I agree. Overall, he makes some good points, especially about Parsifal, but basically the title of the video could be "Who needs Wagner and Schoenberg if we have Gilbert and Sullivan."
i'm sorry but I strongly disagree with the oversimplified and in my opinion wrong view on wagners musical impact. Although wagner studied the works of liszt deeply and learned much of his knowledge of harmony from him his treatment of particular chords was revolutionary. Calling the tristan chord only a diminished chord is a misleading and oversimplified statement. The chord on its own wasn't particularly revolutionary but its further "resolution" upwards into the secondary dominant, a dissonant chord, was. Wagner not only indeed influenced harmony greatly (emanzipation of the dissonance) but also invented new forms further developed the leitmotives, invented several new instuments and completed the romantic symphonic orchestra
Whatever his personal shortcomings, Wagner certainly had a unique style of his own. Wagner's most popular works are soul stirring and quite literally strike the right chord with many folks.
Far more influential on Wagner was Robert Schumann. Check out Schumann's masterful Paradise and the Peri, and Scenes from Goethe's Faust. These vocal masterpieces clearly indicate not only Schumann's genius but strong influence on Wagner's vocal writing. As for the musical structure of Wagners' operas, there is most definitely an influence from Bach and baroque cantatas in general: arias interspersed with dialogue set to music...which of course influenced all of opera structurally. As for the difficulty of listening to Wagner, I dont understand it at all. The orchestral music (which many listeners ignore in favor of the singers) should be listened to closely and continually. And anyone who loves German lieder of Schubert and Schumann should have no problem listening to the music itself. I think the German language is problematic for many people because of the Nazis, and also because the language is harsh compared to Italian or French. So listen to Wagner and pretend the language is Italian! You will still enjoy it! Let's face it: Wagner was part of a long tradition, not a musical revolutionary. He was in fact the last Romantic composer, relinquishing that style to Strauss and Mahler and eventually Schoenberg and his school Where would modern movie music be without Wagner???(or a bit of Debussy and Stravinsky). As for Wagner's politics, who cares? He's dead. You can't teach him a lesson. read George Bernard Shaw's The Perfect Wagnerite. Maybe eventually you will join the worshipful cult...I know I did even as a child. Why deprive yourself of one of the truly magnificent composers that ever lived? Dont like German? Just listen to the orchestra. And the Prize Song, arguably the most beautiful song ever written.
It's funny you mention Schumann's Paradise and the Peri, because Schumann and Wagner were both influenced by a German composer who's relatively unknown today: Heinrich Marschner (1795-1861). You should give a listen to his operas "Der Vampyr" and "Hans Heiling".
I grew up in a household, where classical music was the every day norm. I love the Baroque, and classic Rococo, but when I discovered Wager, I was transformed.
@@Johnconno, does it matter? Wagner's music transformed him - maybe much like Alberich's magic helmet, which could transform him into anything he wished to become 😉
This guy is so biased it's not even funny. The appraisal of Wagner's contribution to the history of harmony in music is so wildly misleading and clearly biased. The man is an extremely controversial figure for all the correct reasons. And yes, he is correct, the Tristan chord was not an invention of Wagner's. It predates him significantly. It predates Liszt. You can find it in Mozart. However, he is fundamentally incorrect that the type of harmony Wagner employed can entirely be ascribed to Liszt. Also, that the accolade Wager is given of having changed Western music is incorrect is entirely fanciful. The chromatic harmony in Tristan is truly the first crack in the egg that is tonality in music. The way he uses these augmented chords and resolves them, or doesn't, is utterly revolutionary and not anything found in his predecessors including Liszt. That's not bias, it's not opinion, it's fact. Whether or not you like Wagner's music or agree with him on any of his social causes (which who does, the man was an raging egomaniac and generally disgusting human being) to deny his influence on the history of music or to chalk up his importance in music as propaganda is just wrong. This presenter omits significant music theory in his description of his work so much so it's almost laughable. Unfortunately, Wagner was a genius, and you cannot deny that. A terrible, disgusting, ruthless, mean, anti-Semitic, bombastic, genius but a genius nonetheless. Rewriting that history won't change that and is more a work of propaganda than anything that has been said about Wagner himself. He is also correct that Wagner did not invent the leitmotif. It indeed predates Wagner and also (to correct the BBC) E.T.A Hoffmann. But once again, this presenter misleads you in him saying that it is wrong to praise him for it. Wagner's use of leitmotifs, where they appear, how they appear, and in the combination they appear in harmonically was unheard of prior. Once again, it's not opinion to state this, it is fact. His influence in this matter is so great you need only dig a small ways into the history of music to be able to prove this to be true. It laughable how wrong he is or at least how misleading his statements are about Wagner. Again, whatever your opinion is on his music, his work or his life, to deny his importance in Western culture or to downplay it or ascribe it to other people and suggest Wagner was just stealing from others is just wrong. All artists are influenced from others. Wagner certainly developed a technique that is based on and influenced by others. But how he employed that technique is ground-breaking. Parsifal also does have a plot. He's also wrong there as well. Yes, it's symbolic, spiritual, and meditative but there is a plot. Maybe not as complex as the Ring or Meistersinger but there is a very clear hero's journey from beginning to end. His explanation of Kundry's death at the end is a bit reductive as well. While I fully agree you can take issue with the themes of Parsifal and interpret the work as a call for Aryan dominance (which Wagner pronounced quite proudly to be his desire), Kundry is a much more complex character than he makes her out to be and her death at the end of the piece is a larger metaphor than he is seemingly willing to admit. His statement that only his connection to Nazism makes Wagner relevant is so ridiculously untrue. He was a major figure at his time and influenced artists, philosophers, and politics long before Hitler came to power. He died before Nazism was even a thought. Based solely on that and the cult that developed around him prior to his death and before the Nazi party you can clearly see that his arm was going to stretch wide long after his death which indeed it did and has. Wagner stands alone amongst his contemporaries not because he's better or worse than the others around him but because he was doing something no one else did before him, when he did it, or after he was gone and not nearly to the same effect.
Couldn’t have said it better myself. An incredibly pretentious presentation. And the chord in question is not a diminished chord: it’s half diminished. Once I came upon this idiotic mistake I stopped watching this video.
@@Operafreak9 This guy has also done a documentary on the Beatles where he makes disparaging and highly ignorant remarks on the influence of the musical avant-garde on the band as if it never counted at all.
Richard Wagner was the only major German composer who was deeply influenced by Hindu philosophical thoughts like most German intellectuals of 19th century. Wagner has written about Indian civilization extensively in his prose works which he considers the oldest from where the European civilization originates. He has interpreted the Indian philosophical thoughts in his operas such as Lohengrin, Tristan, Parsifal and his epic opera The Ring Cycle. I would put him in the same category of German Indologists besides he also learnt a great deal from his brother in law who was a well known professor of Sanskrit at Leipzig University at the time.
This is a clip from a BBC documentary series about the history of western music by Howard Goodall. It is a bit misleading to present only this clip because at one point at the end of this episode Goodall goes off an unhinged rant about Wagner, the Nazis and the Holocaust. From memory, I think I remember him saying something incredibly stupid along the lines of "No-one would even remember Wagner today apart from a few musical historians, if it hadn't been for Hitler. Wagner never produced any memorable music and the few hum-able ditties that he did manage were stolen from Liszt". He concluded his show by stating that Wagner's music should be eradicated from the playlists of all civilized nations and never played again. Interestingly, the BBC haven't repeated this programme since it was first broadcast as I think that even they were embarrassed by the Goodall's conceited virtue signalling. Anyone with a scintilla of humanity abhors the antisemitism that was widespread across the globe for centuries but to belittle Wagner's music because the man himself was one of the many misguided antisemitic bigots in the world during his lifetime is just silly.
Where is Berlioz in this discussion. You can't omit him from any discussion of Wagner influences, and even Chopin may have used the Tristan Chord before any of them.
I thought that the Nazis discouraged performances of Parsifal since it glorifies pity, and Hitler thought Aryans should be pitiless. Maybe what I read was wrong.
Bad. The Tristan chord is not simply a diminished triad. It is enharmonic with a half-diminished 7th chord but it is not spelled as such and does not resolve as such. With all of the study devoted to this chord by experts in their field (music theory) do you really think you can demystify this chord with a few words?
Alternating tonality - the Tristan chord is in Eb and resolves as such as the climax of the prelude. Wagner describes it in his program notes. If more than one PHD thesis is written on a topic, no one has any idea what is going on. they need to be flunked.
There seems to be an ever present sort of deficiency-complex in the host of this program whereby every achievement, accolade or innovation of Wagner is bluntly diminished and displayed as if any casual connoisseur of music could have achieved the same.
I have always loved listening to classical music, since I was fifteen. But somehow I never learned to appreciate Wagner's later operas or Listz's symphonic works. They are simply too "noisy" for my liking.
@René Blom. And that is OK. Not everyone likes sushi either. I am a huge fan of Wagner's music and couldn't care less about his personal life and beliefs or whether he was the first to do this or that in music.
Funny interpretation of the genius 3 act development of a theme , to diminished/augmented chords. You might as well say it is just 7 notes of music okay .but where the miracle erupts ? Where an Architect is designing the Structure !
I certainly do _not_ share Wagner's views. I can't forgive Wagner for his antisemitism. But I must admit that I recorded onto a set of DVD's the Ring Cycle, performed at the NYC Metropolitan Opera and shown on television, I think in 2012 I also recently watched Tristan und Isolde on a free TH-cam video with English captions. I like both operas. The Liebestod of Tristan und Isolde had me in tears. As for Liszt, I considered his early music a little "showoffy", like he was composing and playing to get applause and "mash notes". I preferred the music of the contemporary of his youth, Chopin, who seemed to write quieter and more emotional music from deep inside himself. I hope to see a video about Chopin, and who influenced his music.
Informative and near scholarly. Footnotes, sources, credits, paintings represented are lacking in credit. The Tristan issue is not a chord entirely, but a tritone. What about the Wagner tubas? Still, overall, very informative but British competitiveness with German culture is evident. Long live their cooperation at Göttingen!!! A pinnacle of University accomplishments. Illustrations from “Alice’s Adventures Underground” are just inappropriately silly
It is not true that the distinction between 'high art' and 'low art', in this case: elevated serious music, and simple entertainment music, was invented by Wagner. He merely developed the idea as initiated during Beethoven's time, when B's symphonic works and chamber music set standards of depth and seriousness. Which, by the way, did not exclude the element of 'entertainment', only brought to a much higher artistic level than before, as his late string quartets with the remarkable lighthearted 'intermezzi' bear witness. Also it is not true that Wagner was more or less responsible for the virulent type of antisemitism that led the nazi's to their absurd crimes, they did not need him for that. Wagner considered 'Jewishness' as a world view, and his antisemitism was a cultural critique, clothed in racist terms. This does not diminish the foolishness of his unethical elaborations, but makes understadable his mistaken conclusions of in themselves correct observations of capitalism and industrialisation. When read carefully, it is obvious that in his notorious 'Judenthum' pamflet he meant with 'annihilation' (Untergang) not the murder of all Jews, but the dissolution of what he thought was a creation of Jewish thought: industrialisation and capitalism. That he let Kundry die at the end of Parsifal had also a plot reason: he could not think of something useful to do for her now that she was redeemed, i.e. 'redeemed from Jewishness', and death has always been the most dramatic gesture on the opera stage which was used everywhere at the time when a strong emotional effect was needed. What else could he have done with her? Marry parsifal? Becoming the Grail Club's secretary? As a female among all the men? That would have caused infinite emotional turmoil on all sides and not produce some sort of neutral, content ending. So much has been projected into Wagner's operas of things he only had vague and distorted notions of. johnborstlap.com/was-wagner-a-bad-person/
You know exactly that Wagner worked close together with jews his main critic was against jews influence in the music.look how Theodor Herzl described the Jews in a letter to Baron de Hirsch. About 100.000 jewish refugees from Russia have in London 1905..because of german antisemitism? Chaim Weizmann wellknown in England Lord Balfour and Co, studied in Germany because he wasnt allowed in Russia. You combine Wagner with Hitler Pictures and nazi movie clips...its likely that Wagner would not have allowed the nazis to use his music..why do you this? Yes why because its common for Brits to slander and deformate against Germany since Germany was a competitor in the World trade over 150 years ago... until Now..envy and slander.show us your Schiller, Beethoven and Wagner... Britannia rule stll the waves? eagainst kely ures
As an German and Wagnerianrin I am not watsching this!!!!!! And by the way do you really mention, that WINNIFRIED WAGNER was A BRitish WOMAN a, WHO SUPPORTED AND ADMIRED WAGNER! So she was not even Wagner blood! And to my knowdledge Cosima Wagner was not happy with her at all!
Bach was writing specific and very identifiable themes into his work (such as the chorale preludes for organ, “Puer Natus in Bethlehem,” where the pedal plays a rocking motion throughout to signify a baby being rocked in a cradle), and he used an extremely 20th century chromaticism toward the end of his life, especially in “Die Kunst der Fuge.” I can listen to Bach’s music all the time, but Wagner’s is so bombastic, derivative, and in your face so relentlessly that 40 years ago, I called it the original head banging music. Then, of course, there is Wagner’s horribly sick antiSemitism, which he trumpeted so proudly, such a freak, a stealer, a loser, a narcissistic sociopath used by Hitler to spread his ghastly antisemitism.
Hmm. There are many ways of interpreting chords. Coming from a jazz background, and by using enharmonic spellings, I could interpret the Tristan chord as a half diminished, or a minor 7th flat 5. If the Tristan chord is thought of as a four note chord, and the somewhat smug chap in the video calls it a "diminished", is he calling it a diminshed 7th chord? If he is, he's wrong; the D# note would have move down to a D natural for it to be a diminished 7th chord. I stopped watching this video after a few minutes; I found the fellow insufferable.
Wagner seems to me, to be the most self promoting and self aggrandising composer; his music reveals this character flaw quite well. I’ve never been a fan, his music is too dark and demonic in nature. It depresses my spirit as opposed to inspiring it…a form of evil Wagner is promoting.
26. JULY 1882 Bayreuth Premiere of Parzival,directed by Herman Levy, a Jew and preferred by Richard Wagner. Your Video is typical for anglo envy and Ressentiments...the real reason for Ww1 ,,Versailles and followings until Putin today ( Sykes picot for example and Lend and Lease,also today ) We are sick beeing blamed for all, and as to the Jew Situation that time and later Look how Theodor Herzl described his own people as Bad and hunting for profit...he wrote to Baron de Hirsch...Sie sind verkommen... Progroms in Russia, 100.000 refugees from Russia in London and your beloved Minster for Munition, Chaim Weizmann from Russia studied in Germany over Switzerland to England,Balfour Declaration and later 1. Prime Of Israel claiming later and blaming England to broke the promis and their word...Palestine for Jews. Yes dear England in order to get Middle East (oil )😊 you wrote history. SYKES PICOT Was an important Start The nazis ( National Sozialisten ) have been an reaction of the Bolsheviks ( International Socialists ) The rule to be or not to be created first by the bolsheviks long before the Nazis appeared. The evil Propaganda ever.. mainly created by 2 jews in US Creel Commission 1917/18 Bernays and Lippmann Output.. Germans are blooddrinking Huns and a lot more...Hitler learned from this ( read his book if you are able) Hitler was born in Versailles ( he considered England as a brother Land ) and now the final result of Versailles is Putin Red China etc, today., By the way I m glad and thankful that Hitler was defeated..but it could be done much earlier. Eugen Gerstenmaier ( german resistance ) claimed ..now I understand why we didnt got Support.. The real goal was not Hitler or to Support the Jews...to goal was Germany.( ecconomy ).thats true until today. Hans
It is an odd paradox that in an opera like Parsifal, Wagner went out of his way to denounce and vilify Jewish influence, yet the foundational background of Parsifal is the Jewish story of Jesus's crucifixion, which is portrayed in the opera as sacrosanct and most holy. Indeed, it is impossible to explain Wagner without reference to the intense Judaïzation of Germany that had been taking place for centuries before Wagner ever showed up. In fact, in his arrogant, egocentric behavior, his addiction to showmanship, and his all-consuming ambitiousness, Wagner comes across as much more of a Jew than as a pure German of the type of primitive, warlike savage portrayed by Caesar, despite Wagner's strident and hysterical condemnation of Jewish characteristics in his writings. There was surely more than a drop of Jewish blood in Wagner's veins, and he brings to mind the statement of Hitler that "If you shake a family tree in Germany long enough, a Jew will fall out of it."
This critique of Wagner seems to be sophisticated character assassination.
Yeah, I’d like to see who was behind the making of this “documentary”.
Die Juden.
Well this is a healthy thread.
@@nikosvault 😂
I agree. Overall, he makes some good points, especially about Parsifal, but basically the title of the video could be "Who needs Wagner and Schoenberg if we have Gilbert and Sullivan."
i'm sorry but I strongly disagree with the oversimplified and in my opinion wrong view on wagners musical impact. Although wagner studied the works of liszt deeply and learned much of his knowledge of harmony from him his treatment of particular chords was revolutionary. Calling the tristan chord only a diminished chord is a misleading and oversimplified statement. The chord on its own wasn't particularly revolutionary but its further "resolution" upwards into the secondary dominant, a dissonant chord, was.
Wagner not only indeed influenced harmony greatly (emanzipation of the dissonance) but also invented new forms further developed the leitmotives, invented several new instuments and completed the romantic symphonic orchestra
Well, it's only BBC...and Mickey Mouse BBC to boot? Havva heart, Dude (and try not to think about the Licence Fee...)
The opening of Tristan is foreshadowed in Liszt's "Die Lorelei" - the resemblance is unmistakable...
A rather overly symplistic view of Wagner and his work.
Whatever his personal shortcomings, Wagner certainly had a unique style of his own. Wagner's most popular works are soul stirring and quite literally strike the right chord with many folks.
Far more influential on Wagner was Robert Schumann. Check out Schumann's masterful Paradise and the Peri, and Scenes from Goethe's Faust. These vocal masterpieces
clearly indicate not only Schumann's genius but strong influence on Wagner's vocal writing. As for the musical structure of Wagners' operas, there is most definitely an influence from Bach and baroque cantatas in general: arias interspersed with dialogue set to music...which of course influenced all of opera structurally. As for the difficulty of listening to Wagner, I dont understand it at all. The orchestral music (which many listeners ignore in favor of the singers) should be listened to closely and continually. And anyone who loves German lieder of Schubert and Schumann should have no problem listening to the music itself. I think the German language is problematic for many people because of the Nazis, and also because the language is harsh compared to Italian or French. So listen to Wagner and pretend the language is Italian! You will still enjoy it! Let's face it: Wagner was part of a long tradition, not a musical revolutionary. He was in fact the last Romantic composer, relinquishing that style to Strauss and Mahler and eventually Schoenberg and his school
Where would modern movie music be without Wagner???(or a bit of Debussy and Stravinsky). As for Wagner's politics, who cares? He's dead. You can't teach him a lesson.
read George Bernard Shaw's The Perfect Wagnerite. Maybe eventually you will join the worshipful cult...I know I did even as a child. Why deprive yourself of one of the truly
magnificent composers that ever lived? Dont like German? Just listen to the orchestra. And the Prize Song, arguably the most beautiful song ever written.
It's funny you mention Schumann's Paradise and the Peri, because Schumann and Wagner were both influenced by a German composer who's relatively unknown today: Heinrich Marschner (1795-1861). You should give a listen to his operas "Der Vampyr" and "Hans Heiling".
Those who turn to the BBC, of all sources, for a deep understanding of culture deserve the distortions in their perspective it will induce.
@Radwyn Althor true.. Sadly.
The British brainwashing corporation need to be shutdown immediately.
No greater retrograde cultural force exists. Not even in America.
I grew up in a household, where classical music was the every day norm. I love the Baroque, and classic Rococo, but when I discovered Wager, I was transformed.
Transformed into what?
A toad?
A Princess?
@@Johnconno, does it matter? Wagner's music transformed him - maybe much like Alberich's magic helmet, which could transform him into anything he wished to become 😉
Mark Twain once wrote, "Wagner's music is much better than it sounds".
Twain on the prelude of Parsifal "It was exquisite; it was delicious".
What a despicable hit piece on one of the greatest music composer that ever lived.
This guy is so biased it's not even funny. The appraisal of Wagner's contribution to the history of harmony in music is so wildly misleading and clearly biased. The man is an extremely controversial figure for all the correct reasons. And yes, he is correct, the Tristan chord was not an invention of Wagner's. It predates him significantly. It predates Liszt. You can find it in Mozart. However, he is fundamentally incorrect that the type of harmony Wagner employed can entirely be ascribed to Liszt. Also, that the accolade Wager is given of having changed Western music is incorrect is entirely fanciful. The chromatic harmony in Tristan is truly the first crack in the egg that is tonality in music. The way he uses these augmented chords and resolves them, or doesn't, is utterly revolutionary and not anything found in his predecessors including Liszt. That's not bias, it's not opinion, it's fact. Whether or not you like Wagner's music or agree with him on any of his social causes (which who does, the man was an raging egomaniac and generally disgusting human being) to deny his influence on the history of music or to chalk up his importance in music as propaganda is just wrong. This presenter omits significant music theory in his description of his work so much so it's almost laughable. Unfortunately, Wagner was a genius, and you cannot deny that. A terrible, disgusting, ruthless, mean, anti-Semitic, bombastic, genius but a genius nonetheless. Rewriting that history won't change that and is more a work of propaganda than anything that has been said about Wagner himself.
He is also correct that Wagner did not invent the leitmotif. It indeed predates Wagner and also (to correct the BBC) E.T.A Hoffmann. But once again, this presenter misleads you in him saying that it is wrong to praise him for it. Wagner's use of leitmotifs, where they appear, how they appear, and in the combination they appear in harmonically was unheard of prior. Once again, it's not opinion to state this, it is fact. His influence in this matter is so great you need only dig a small ways into the history of music to be able to prove this to be true. It laughable how wrong he is or at least how misleading his statements are about Wagner. Again, whatever your opinion is on his music, his work or his life, to deny his importance in Western culture or to downplay it or ascribe it to other people and suggest Wagner was just stealing from others is just wrong. All artists are influenced from others. Wagner certainly developed a technique that is based on and influenced by others. But how he employed that technique is ground-breaking.
Parsifal also does have a plot. He's also wrong there as well. Yes, it's symbolic, spiritual, and meditative but there is a plot. Maybe not as complex as the Ring or Meistersinger but there is a very clear hero's journey from beginning to end. His explanation of Kundry's death at the end is a bit reductive as well. While I fully agree you can take issue with the themes of Parsifal and interpret the work as a call for Aryan dominance (which Wagner pronounced quite proudly to be his desire), Kundry is a much more complex character than he makes her out to be and her death at the end of the piece is a larger metaphor than he is seemingly willing to admit.
His statement that only his connection to Nazism makes Wagner relevant is so ridiculously untrue. He was a major figure at his time and influenced artists, philosophers, and politics long before Hitler came to power. He died before Nazism was even a thought. Based solely on that and the cult that developed around him prior to his death and before the Nazi party you can clearly see that his arm was going to stretch wide long after his death which indeed it did and has. Wagner stands alone amongst his contemporaries not because he's better or worse than the others around him but because he was doing something no one else did before him, when he did it, or after he was gone and not nearly to the same effect.
Couldn’t have said it better myself. An incredibly pretentious presentation. And the chord in question is not a diminished chord: it’s half diminished. Once I came upon this idiotic mistake I stopped watching this video.
His bias is shallow and misses what Wagner was about.
This bias is wearisome now.
@@Operafreak9 This guy has also done a documentary on the Beatles where he makes disparaging and highly ignorant remarks on the influence of the musical avant-garde on the band as if it never counted at all.
@@pauldavies5611 Let him have his fun.
@@Operafreak9 Yes. As Christ once said, "They have their reward." 😉
it's great: he find his on sound,
that's making sound's of new color, and
he has new ton in orchestra too,
he belongs in family of great composers.
Richard Wagner was the only major German composer who was deeply influenced by Hindu philosophical thoughts like most German intellectuals of 19th century. Wagner has written about Indian civilization extensively in his prose works which he considers the oldest from where the European civilization originates. He has interpreted the Indian philosophical thoughts in his operas such as Lohengrin, Tristan, Parsifal and his epic opera The Ring Cycle. I would put him in the same category of German Indologists besides he also learnt a great deal from his brother in law who was a well known professor of Sanskrit at Leipzig University at the time.
Wagner is the one - you are shadows under the Sun!
The “angry diminished chords” is um, right out of the Beethoven playbook thank you very much; Wagnet himself would admit it.
Explained in a very entertaining way............I like it a lot.
Which one of Howard Goodall's docs is this from?
This is a clip from a BBC documentary series about the history of western music by Howard Goodall. It is a bit misleading to present only this clip because at one point at the end of this episode Goodall goes off an unhinged rant about Wagner, the Nazis and the Holocaust. From memory, I think I remember him saying something incredibly stupid along the lines of "No-one would even remember Wagner today apart from a few musical historians, if it hadn't been for Hitler. Wagner never produced any memorable music and the few hum-able ditties that he did manage were stolen from Liszt". He concluded his show by stating that Wagner's music should be eradicated from the playlists of all civilized nations and never played again. Interestingly, the BBC haven't repeated this programme since it was first broadcast as I think that even they were embarrassed by the Goodall's conceited virtue signalling. Anyone with a scintilla of humanity abhors the antisemitism that was widespread across the globe for centuries but to belittle Wagner's music because the man himself was one of the many misguided antisemitic bigots in the world during his lifetime is just silly.
Well yes and no. Yes, Goodall is a slimy parasite. And no, Wagner wasn't misguided at all--merely bombastic in his thinking.
Where is Berlioz in this discussion. You can't omit him from any discussion of Wagner influences, and even Chopin may have used the Tristan Chord before any of them.
There's a passage in Mann's Dr. Faustus in which he claims Chopin predates Wagner in some progressive techniques.
I thought that the Nazis discouraged performances of Parsifal since it glorifies pity, and Hitler thought Aryans should be pitiless. Maybe what I read was wrong.
Focusing on single chords within the vast integration of Wagner’s work suggests an alternative purpose to analysis. The purpose of the envious?
It's like criticizing TS Eliot's The Waste Land as unoriginal because it doesn't contain any words that didn't exist before.
This video is just the tribe coping and seething.
I'm guessing this is where nietzsche departed ways.
You left a whole lot out and it sounds at times like "Gubedidu".
Bad. The Tristan chord is not simply a diminished triad. It is enharmonic with a half-diminished 7th chord but it is not spelled as such and does not resolve as such. With all of the study devoted to this chord by experts in their field (music theory) do you really think you can demystify this chord with a few words?
Alternating tonality - the Tristan chord is in Eb and resolves as such as the climax of the prelude. Wagner describes it in his program notes. If more than one PHD thesis is written on a topic, no one has any idea what is going on. they need to be flunked.
Great music ❤
What kind of organ is that one.
interesting, for sure. But why the use of a cheezy department store organ? The musical effects are muddled, un Wagnerian to be sure...
How could anyone drag themselves around in that manner?
He resembles a Launderette in Saudi.
People say Wagner was influenced by pretty much all other composers! 😂 how about adding Hans Zimmer to his list of Wagner's influencers too? 🤣
The first name Richard should be pronounced "REE-card," not "Richard" as in the longer version of the name "Rich."
There seems to be an ever present sort of deficiency-complex in the host of this program whereby every achievement, accolade or innovation of Wagner is bluntly diminished and displayed as if any casual connoisseur of music could have achieved the same.
I wonder why this ended with a most revolting and insipid analysis of Wagner and Nazism?
Because it's made by the BBC, I knew they were gonna mention nazism even before I watched this video 🙄
Wagner rated up most in the pantheon of music, perhaps at tops. A true synthesis of beauty, passion and vengeance.
my next dog I will name Wagner.
❤ Richard Wagner Masterful 🎶 Music
Wagner's music inspired Adolf Hitlers political career.
I have always loved listening to classical music, since I was fifteen. But somehow I never learned to appreciate Wagner's later operas or Listz's symphonic works. They are simply too "noisy" for my liking.
@René Blom. And that is OK. Not everyone likes sushi either.
I am a huge fan of Wagner's music and couldn't care less about his personal life and beliefs or whether he was the first to do this or that in music.
Funny interpretation of the genius 3 act development of a theme , to diminished/augmented chords. You might as well say it is just 7 notes of music okay .but where the miracle erupts ?
Where an Architect is designing the Structure !
Who is the presenter? The BBC should know.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Howard_Goodall
Awesome!!!
This is only a BBC doc - what do you expect?
I certainly do _not_ share Wagner's views. I can't forgive Wagner for his antisemitism. But I must admit that I recorded onto a set of DVD's the Ring Cycle, performed at the NYC Metropolitan Opera and shown on television, I think in 2012 I also recently watched Tristan und Isolde on a free TH-cam video with English captions. I like both operas. The Liebestod of Tristan und Isolde had me in tears.
As for Liszt, I considered his early music a little "showoffy", like he was composing and playing to get applause and "mash notes". I preferred the music of the contemporary of his youth, Chopin, who seemed to write quieter and more emotional music from deep inside himself. I hope to see a video about Chopin, and who influenced his music.
Genius ✅
Wagner also owes Beethoven, Weber, Meyerbeer and Berlioz a great deal.
I don't think he would agree with this statement. He hated Meyerbeer.
Informative and near scholarly. Footnotes, sources, credits, paintings represented are lacking in credit. The Tristan issue is not a chord entirely, but a tritone. What about the Wagner tubas? Still, overall, very informative but British competitiveness with German culture is evident. Long live their cooperation at Göttingen!!! A pinnacle of University accomplishments. Illustrations from “Alice’s Adventures Underground” are just inappropriately silly
🤝🤝🤝
@@BlablaBlabla-sl3pt ??
BRAVO!!!!!!
I HAVE ALWAYS THOUGHT LIKE YOU!
THANK YOU FOR THE EVIDENCE!
Other composers may have continued as before after Wagner, but it feels dated. Like watching Inspector Morse.
Wagner a genuis
It is not true that the distinction between 'high art' and 'low art', in this case: elevated serious music, and simple entertainment music, was invented by Wagner. He merely developed the idea as initiated during Beethoven's time, when B's symphonic works and chamber music set standards of depth and seriousness. Which, by the way, did not exclude the element of 'entertainment', only brought to a much higher artistic level than before, as his late string quartets with the remarkable lighthearted 'intermezzi' bear witness.
Also it is not true that Wagner was more or less responsible for the virulent type of antisemitism that led the nazi's to their absurd crimes, they did not need him for that. Wagner considered 'Jewishness' as a world view, and his antisemitism was a cultural critique, clothed in racist terms. This does not diminish the foolishness of his unethical elaborations, but makes understadable his mistaken conclusions of in themselves correct observations of capitalism and industrialisation. When read carefully, it is obvious that in his notorious 'Judenthum' pamflet he meant with 'annihilation' (Untergang) not the murder of all Jews, but the dissolution of what he thought was a creation of Jewish thought: industrialisation and capitalism.
That he let Kundry die at the end of Parsifal had also a plot reason: he could not think of something useful to do for her now that she was redeemed, i.e. 'redeemed from Jewishness', and death has always been the most dramatic gesture on the opera stage which was used everywhere at the time when a strong emotional effect was needed. What else could he have done with her? Marry parsifal? Becoming the Grail Club's secretary? As a female among all the men? That would have caused infinite emotional turmoil on all sides and not produce some sort of neutral, content ending. So much has been projected into Wagner's operas of things he only had vague and distorted notions of.
johnborstlap.com/was-wagner-a-bad-person/
Nonsense. His huge influence is all about his music. Period. Nobody can diminish it, even BBC
You know exactly that Wagner worked close together with jews his main critic was against jews influence in the music.look how Theodor Herzl described the Jews in a letter to Baron de Hirsch.
About 100.000 jewish refugees from Russia have in London 1905..because of german antisemitism?
Chaim Weizmann wellknown in England Lord Balfour and Co, studied in Germany because he wasnt allowed in Russia.
You combine Wagner with Hitler Pictures and nazi movie clips...its likely that Wagner would not have allowed the nazis to use his music..why do you this? Yes why because its common for Brits to slander and deformate against
Germany since Germany was a competitor in the World trade over 150 years ago... until
Now..envy and slander.show us your Schiller, Beethoven and Wagner... Britannia rule stll the waves?
eagainst
kely
ures
What points are you trying to make?
Germany has a culture, most Brits are brainwashed from birth to think the live in USA
"RiKhard" Wagner
The Porn 🌟?
Sorry but you can analyse it all you like but the fact remains - Wagner was a genius and in a league of his own.
As an German and Wagnerianrin I am not watsching this!!!!!! And by the way do you really mention, that WINNIFRIED WAGNER was A BRitish WOMAN a, WHO SUPPORTED AND ADMIRED WAGNER! So she was not even Wagner blood! And to my knowdledge Cosima Wagner was not happy with her at all!
This guy looks like Wagner.
Als Deutschland wusste, wie man einen verdienten Traum vom Ruhm hat, und dann von den Siegern in Blut und Lügen ertränkt wurde
The music is nice, the guy should stop talking. He is clueless.
Bach was writing specific and very identifiable themes into his work (such as the chorale preludes for organ, “Puer Natus in Bethlehem,” where the pedal plays a rocking motion throughout to signify a baby being rocked in a cradle), and he used an extremely 20th century chromaticism toward the end of his life, especially in “Die Kunst der Fuge.” I can listen to Bach’s music all the time, but Wagner’s is so bombastic, derivative, and in your face so relentlessly that 40 years ago, I called it the original head banging music. Then, of course, there is Wagner’s horribly sick antiSemitism, which he trumpeted so proudly, such a freak, a stealer, a loser, a narcissistic sociopath used by Hitler to spread his ghastly antisemitism.
They will always tell you that Wagner was an antisemite, but they will never tell you why.
He felt that an emerging German culture was being held back by anything he perceived as non - German. He was also anti French and anti-Catholic.
@@Tolstoy111 sounds like he hit the nail on the head didn't he?
@@bannedagain1483 Well it didn't hurt the existing German culture before him.
@Tolstoy111 your obvious anti-german sentiments wouldn't be coloring your historical analysis would it? I'm thinking it is.
@@bannedagain1483 I love German culture
Hmm. There are many ways of interpreting chords. Coming from a jazz background, and by using enharmonic spellings, I could interpret the Tristan chord as a half diminished, or a minor 7th flat 5. If the Tristan chord is thought of as a four note chord, and the somewhat smug chap in the video calls it a "diminished", is he calling it a diminshed 7th chord? If he is, he's wrong; the D# note would have move down to a D natural for it to be a diminished 7th chord. I stopped watching this video after a few minutes; I found the fellow insufferable.
Wagner is the stadium arena rock composer of the classical world!!
1st 🥇
Nice element: the nazi stamps at 07:09. That puts it all in the right perspective...
How does a 1933 Nazi stamp put Richard Wagner, who died in 1883, into perspective? I shouldn't waste my time. You don't exist.
And beautiful stamps they are too. (Let it go. We have bigger fish to fry.)
Wagner seems to me, to be the most self promoting and self aggrandising composer; his music reveals this character flaw quite well. I’ve never been a fan, his music is too dark and demonic in nature. It depresses my spirit as opposed to inspiring it…a form of evil Wagner is promoting.
Wow. You are a crying baby.
BBC rubbish.
26. JULY 1882 Bayreuth Premiere of Parzival,directed by Herman Levy, a Jew and preferred by Richard Wagner.
Your Video is typical for anglo envy and Ressentiments...the real reason for Ww1 ,,Versailles and followings until
Putin today ( Sykes picot for example and Lend and Lease,also today )
We are sick beeing blamed for all, and as to the Jew Situation that time and later Look how Theodor Herzl described his own people as Bad and hunting for profit...he wrote to Baron de Hirsch...Sie sind verkommen...
Progroms in Russia, 100.000 refugees from Russia in London and your beloved Minster for Munition, Chaim Weizmann from Russia studied in Germany over Switzerland to England,Balfour Declaration and later 1. Prime
Of Israel claiming later and blaming England to broke the promis and their word...Palestine for Jews.
Yes dear England in order to get Middle East (oil )😊 you wrote history. SYKES PICOT Was an important Start
The nazis ( National Sozialisten ) have been an reaction of the Bolsheviks ( International Socialists )
The rule to be or not to be created first by the bolsheviks long before the Nazis appeared.
The evil Propaganda ever.. mainly created by 2 jews in US Creel Commission 1917/18 Bernays and Lippmann
Output.. Germans are blooddrinking Huns and a lot more...Hitler learned from this ( read his book if you are able)
Hitler was born in Versailles ( he considered England as a brother Land ) and now the final result of Versailles is Putin
Red China etc, today.,
By the way I m glad and thankful that Hitler was defeated..but it could be done much earlier.
Eugen Gerstenmaier ( german resistance ) claimed ..now I understand why we didnt got Support..
The real goal was not Hitler or to Support the Jews...to goal was Germany.( ecconomy ).thats true until today.
Hans
Calm down. Just listen to the music.
It is an odd paradox that in an opera like Parsifal, Wagner went out of his way to denounce and vilify Jewish influence, yet the foundational background of Parsifal is the Jewish story of Jesus's crucifixion, which is portrayed in the opera as sacrosanct and most holy. Indeed, it is impossible to explain Wagner without reference to the intense Judaïzation of Germany that had been taking place for centuries before Wagner ever showed up. In fact, in his arrogant, egocentric behavior, his addiction to showmanship, and his all-consuming ambitiousness, Wagner comes across as much more of a Jew than as a pure German of the type of primitive, warlike savage portrayed by Caesar, despite Wagner's strident and hysterical condemnation of Jewish characteristics in his writings. There was surely more than a drop of Jewish blood in Wagner's veins, and he brings to mind the statement of Hitler that "If you shake a family tree in Germany long enough, a Jew will fall out of it."