leaving too many loose threads.
How
Wagner might have benefited from comic relief!
Quote from: M forever on July 03, 2008, 04:02:45 PM
Angst is already a state, so angstness doesn't make sense.
It's a redundancy which indicates that the 'neologizer' wants to
appear learned by citing a foreign term, but cannot be bothered actually to
familiarize himself with that term 8)
Quote from: Jezetha on July 03, 2008, 11:53:03 PM
Indeed. Just asking 'who live in the ground, who live on the earth's back, who live in the heights?' aren't the most difficult of questions. Tolkien, drawing on the same tradition, does a far better job in The Hobbit.
Well observed,
Johan.
Quote from: Sergeant Rock on July 03, 2008, 07:58:39 AMI agree with you. That's the real reason I get antsy: boring music at that point.
(Note to Sforzando and Sarge: I missed this comment the other day)
********
Do you see the point I have been making ?
I have never found King Mark's music boring... (Karl Ridderbusch is my favorite here)
And yet you claim that I am not a Wagnerian in any sense of the word.
Quote from: Operahaven on July 05, 2008, 07:10:43 AMI have never found King Mark's music boring...
Neither have I. I find his monologue
both musically
and dramatically compelling.
Quote from: Jezetha on July 05, 2008, 07:19:01 AM
Neither have I. I find his monologue both musically and dramatically compelling.
And I do not. Not at all. After the rapturous conclusion of the love duet I find it a distinct letdown in every possible way - melodically, rhythmically, texturally, you name it. For ten minutes the monologue just crawls along in its stop-and-start, recitative-like manner, always tied to that one Leitmotiv and with a text that says the same thing over and over. Can you honestly tell me you'd feel any great loss - or even notice - if five minutes of that monologue were cut?
Quote from: Sforzando on July 06, 2008, 07:27:24 PM
And I do not. Not at all. After the rapturous conclusion of the love duet I find it a distinct letdown in every possible way - melodically, rhythmically, texturally, you name it. For ten minutes the monologue just crawls along in its stop-and-start, recitative-like manner, always tied to that one Leitmotiv and with a text that says the same thing over and over. Can you honestly tell me you'd feel any great loss - or even notice - if five minutes of that monologue were cut?
Yes.
This is the first time we actually
hear Marke, so it is right that he 'introduces' himself. For the first time we get to see his side of things. And there
are three persons in this relationship ('a bit crowded' as the late Princess Diana famously said).
Another thing - you must see Mark's monologue in the framework of the
whole Act. We've had expectancy and distress (Isolde/Brangäne), followed by the great love duet (with two 'breathers' by Brangäne), leading to a terrific climax - ecstasy for T & I and a warning scream by B. After all this, and after all that intense music comes the cold light of day, the reality principle if you will in the shape of the disconsolate Marke. I think it's expertly judged by Wagner.
After this you get the poignant reminiscences of the love music we've just been hearing (statements by I & T), and Tristan's fight with Melot, which brings the whole arc to a very satisfying conclusion (though not for the lovers!).
So, yes: I think Mark's monologue is excellent, musically, dramatically, architecturally. But you need
the context of the whole Act and a good performance, of course, to give you a sense the thing is really developing and growing,
fed by 'that one Leitmotiv', not 'tied' to it.
Quote from: Jezetha on July 06, 2008, 11:06:44 PM
...But you need the context of the whole Act and a good performance, of course, to give you a sense the thing is really developing and growing, fed by 'that one Leitmotiv', not 'tied' to it.
Good points. More than almost any other opera composer, Wagner created music that flows in a single dramatic arc throughout an act. You just don't get that arc when you only listen to excerpts.
Quote from: Operahaven on July 03, 2008, 02:32:14 PM
If someone is enticed by the libretto/drama at first that's fine. But hopefully they will come to see that the value of an opera lies in the blending of the vocal and orchestral sounds.
It's very dispiriting to see directors today (i.e. Peter Gelb at the Met) trying to make opera more dramatically convincing because they are trying to attract an audience that is more comfortable with television and cinematic drama... ::)
I haven't yet learned to appreciate opera, so I'm not about to decide in advance what elements are extraneous to it. What bothers me about what you say is not that you don't find the text and drama part of the aesthetic experience, but that it's a superior position to see it that way. Why? The comparison with TV and film drama actually works against your understanding, not in favor of it. Operas
are dramas, and it's not some contemporary distortion to understand them that way.
If I take up opera at some point, I might do it in a manner similar to yours, valuing principally the music and voices. I'd still want to learn something about how it's all supposed to work together, though, even if I never really grow to appreciate all the elements the way the composer intended.
Quote from: drogulus on July 07, 2008, 01:20:26 PM
...I'd still want to learn something about how it's all supposed to work together, though...
That's simple. The music enhances the drama; the drama gives the music purpose; together, they comprise the operatic experience. Yes, it's really that simple. 8)
Quote from: Jezetha on July 06, 2008, 11:06:44 PM
Yes.
This is the first time we actually hear Marke, so it is right that he 'introduces' himself. For the first time we get to see his side of things. And there are three persons in this relationship ('a bit crowded' as the late Princess Diana famously said).
Another thing - you must see Mark's monologue in the framework of the whole Act. We've had expectancy and distress (Isolde/Brangäne), followed by the great love duet (with two 'breathers' by Brangäne), leading to a terrific climax - ecstasy for T & I and a warning scream by B. After all this, and after all that intense music comes the cold light of day, the reality principle if you will in the shape of the disconsolate Marke. I think it's expertly judged by Wagner. After this you get the poignant reminiscences of the love music we've just been hearing (statements by I & T), and Tristan's fight with Melot, which brings the whole arc to a very satisfying conclusion (though not for the lovers!).
So, yes: I think Mark's monologue is excellent, musically, dramatically, architecturally. But you need the context of the whole Act and a good performance, of course, to give you a sense the thing is really developing and growing, fed by 'that one Leitmotiv', not 'tied' to it.
I've seen Tristan at least five times in the opera house, and heard it many more. It is precisely within the context of the whole act that the Marke episode sounds by comparison so dull.
Quote from: Sforzando on July 07, 2008, 05:49:47 PM
I've seen Tristan at least five times in the opera house, and heard it many more. It is precisely within the context of the whole act that the Marke episode sounds by comparison so dull.
Life is made up of the dark and the light. We see how carried away T and I take things. In the dark they have built up quite a head of steam with their love duet. It is the job of Mark and his music to bring everyone back to reality, to the cold light of day. His performance helps the audience understand the concepts of night and day and to understand why T and I dislike day so much.
Rene Pape has received a lot of praise for his rendition of King Mark.
Quote from: Sforzando on July 07, 2008, 05:49:47 PM
I've seen Tristan at least five times in the opera house, and heard it many more. It is precisely within the context of the whole act that the Marke episode sounds by comparison so dull.
Then we must agree to disagree, Sfz.
Quote from: Sforzando on July 07, 2008, 05:49:47 PM
I've seen Tristan at least five times in the opera house, and heard it many more. It is precisely within the context of the whole act that the Marke episode sounds by comparison so dull.
King Mark's role is already small enough and the opera needs a scene where the audience gets to hear him. Think of it this way, two forbidden lovers get caught and their affair is exposed don't you think the audience would expect to hear King Mark's reaction?
marvin
Quote from: Anne on July 07, 2008, 08:50:24 PM
Life is made up of the dark and the light. We see how carried away T and I take things. In the dark they have built up quite a head of steam with their love duet. It is the job of Mark and his music to bring everyone back to reality, to the cold light of day. His performance helps the audience understand the concepts of night and day and to understand why T and I dislike day so much.
Rene Pape has received a lot of praise for his rendition of King Mark.
That's a wonderful analysis
Anne and one that I agree with! After all the "orgasmic" euphoria of the love duet the bitterness of reality must settle in and the audience brought back to the storyline. I can not think of a better way of doing this than to bring the character of King Mark back into the minds of the audience.
As much as I love Rene Pape, you should hear Matti Saliminen in the role of King Mark- astounding!
marvin
Quote from: Anne on July 07, 2008, 08:50:24 PM
Life is made up of the dark and the light. We see how carried away T and I take things. In the dark they have built up quite a head of steam with their love duet. It is the job of Mark and his music to bring everyone back to reality, to the cold light of day. His performance helps the audience understand the concepts of night and day and to understand why T and I dislike day so much.
Rene Pape has received a lot of praise for his rendition of King Mark.
Rene Pape does as much as can be done with the part. For one thing, he makes Marke look younger than the usual doddering fool. Unfortunately Wagner's music at this point does a lot to make Marke sound like a doddering fool. Anne makes perfect sense in her analysis, yet this 15-minute stretch of music remains tedious.
Quote from: marvinbrown on July 08, 2008, 03:55:24 AM
That's a wonderful analysis Anne and one that I agree with! After all the "orgasmic" euphoria of the love duet the bitterness of reality must settle in and the audience brought back to the storyline. I can not think of a better way of doing this than to bring the character of King Mark back into the minds of the audience.
As much as I love Rene Pape, you should hear Matti Saliminen in the role of King Mark- astounding!
marvin
Thanks for the compliment, Marv. This type of discussion is what I love - especially when everyone researches the opera or shares anything he may have discerned on his own. I liked your post also.
Quote from: Sforzando on July 08, 2008, 08:11:23 AM
Rene Pape does as much as can be done with the part. For one thing, he makes Marke look younger than the usual doddering fool. Unfortunately Wagner's music at this point does a lot to make Marke sound like a doddering fool. Anne makes perfect sense in her analysis, yet this 15-minute stretch of music remains tedious.
Thank you, Sforz. Do you think this 15-minute stretch of music being tedious could have been deliberate on Wagner's part? It does let the audience experience "in the flesh" so to speak what T and I dislike so much about day. I wonder if we could go so far as to say that Mark symbolizes day?
Another purpose for Mark's music could be the forerunner of the mood in Act 3? The audience has to get off that high level T and I were on somehow.
I think a composer being deliberately tedious is a dodgy aim at best.
Quote from: karlhenning on July 08, 2008, 01:30:08 PM
I think a composer being deliberately tedious is a dodgy aim at best.
That's why Wagner isn't. Not here, at any rate. ;)
Quote from: Jezetha on July 08, 2008, 01:37:06 PM
That's why Wagner isn't. Not here, at any rate. ;)
Jezetha, I understand the dramatic reason for Mark's music. Since you enjoy it so much, would you mind expanding on why you enjoy it musically? What goes through your mind as you listen to Mark?
Quote from: Anne on July 08, 2008, 01:45:07 PM
Jezetha, I understand the dramatic reason for Mark's music. Since you enjoy it so much, would you mind expanding on why you enjoy it musically? What goes through your mind as you listen to Mark?
I admire the wonderful tension between emotion and restraint. The way the music is sometimes rather matter-of-fact ('tedious'), as if Marke wants to hold his feelings in check, and how sometimes the most poignant melodic-harmonic turns make his pain audible. I could go through Marke's monologue line by line to point out the places where the music blooms and where it seems to die, where Marke 'reins himself in' as it were, and where he has to reveal what he feels.
Marke may represent the world of lies and honour T & I reject, he may be blind to the night, so to speak, but his wounds are real. Wagner makes these audible.
Quote from: marvinbrown on July 08, 2008, 03:55:24 AM
That's a wonderful analysis Anne and one that I agree with! After all the "orgasmic" euphoria of the love duet the bitterness of reality must settle in and the audience brought back to the storyline. I can not think of a better way of doing this than to bring the character of King Mark back into the minds of the audience.
This is perfectly fine as an account of the textual and dramatic significance of Marke's monologue. I am not contesting its dramatic significance, day vs. night, bitterness of reality, or any of that. What I miss is any account of the musical texture. For this listener, at least, what Jezetha calls "matter-of-fact" I call musically uninspired.
Quote from: Sforzando on July 08, 2008, 02:29:34 PM
This is perfectly fine as an account of the textual and dramatic significance of Marke's monologue. I am not contesting its dramatic significance, day vs. night, bitterness of reality, or any of that. What I miss is any account of the musical texture. For this listener, at least, what Jezetha calls "matter-of-fact" I call musically uninspired.
Well you are entitled to your opinion :). However, in line with the title of this thread, is it fair for me to deduce from the sentence you posted above in
bold (pun intended ;)) that you are
not a hardcore Wagnerian?
marvin
Quote from: Jezetha on July 08, 2008, 02:03:19 PM
I admire the wonderful tension between emotion and restraint. The way the music is sometimes rather matter-of-fact ('tedious'), as if Marke wants to hold his feelings in check, and how sometimes the most poignant melodic-harmonic turns make his pain audible. I could go through Marke's monologue line by line to point out the places where the music blooms and where it seems to die, where Marke 'reins himself in' as it were, and where he has to reveal what he feels.
Marke may represent the world of lies and honour T & I reject, he may be blind to the night, so to speak, but his wounds are real. Wagner makes these audible.
Like Sforzando I do not find Mark's music very interesting. Would you mind going through the monologue and point out where the music blooms and where it seems to die? I would be very appreciative if it's not too much trouble. What recording do you recommend to hear this music of Mark's the best? I have Bohm, Furtwangler, Kleiber, Levine, and probably some others I am forgetting. If you prefer I try it myself, what recording would you recommend for that? Thank you for any insight you can give.
I wondered if others noticed the style of writing for Kerwenal's music? It is particularly noticeable at the beginning of the third act and is unlike any of the other characters. I reminds me of Mozart's musical characterization of Cherubino where he is such a 14-year-old fly-by-night character with all his hormones going wild. He has that one famous aria where Mozart makes the music describe his character.
Another Mozart characterization is in Don Giovanni as DG attempts to seduce Zerlina in a duet. The music begins with DG in his own key and Zerlina in her own different key symbolizing her resistance to DG. As they continue to sing, eventually she capitulates and joins DG in his key.
I would love to know of other examples of this. I am not a musician and it is difficult to find more.
I wouldn't mind. Give me some time (I also want listen to various performances for the sake of comparison).
Marke's monologue is a bit similar to those of Gurnemanz in Parsifal - an ebb and flow of sometimes rather bare, bald passages and more lyrical ones, with one leitmotif dominant. Think especially of Gurnemanz' monologue in the Third Act where he tells about what has happened to the Grail community, where what is sometimes referred to as the Öde-motiv (Sterility motif) binds the whole thing together.
I swore I'd never again post in this "moron's sandbox," as a friend of mine has characterized GMG, but these last few posts by Jezetha on Marke's monologue have been so knowledgeable and perceptive, even poetical, that I can't resist conveying my kudos. All by themselves those posts redeem the existence of this entire moronic thread; a thread instigated by the most perverse notion imaginable in connection with Wagner's music-dramas, and a thread that should have died with its very first post.
My hat's off to you, Jezetha, along with my thanks.
David
Zalman-Douglas! Have you met Rod Corkin yet? You guys have a lot in common!
Quote from: David Zalman on July 09, 2008, 10:27:01 PM
I swore I'd never again post in this "moron's sandbox," as a friend of mine has characterized GMG, but these last few posts by Jezetha on Marke's monologue have been so knowledgeable and perceptive, even poetical, that I can't resist conveying my kudos. All by themselves those posts redeem the existence of this entire moronic thread; a thread instigated by the most perverse notion imaginable in connection with Wagner's music-dramas, and a thread that should have died with its very first post.
My hat's off to you, Jezetha, along with my thanks.
David
I'm flattered... Thank you.
The Sock-Puppet Speaks!
Quote from: marvinbrown on July 09, 2008, 03:28:22 PM
Well you are entitled to your opinion :). However, in line with the title of this thread, is it fair for me to deduce from the sentence you posted above in bold (pun intended ;)) that you are not a hardcore Wagnerian?
marvin
If being a "hardcore Wagnerian" means I worship every musical and verbal utterance from the Meister's pen uncritically, then I am not a hardcore Wagnerian. But I do consider Wagner among the greatest composers since Beethoven, though I admit I do not turn to his music nearly as often as I did 20-30 years ago.
Quote from: karlhenning on July 10, 2008, 03:08:22 AM
The Sock-Puppet Speaks!
While I am deeply disappointed and saddened that DZ lacks the moral and ethical fiber to stand by his resolve to give this moronic forum a wide berth, I concur with his praise of Jezetha's insightful and finely worded argument...while still finding Marke's music boring. tedious and protracted to a needless degree. Where was Franz Schalk when we
really needed him? ;)
Sarge
Quote from: Sergeant Rock on July 10, 2008, 04:19:53 AM
I concur with his praise of Jezetha's insightful and finely worded argument...while still finding Marke's music boring. tedious and protracted to a needless degree.
Exactly.
Quote from: David Zalman on July 09, 2008, 10:27:01 PM
I swore I'd never again post in this "moron's sandbox" . . .
Don't you mean "morons' sandbox"? After all, given your contempt (and your "friend's") towards the membership here, I would assume you do not intend to single out any one of us as the GMG Moron, but rather would prefer to paint all of us with the same broad brush.
Poor Marke - losing your wife, losing your friend, losing your listeners.
Quote from: Jezetha on July 10, 2008, 05:41:25 AM
Poor Marke - losing your wife, losing your friend, losing your listeners.
If his music is any indication of his bedroom skills, I understand perfectly why Isolde cheated ;D
Sarge
Quote from: Sergeant Rock on July 10, 2008, 05:46:47 AM
If his music is any indication of his bedroom skills, I understand perfectly why Isolde cheated ;D
Cruel, cruel.
;D
Quote from: Jezetha on July 09, 2008, 10:04:25 PM
I wouldn't mind. Give me some time (I also want listen to various performances for the sake of comparison).
Marke's monologue is a bit similar to those of Gurnemanz in Parsifal - an ebb and flow of sometimes rather bare, bald passages and more lyrical ones, with one leitmotif dominant. Think especially of Gurnemanz' monologue in the Third Act where he tells about what has happened to the Grail community, where what is sometimes referred to as the Öde-motiv (Sterility motif) binds the whole thing together.
Thank you, Jezetha. I appreciate your kindness.
Quote from: Sergeant Rock on July 10, 2008, 05:46:47 AM
If his music is any indication of his bedroom skills, I understand perfectly why Isolde cheated ;D
Sarge
Marke never bedded Isolde according to him (and he has no reason to lie):
Der mein Wille
nie zu nahen wagte,
der mein Wunsch
ehrfurchtscheu entsagte,or
She, whom I could never
dare approach,
she for whom I
foreswore my desires
Quote from: Sforzando on July 10, 2008, 04:02:45 AM
though I admit I do not turn to his music nearly as often as I did 20-30 years ago.
Wow, i haven't even
lived that long. I gleam many years of Wagnerism ahead now that i have discovered this composer.
Quote from: Josquin des Prez on July 10, 2008, 07:26:32 AM
Wow, i haven't even lived that long. I gleam many years of Wagnerism ahead now that i have discovered this composer.
Thank you. That explains
so much.
I come and go for extended periods here and had not seen this topic until tonight. Although by this time the discussion has predictably wandered away from the main topic, I'd just like to weigh in with my two cents on that topic. I think the original poster hit the nail on the head and I agree with him that Wagner's libretti are not worthy of their music. The music is far deeper and more profound than the literary, political and philosophical ideas the composer was trying to express. He DOES express his views and ideas, and he DOES tell his stories, and he DOES use myths interestingly, but in general the music far surpasses these stories, plots and and ideas. As a literary artist he would have sunk out of sight long ago. I am grateful to his literary imagination for stimulating the musical ideas of the operas. There is ample evidence he could not write great music without literary ideas to fuel it. But I would no more highly honor the finished literary aspects of these works than I would eat the frying pan along with the omelette.
I'm only expressing this view and agreeing with the originator of the thread. I don't mind discussion, but I'm not interested in defending this idea to the death against any intense absolutists. It's only my opinion, not a law of the universe. There is a Usenet group called humanities.music.composers.wagner, available on google groups, where the regulars are mostly otherwise convinced, and will defend their views vociferously, until someone brings up the plot of Gotterdammerung. That one is pretty hard for anyone to defend. One of these regulars, who maintains that the literary and musical aspects of the operas are absolutely inseparable from one another, even in thought, is a well known web crackpot who likes to defend his ideas by calling anyone who disagrees with them an idiot. Since he is an anointed creator and enforcer of actual genuine laws of the universe, I generally prefer to stay away from debate with him.
Quote from: Chaszz on July 11, 2008, 06:29:17 PM
. . . Wagner's libretti are not worthy of their music. The music is far deeper and more profound than the literary, political and philosophical ideas the composer was trying to express.
Even that is a more respectable and defensible idea than the OP troubled with.
For those interested - "Wagner's Ring in Andrew Porter's English", a review from the journal 19-th Century Music:
http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?0yb9bspfsbn
Quote from: Chaszz on July 11, 2008, 06:29:17 PM
There is a Usenet group called humanities.music.composers.wagner, available on google groups, where the regulars are mostly otherwise convinced, and will defend their views vociferously, until someone brings up the plot of Gotterdammerung. That one is pretty hard for anyone to defend. One of these regulars, who maintains that the literary and musical aspects of the operas are absolutely inseparable from one another, even in thought, is a well known web crackpot who likes to defend his ideas by calling anyone who disagrees with them an idiot. Since he is an anointed creator and enforcer of actual genuine laws of the universe, I generally prefer to stay away from debate with him.
From the Google Usenet newsgroup, humanities.music.composers.wagner, the relevant post by the "well known web crackpot who likes to defend his ideas by calling anyone who disagrees with them an idiot" in response to a poster who expressed much the same opinion about Wagner's libretti as
Chaszz:
QuoteIn one respect you're not too far wrong as in Wagner's music-dramas (i.e.,
those works subsequent to _Lohengrin_) the core of the drama resides within
the orchestra, the text (libretto) acting as the armature about which that
drama is constructed, and providing those concrete details of plot and
narrative that music alone is incapable of communicating. But one misses
rather a lot by missing the organic unity of text and music so incomparably
achieved by Wagner.
Wagner, as you may already know, thought extremely highly of his "poems" as
he called his libretti, but after composing the music for _Rheingold_ to
complete its already written text, [Wagner] averred that he could no longer bear to
read the text alone as it now struck him as empty and devoid of meaning
without its music.
And so it is.
---
ACD
http://www.soundsandfury.com/
Yep. Sounds like a regular Web crackpot to me.
Chaszz, I agree with your views. I don't believe more than a tiny handful of people would be reading Wagner's poetics, if they had not been allied to the music. But they are indivisible as they fed off one another. So, for example, the bits of Siegfried that leave me cold are the downside of the stretches that engage me.
I know what you mean about how some people cannot imagine the works as other than perfect and we have experience of their approach to those who disagree with them. It can be tiresome.
Mike
I don't like to be associated with 'crackpots', but in this case I make an exception. What is there to disagree with? Even Wagner knew that his libretti were only half of a synthesis. The point is - his music has aged less than his texts, although they are more than adequate vehicles for that same music, as someone like the poet and Strauss librettist Hugo von Hofmannsthal saw too, and not without envy.
Quote from: David Zalman on July 12, 2008, 01:02:23 AM
Yep. Sounds like a regular Web crackpot to me. [after quoting his alter ego, intended sarcastically and contemptuously]
What makes you think that Chassz (another sock puppet?) was referring to you when he addressed "a well known web crackpot who likes to defend his ideas by calling anyone who disagrees with them an idiot? " I agree, however, that you're just a "regular web crackpot" and not a well-known one.
As for idiocy...well...let's just say that whenever you quote or link to one of your blog entries, thinking that it demonstrates such profound wit and insight that we mere mortals will thereafter grovel at your feet like wretched Nibelungen cringing before Alberich, the passage unfailingly contains only sophomoric commonplaces expressed in prose so pompous and graceless and sneeringly supercilious that one can't help but imagine your poor parents wringing their hands and asking, "Where did we go wrong?"
See Jezetha's post above for an example of intelligent expression of a simple idea--and in a second language, too!
By the way, Johan, I trust the review of Porter's translation you linked to noted its appalling faithlessness to the original text...?
Quote from: DavidRoss on July 12, 2008, 02:35:02 AM
By the way, Johan, I trust the review of Porter’s translation you linked to noted its appalling faithlessness to the original text...?
Read it and find out for yourself... It's an interesting piece.
But - faithlessness = literary quality, you mean?! ;D
Quote from: DavidRoss on July 12, 2008, 02:35:02 AM
What makes you think that Chassz (another sock puppet?) was referring to you when he addressed "a well known web crackpot who likes to defend his ideas by calling anyone who disagrees with them an idiot? " I agree, however, that you're just a "regular web crackpot" and not a well-known one.
But he wasn't referring to me. He was clearly referring to ACD as ACD's infamous on that Google newsgroup (humanities.music.composers.wagner) for calling a spade a spade, and an idiot an idiot. He has, however, never to my knowledge called anyone an idiot merely for disagreeing with what he had to say. Only an idiot would do that.
Quote from: DavidRossAs for idiocy...well...let's just say that whenever you quote or link to one of your blog entries, thinking that it demonstrates such profound wit and insight that we mere mortals will thereafter grovel at your feet....
I have no blog on which to make entries. And what I quoted a few posts above was not a blog entry, but the relevant ACD post from the Google newsgroup, humanities.music.composers.wagner, to which
Chassz referred. It was easy to find as ACD is the only poster I've ever read who uses the term "armature" to describe the text (libretto) of a Wagner music drama. I simply went to the newsgroup, typed "armature" in the search box, and, Voila!, up came the relevant post.
As for the rest of your ignorant remarks (namely, all those I didn't quote above), I'm tempted to reply with the one-word reply that ACD would use in response, but I just don't have the heart for it.
Quote from: David Zalman on July 12, 2008, 03:06:36 AM
But he wasn't referring to me. He was clearly referring to ACD as ACD's infamous on that Google newsgroup (humanities.music.composers.wagner) for calling a spade a spade, and an idiot an idiot. He has, however, never to my knowledge called anyone an idiot merely for disagreeing with what he had to say. Only an idiot would do that.
D Zalman = AC Douglas. I'd say that you/he are infamous for pompous idiocy, but there's a lot of competition for the title. You really should look up Rod Corkin...he has his own Forum!
Johan--I meant faithlessness to the text--his
Ring isn't so much a translation as a collection of interpolations!
Quote from: DavidRoss on July 12, 2008, 03:20:07 AM
D Zalman = AC Douglas.
Idiot.
(Damn, that felt good! Should have done that long ago. Lord knows, this ignorant twit has given me more than sufficient justification.)
I don't think either of you should claim justification for your own behaviour through the behaviour of the other. In deciding to break the rules here; you made your own decisions.
Please try sticking to the ideas, leave the personalities out of it would you.
Quoting someone else's opinion as this forum being the "moron's or morons' sandbox" whether your own insult or not, we know perfectly well it is your opinion. Kindly keep it to yourself, or alternatively, feel free to stay away. In the main you clearly just lurk in case Wagner or your mentor is denigrated, then leap in with insults that are barely veiled. You are not some kind of policemen here. Either be civil or ship out.
Knight
Gentlemen, Wagner fans and critics......... please! I think we are all getting quite besides ourselves here. We are all forgetting Wagner's concept of Total Artwork. Of course Wagner's libretto are important and to quote ACD, " one misses rather a lot by missing the organic unity of text and music" It saddens me when people complain about inconsistencies and boring aspects in Wagner's librettos. Wagner never intended for his opera plots to be micro-analyzed to the smallest detail. Moreover it is this marriage of text and music and visual spectacle (Wagner gave specific stage instructions and wanted to thrill his audiences visually) that is most important in a Wagnerian opera! Wagner was after the dramatic effect. It is here that he was most successful. If in the opinion of some that comes at the expense of inconsistencies in the plot then so be it! I find Wagner's plots thrilling and mysitical and with the music and visual spectacle I believe that Wagner is unsurpassed in his presentation of a powerfully dramatic work of art. I wouldn't change one note Wagner wrote nor one phrase in any of his libretti! That my dear friends is evidence of a hardcore wagnerian.
marvin
I agree with most of that, but although I am not really for editing the scores, it does not mean I have to respond to them as though they were The Grail rather than evoking The Grail. I am far from alone in regretting stretches of the operas.
But then, I would not be up painting out bits of the Sisteen just because there was too much flesh, or not enough acerage of flesh. It is what the artist created and especially with Wagner, the concept was total. So I will just continue to wriggle in boredom through parts of his works.
Mike
Quote from: marvinbrown on July 12, 2008, 05:30:20 AM
I wouldn't change one note Wagner wrote nor one phrase in any of his libretti! That my dear friends is evidence of a hardcore wagnerian.
Not necessarily,
Marvin; you could simply have better things to do with your time than mess about with by-now-antique documents :)
Quote from: karlhenning on July 12, 2008, 05:38:54 AM
Not necessarily, Marvin; you could simply have better things to do with your time than mess about with by-now-antique documents :)
...like enjoying Wagner's music, with all those dragons, Gods, giants, heros, sexy rheinmaidens ;D, swords and blazing fires oh my! With regards to
Mike's allegations that there is too much "skin" in Michaelangelo's Sisteen Chapel paintings........I'll have to come back to you on that one
Mike :-\...
marvin
Quote from: marvinbrown on July 12, 2008, 05:49:28 AM
With regards to Mike's allegations that there is too much "skin" in Michaelangelo's Sisteen Chapel paintings........I'll have to come back to you on that one Mike :-\...
Oh, that's history,
Marvin; there were those who wanted
Michelangelo to paint garments on all the figures.
Quote from: marvinbrown on July 12, 2008, 05:49:28 AM
...like enjoying Wagner's music, with all those dragons, Gods, giants, heros, sexy rheinmaidens ;D, swords and blazing fires oh my! With regards to Mike's allegations that there is too much "skin" in Michaelangelo's Sisteen Chapel paintings........I'll have to come back to you on that one Mike :-\...
marvin
Not my allegation, I also mentioned the possibility of insufficient flesh. But get back to me by all means. As an aside, subsequently, some garments were painted onto the figures. The recent cleaning has removed those the artist had not intended.
Mike
Quote from: knight on July 12, 2008, 05:36:38 AM
...I am not really for editing the scores...
Nor am I despite my Franz Schalk comment (written in jest only). As I said before, and as Jezetha so brilliantly elaborated, I believe Marke's monologue has deep psychological importance and fills out his character; and the music fits his mental state. I would not cut it by one bar. And yet...I wish opera theaters had popcorn and refreshment stands so I could take a ten minute break at that point ;D Once heard and digested, it's one rare and small bit of Wagner I can do without now. That's just my personal response, not a criticism of Wagner's artistic integrity or merit, Marvin. Despite my criticism (as effective as a pea shooter against an Abrams tank) Wagner still reigns supreme as part of my musical trinity. I have a lot more issues with the actual Trinity: now His/Their creation is
really screwed up! ...but that's an argument for the Diner.
Sarge
I'm not talkng mainly about inconsistencies and weak spots in the librettos, though they do bother me; but more about the mawkishness and improbability of the overall plots as a whole. Most of them end with a female suicide, whether willed or not willed, and most of them are on the level of thousands of Victorian melodramas which have been deservedly forgotten. Wagner was a man of his time in that respect, and his literary imagaination was IMO on the level of Perils of Pauline and other silent movie melodramas. When I think of a Wagner plot, it does not remind me of a Greek tragedy (at which he was aiming) but of a tear-jerking potboiler. This doesn't mean that he doesn't sometimes achieve marvelous drama in certain scenes. But the overall plot never gives me the feelings of catharsis and deep identification that real tragedies do. There is too much manipulation aimed at bringing about the desired ending suicide, which IMO reflects the author's overriding desire to throw a gigantic temper tantrum aimed at the unfairness of life.
Just my opinions, so be them. Fire away, boys.
As for ACD, well, one can see that one only has to mention his well-known debating style to cause others to sink to that level.
Quote from: Sergeant Rock on July 12, 2008, 06:46:50 AM
As I said before, and as Jezetha so brilliantly elaborated, I believe Marke's monologue has deep psychological importance and fills out his character; and the music fits his mental state. I would not cut it by one bar. And yet...I wish opera theaters had popcorn and refreshment stands so I could take a ten minute break at that point ;D Once heard and digested, it's one rare and small bit of Wagner I can do without now.
Sarge
A wonderful observation. Thank you. In future, I won't feel so guilty about wishing he (Marke) would just get on with it, nor (dare I even admit it here?) skipping his monologue during domestic listening sessions.
Apropos this, um, discussion of the importance or non-importance of the text in Wagner's music dramas, in a post on his blog of July 2004, ACD printed an e-mail from a reader that said, in part, "I've always had a problem listening to and understanding Wagner's later operas, though I'm a big fan of
Tannhäuser and
Lohengrin, and listen to those operas often." The writer then asked for ACD's guidance in coming to terms with those later operas. The pertinent part of ACD's response (i.e., pertinent to this discussion) read:
Quote from: ACD[T]here are certain peculiarities of music-drama (as opposed to conventional opera) of which one needs to be aware. For instance, unlike conventional opera, one must at all times know pretty much verbatim what the characters are actually saying when singing as it's not "songs" they're singing, but dialogue, much like the spoken dialogue of a staged straight drama. The importance of that verbatim knowing becomes immediately clear when one considers that Wagner's music-dramas never traffic in soap-opera melodrama and cookie-cutter plots, and to have only the gist of what the characters are saying when singing as one can do without penalty with conventional opera is a guarantee of becoming hopelessly lost in, or missing completely, the often intricate and subtle narrative twists, and the equally intricate and subtle web of interwoven dramatic and psychological complexities that are fundamental components of all Wagner's mature works.
Further, and perhaps most importantly, and once again unlike conventional opera, without knowing what the characters are actually saying when singing, one will miss totally the dramatic, psychological, and emotional gestalt of the organic union of text and music as that music issues from the orchestra wherein resides the very core of the drama itself. That locus of the dramatic core of the work, and the gestalt of the union of text and music, are the unique and most salient characteristics of music-drama; what separates it from conventional opera, and indeed what constitutes music-drama's very raison d'être. In the music itself is the core of the drama, while the sung text provides the necessary concrete particulars and narrative details which are at once both the drama's armature and context which particulars and details music alone is incapable of conveying.
All of which is to say that while one can in large part engage Wagner's early works in just the same way one engages an opera by, say, Bellini or Donizetti, or even much of Verdi, for the mature works that simply won't do, and attempting that sort of engagement is an ultimately empty exercise; a virtual guarantee of missing most of what Wagner offers.
And with that, I leave you good people to take up residence on ACD's just opened classical music and opera forum where one can say anything one wishes, and say it in any way one chooses.
Quote from: Tsaraslondon on July 12, 2008, 07:31:33 AM
I won't feel so guilty about wishing he (Marke) would just get on with it, nor (dare I even admit it here?) skipping his monologue during domestic listening sessions.
I think many such sins are committed by even hardcore Wagnerites in the deep of night with the curtains drawn ;)
Sarge
Quote from: marvinbrown on July 12, 2008, 05:30:20 AM
Gentlemen, Wagner fans and critics......... please! I think we are all getting quite besides ourselves here. We are all forgetting Wagner's concept of Total Artwork. Of course Wagner's libretto are important and to quote ACD, " one misses rather a lot by missing the organic unity of text and music" It saddens me when people complain about inconsistencies and boring aspects in Wagner's librettos.
You miss the point, Marvin, though Mike has nailed it in the post immediately after. I don't know anyone who goes about complaining about Wagner's libretti (or librettos--no apostrophe for plurals, please! You're a native English speaker, for God's sake!). However, there are some, myself included, who gag at the outlandish claims that Wagnerhoids (not Wagner fans, mind you) repeatedly make regarding the object of their fawning worship, and thus we try to inject some sorely needed reason to bring matters back to earth. You may love every note and word that little Dickie wrote, but your worship does not alter the fact that his works are flawed by excess, even by 19th Century standards. I think Wagnerhoids would do more to promote appreciation of the work by acknowledging the flaws and then addressing the strengths, rather than by denying the problems and belligerently suggesting that anyone not equally infatuated is an idiot...but then, they wouldn't be Wagnerhoids, would they? ;)
And...I presume that by "Wagner's concept of Total Artwork" you are simply referring to the coordination of sight, sound, and meaning that has been the fundamental principle of theatre since the dawn of time...? Attributing it to Wagner as if it were some astonishing innovation that only he could have imagined is just the sort of thing that tickles my gag reflex.
Quote from: Sergeant Rock on July 12, 2008, 07:43:54 AM
I think many such sins are committed by even hardcore Wagnerites in the deep of night with the curtains drawn
If it helps clearing consciences here - even
I can gorge myself on 'bleeding chunks' within the privacy of my study... ;)
I applaud you both, Tsaraslondon & Sarge! :)
Quote from: DavidRoss on July 12, 2008, 07:51:15 AM
You miss the point, Marvin, though Mike has nailed it in the post immediately after. I don't know anyone who goes about complaining about Wagner's libretti (or librettos--no apostrophe for plurals, please! You're a native English speaker, for God's sake!). However, there are some, myself included, who gag at the outlandish claims that Wagnerhoids (not Wagner fans, mind you) repeatedly make regarding the object of their fawning worship, and thus inject some sorely needed reason to bring matters back to earth. You may love every note and word that little Dickie wrote, but your worship does not alter the fact that his works are flawed by excess, even by 19th Century standards. I think Wagnerhoids would do more to promote appreciation of the work by acknowledging the flaws and then addressing the strengths, rather than by denying the problems and belligerently suggesting that anyone not equally infatuated is an idiot...but then, they wouldn't be Wagnerhoids, would they? ;)
And...I presume that by "Wagner's concept of Total Artwork" you are simply referring to the coordination of sight, sound, and meaning that has been the fundamental principle of theatre since the dawn of time...? Attributing it to Wagner as if it were some astonishing innovation that only he could have imagined is just the sort of thing that tickles my gag reflex.
I never meant to imply that Wagner created the concept of Total Artwork as if it had not existed before his time. I was merely responding to those who took to criticizing Wagner's librettos as flawed. redundant etc. I wanted to alert them to the fact that Wagner was far more interested in the dramatic aspects of opera, music drama etc. than simply writing a "perfect" libretto as if it were a work of literature.
Flawed by excess? ??? I am afraid I can not agree with you here. Did you ever think to consider that your boredom with what you allegedly call "flawed excess" could simply be a lack of appreciation or perhaps lack of patience on your behalf? Perhaps Wagner is really not your cup of tea and you tire easily. Just a thought.
marvin
Quote from: Sergeant Rock on July 12, 2008, 06:46:50 AM
I have a lot more issues with the actual Trinity: now His/Their creation is really screwed up! ...but that's an argument for the Diner.
Nah...His/Their creation is pretty darned marvelous. It's all the crap that men have made of it that's so disheartening! Like a spoiled child snatching a gift from the parent's hand, then stomping all over it and smashing it and defecating on it, and then sitting back and gloating at his handiwork.
Quote from: marvinbrown on July 12, 2008, 08:11:04 AM
Did you ever think to consider that your boredom with what you alledgely call "flawed excess" could simply be a lack of appreciation or perhaps lack of patience on your behalf? Perhaps Wagner is really not your cup of tea and you tire easily. Just a thought.
I don't know,
Marvin. We have even people who like
Wagner a lot, skipping lengthy bits. It's sort of "home editing," rightly considered.
Quote from: karlhenning on July 12, 2008, 08:12:59 AM
I don't know, Marvin. We have even people who like Wagner a lot, skipping lengthy bits. It's sort of "home editing," rightly considered.
and hence the relevance of this thread...evidence of a hardcore wagnerian.......perhaps this thread should be entitled how Wagnerian are you ;)?
marvin
Quote from: karlhenning on July 12, 2008, 08:12:59 AM
I don't know, Marvin. We have even people who like Wagner a lot, skipping lengthy bits. It's sort of "home editing," rightly considered.
Incidentally,
Karl 8) how goes it with that Wagner box you purchased. Please, please do not tell me that you are "skipping lengthy bits"- promise me you'll give them at least
one whole complete listen. You owe yourself that 0:).
marvin
Quote from: marvinbrown on July 12, 2008, 08:23:43 AM
Incidentally, Karl 8) how goes it with that Wagner box you purchased.
Sort of on hold,
Marvin.
Quote from: marvinbrownPlease, please do not tell me that you are "skipping lengthy bits"- promise me you'll give them at least one whole complete listen. You owe yourself that 0:).
No, I want to listen to everything whole; and the desire to bend undivided attention upon them, together with the large swaths of time needed, is the principal delay.
I listened to
Tristan first, and while I want to go back to it again, enjoyed it very much.
Not long after, I listened to the first disc of
Parsifal. I did not listen past that, through no fault of the piece or recording. I may give that a go later today.
Not terribly long ago, I listened to
Rheingold, which I found in some respects disappointing. But at some point, I will try again. Probably at some not-yet-foreseeable time when I could actually take the four operas of the
Ring in a paced sequence.
Quote from: karlhenning on July 12, 2008, 08:56:06 AM
Sort of on hold, Marvin.
No, I want to listen to everything whole; and the desire to bend undivided attention upon them, together with the large swaths of time needed, is the principal delay.
I listened to Tristan first, and while I want to go back to it again, enjoyed it very much.
Not long after, I listened to the first disc of Parsifal. I did not listen past that, through no fault of the piece or recording. I may give that a go later today.
Not terribly long ago, I listened to Rheingold, which I found in some respects disappointing. But at some point, I will try again. Probably at some not-yet-foreseeable time when I could actually take the four operas of the Ring in a paced sequence.
Good I am pleased to read this. When you get to Die Meistersinger I hope the overture, the quintet in Act 4 and above all the Prize Song will please you immeasurably :).
marvin
Well, I am already familiar with the Prelude and the Prize Song; it will be interesting to hear the latter in context.
Quote from: marvinbrown on July 12, 2008, 08:11:04 AM
Flawed by excess? ??? I am afraid I can not agree with you here. Did you ever think to consider that your boredom with what you allegedly call "flawed excess" could simply be a lack of appreciation or perhaps lack of patience on your behalf? Perhaps Wagner is really not your cup of tea and you tire easily. Just a thought.
Well, Marvin, I've been listening to Wagner for more than 30 years (patient enough for you?), and think my appreciation for his accomplishment is fairly well balanced, though far from complete. Under some circumstances I do tire easily, yet I'm able to maintain my focus (even if interest flags!) during day-long business meetings. It is true that Wagner is not my cup of tea (or java--I'm a Yank! ;) ), but that is not because I cannot appreciate what he was trying to accomplish or because I do not enjoy his glorious moments, but rather because the glories are burdened with too many crippling flaws for me to consider the work an unalloyed artistic success--even measured against its own terms and not just my 21st Century sensibilities.
FYI, I'm presently working my way through Solti's
Ring, something I do every year or two, and again am finding much to admire (especially in this recording), but much that is tedious--at least, to enjoy as music
per se, though perhaps not as part of a religious ritual (which, after all, is what the little tyke had in mind anyway, is it not?).
Quote from: DavidRoss on July 12, 2008, 09:40:58 AM
FYI, I'm presently working my way through Solti's Ring, something I do every year or two, and again am finding much to admire (especially in this recording), but much that is tedious--at least, to enjoy as music per se, though perhaps not as part of a religious ritual (which, after all, is what the little tyke had in mind anyway, is it not?).
Well the Ring should be appreciated on its own terms. If you are just looking for "music", I take it you mean lyrical music or "beautiful memorable sounding music" for lack of a better expression, then you have missed the point of what Wagner wanted to accomplish here. Yes, the Ring has lyrical memorable musical moments like the sword forging scene in Siegfried and the passionate music between Siegfried and Brunhilde and the Ride of the Vikings melody to name a few. However you should remember that Wagner is telling a story here. He wasn't always looking to please the listener with luscious melodies- he was more than capable of doing that when he felt it appropriate to do so. And yes to answer your question I consider the Ring a religious experience!
I enjoy the Ring because I love the story line. I think it is astonishing, the twists and turns of the adventure spanning an incredible 14+ hours. I love the philosophical implications of Wotan's "free will" monologue to Brunhilde in Die Walkure and the wisdom behind the 3 question exchange between Mime and Wotan (the Wanderer) in Siegfried. These are among the many highlights of this epic adventure that are not exactly the most lyrical, nor melodious. But, they are to me, musically memorable because their dramatic effect
is memorable. I can not explain it better than that. Perhaps you and I really do have different tastes in music and drama. Be that as it may, if we all had similar tastes this would be a very boring world indeed!
marvin
Quote from: marvinbrown on July 12, 2008, 09:07:19 AM
Good I am pleased to read this. When you get to Die Meistersinger I hope the overture, the quintet in Act 4
Geez, don't make the thing longer than it already is . . . .
Quote from: Sforzando on July 13, 2008, 01:12:52 PM
Geez, don't make the thing longer than it already is . . . .
Ok you can add to the list:
1) the chorus that succeeds the overture- gorgeous
2) the scene where David instructs Walther as to the components of the perfect song
3) Wagner's mockery of Beckmesser with his farcical leitmotif expressing how Beckmesser hobbles all over the place
4) Hans Sach's calm reflection "Wahn, Wahn" after David's altercation with Beckmesser
Long enough for you or should I go on??
marvin
Quote from: marvinbrown on July 13, 2008, 01:22:39 PM
Ok you can add to the list:
1) the chorus that succeeds the overture- gorgeous
2) the scene where David instructs Walther as to the components of the perfect song
3) Wagner's mockery of Beckmesser with his farcical leitmotif expressing how Beckmesser hobbles all over the place
4) Hans Sach's calm reflection "Wahn, Wahn" after David's altercation with Beckmesser
Long enough for you or should I go on??
marvin
Wagnerians - no sense of humor . . . .
Quote from: David Zalman on July 12, 2008, 07:41:30 AM
And with that, I leave you good people to take up residence on ACD's just opened classical music and opera forum where one can say anything one wishes, and say it in any way one chooses.
And where a goodly number of you good people can find yourselves called morons for not agreeing with the Aesthetic Lawgiver of the Universe and his cult member.
I just don't see where the need is for the Sock Puppet to invite anyone to this latest attempt by the Self-Important Bloggueur to establish a proprietary realm forum. Surely, anyone of taste simply knows to flock there, and bask in his Suuuuper Geeenius?
Quote from: Sforzando on July 13, 2008, 02:38:10 PM
Wagnerians - no sense of humor . . . .
Wagnerians....sense of humor.... ??? I'm afraid I don't know what you are talking about............ ;D
marvin
I think it's perfectly OK if you enjoy Wagner as pure music. But I must confess I can't. For me the libretto is important, not alway but often.
I always prefered absolute music, symphonies and all that, over opera. But during the last years I more and more liked opera and what helped me is to read in libretti.
'I like Wagner's music better than anybody's. It is so loud that one can talk the whole time without other people hearing what one says. That is a great advantage, don't you think so ...'
Lady Henry Wotton, The Picture of Dorian Gray :D
Quote from: Novi on July 26, 2008, 01:40:08 PM
'I like Wagner's music better than anybody's. It is so loud that one can talk the whole time without other people hearing what one says. That is a great advantage, don't you think so ...'
Lady Henry Wotton, The Picture of Dorian Gray :D
Somehow I missed this totally hilarious quote, which is really making me laugh over and over. Thanks so much for posting it.
--Bruce
Quote from: David Zalman on July 09, 2008, 10:27:01 PMthis entire moronic thread; a thread instigated by the most perverse notion imaginable in connection with Wagner's music-dramas, and a thread that should have died with its very first post.
David,
How can you say that it is the
most perverse notion imaginable when most Wagner lovers acknowledge the superiority of the music ?
The original poster is someone with an unusual aesthetic sensibility who simply takes the experience one step further.
Quote from: Chaszz on July 11, 2008, 06:29:17 PMI think the original poster hit the nail on the head and I agree with him that Wagner's libretti are not worthy of their music. The music is far deeper and more profound than the literary, political and philosophical ideas the composer was trying to express.
Wagner DOES express his views and ideas, and he DOES tell his stories, and he DOES use myths interestingly, but in general the music far surpasses these stories, plots and ideas. As a literary artist he would have sunk out of sight long ago. I am grateful to his literary imagination for stimulating the musical ideas of the operas. There is ample evidence he could not write great music without literary ideas to fuel it. But I would no more highly honor the finished literary aspects of these works than I would eat the frying pan along with the omelette.
Thank you, Chaszz.
It is amazing how anyone could argue that Wagner's libretti (or any aspect) deserve equal attention.
Quote from: The Ardent Pelleastre on October 19, 2008, 06:40:21 PM
The original poster is someone with an unusual aesthetic sensibility who simply takes the experience one step further.
The original poster being you, of course.
How is omitting the libretto "one step further"?
Quote from: donwyn on October 19, 2008, 09:05:39 PM
Quote from: The Ardent NarcissistThe original poster is someone with an unusual aesthetic sensibility who simply takes the experience one step further.
The original poster being you, of course.
Well apprehended, officer!
$:)
It was Wagner's music that first got me hooked on classical music when I was only abou 13, and I still adore his music, even though I also love a great deal of other music,operatic or other.
With Wagner, the sheer sensuous appeal of the music is undeniable, but you can't separate the music from the stage action and the character's emotional and psychic states. I grateful that I got to get to know the Wagners operas and so many others from complete recordings ,first on LP and later on Cd,and was able to follow the stories with the help of the booklets with the original text and English translations. I now know the operas so well I don't need the translation any more.
Beethoven and Wagner were my first loves (Pastoral and Meistersinger prelude). Dozens of other composers have followed. In Beethoven I liked the drive, the power, the economy, in Wagner the excitement, beauty and grandeur. I am simplifying, of course. But those six characteristics are still what I connect with most in music.