I believe a good number of us came to Wagner via bleeding chunks. The George Szell Ring highlights disc was the entree into Wagner World for me and my college friends.
Yes! Das Rheingold is a great introduction, partly because the leitmotif system appeals to a modern audience's sensibility for programmatic music. I would add the first Act of Die Walküre as the next step, because it works so well as a stand-alone, and because it's musically much more representative of what the rest of the Ring will be like. I remember as a teen being disappointed that the bright outlines and special effects (Anvils! Thunder! Screaming Nibelungen!) were left behind. But there are greater rewards to follow.
There is a version of the opening Das Rheingold used in one of the best horror movies of all time, 1979's Nosteratu, the Vampyre (Herzog) - at about 22 minutes in -- that is superb. The video of the rolling spring in the Carpathian Mountains adds to the effect.
The problem with Act I of Walkure is that the first half requires some endurance. Once you get to Ein schwert, things pick up quite a bit. How about Act III instead?
Regarding the pacing and Verdi versus Wagner issue, I think a bit of the problem is that Wagner is considered to be high culture, whereas Verdi is considered pop culture. So the inability to countenance Wagner’s deadspots and general tediousness gets framed as “immaturity” and “inexperience.” I.e., it’s the audiences’ fault. Whereas Verdi’s conciseness and accessibility get perversely framed as signs of his lack of seriousness. (Puccini suffers from this even more.) There might also be some “Austrian/German music is high art” logic at play too. Wagner is considered “serious” like Mahler and Bruckner. My judgment is that Wagner was a genius who seriously needed an editor.
Just returned from this year Bayreuth Festival. Lol. I thought about you and was laughing inside as I was sitting in the dark hot auditorium with other Wagner cultists. Gotterdammerung started at 4pm and ended after all the applause 10:20pm.
@@bbailey7818 Each break is exactly 1 hr in length. There are various places to get refreshments set up around the auditorium ranging from a glass of beer or chains and pretzels to a sit down restaurant that you pre-order from so your meal is ready when you arrive. All the food stations are very lovely.
I must say, the Valkyrie, act 1, is a masterpiece, that’s how the rest of the Ring should have been. I just can’t stand the rest. So it’s possible to detest Wagners operas and love pieces of it here and there. When I listen to the orchestral Adventure or the Ring without words, I think it’s here in time when orchestral music starts to be interesting to me. It’s painting with music. I love it. But considering the length of Nibelungens Ring, there’s not a lot of melodies that can be used when making an orchestral work of Nibelungens Ring.
@@bbailey7818Looked thru my program books from 2013 to see if it showed the interval length, but it doesn't. But they were long, probably around 30 minutes as it gave me the chance to walk outside up a small hill, order and drink a beer, then come down in time to use the toilet and get to my seat. All very civilized.
Excellent video! I quite like the Siegfried Idyll as a beginning point for Wagner. It’s a relatively short time commitment, and gives you some beautiful music.
I remember very well the very first Wagner record that I got.....it must be said that I had an uncle of British origin who had made me listen to it before....I had find it grandiose.....in fact the very first disc was the ''wagner album'' by eugene ormandy and the philadelphia orchestra on columbia masterwork....it was a revelation for me....! as much the opening of Tannhauser as the magic fire music.....and the path has continued over all these years.....and I still love Wagner's music.
Yes, I remember that Ormandy album; it was my first Wagner album as well. I loved it. I soon followed it with other Wagner orchestral collections from Szell, Walter, Stokowski, et al.
Thanks so much for this series, Dave. I’ve loved and engaged in Classical music most of my life, but my tastes in regular listening have always been relatively confined to my very favorite composers. More recently, sometimes thanks to you (!), I’ve been branching out and revisiting. This series gives me a chance to revisit the ones that just haven’t “clicked” yet. With Wagner, as really with just about all other opera composers as well, I just CAN’T seem to be convinced to CARE about the characters and the plots.They all seem so ridiculous, uninteresting, and based on silly or outlandish situations. But as you always say, it’s good to keep trying, and keep on listening. I love the Tristan Prelude and Liebestod, but it’s so difficult to get through the whole of any of the operas. I will keep trying . . . Maybe a talk someday on “operas for those who hate opera”?
I was intrigued but not taken into the Ring Cycle back when PBS aired the 1990 Met production. But my mom gave me a CD of overtures and preludes (Ozawa/BPO) and later a Ring highlights CD (Mehta/NYPO) and I do have to agree that the overture to Flying Dutchman will grab anyone immediately. It took a lot longer to get into the operas in part because I wasn't into the form at all, not for another 10-15 years. But eventually I got there, and the Ring Cycle was the first full Wagner I got through. I think it helps to watch a video first, with the subtitles on, as the visuals will give your mind something to hang on during the dead spots. Hopefully the singers are good enough actors for their roles too. I think it's too hard to just listen to his operas if you haven't seen them first, but that's just me.
Same here. Apparently the striking of the rock by Donner was a "stereo showpiece" among the sound enthusiasts. It didn't hurt the Solti performance that the singing cast was excellent, as was the conducting.
Haven't yet watched a second, but off the bat - hands down great list. Pretty much my introduction to the Wagner craze I had a decade ago (chirst it's been that long), minus Meistersinger.
Also should be mentioned: Deryck Cooke's Introduction to the Ring, a recorded lecture, presenting the Ring's leitmotives, classified into families derived from basic motives that represent central symbols in the story.
I got into Wagner by listening to highlights. I think it was highlights from the Decca Rheingold on one side of the lp and Walkure on the other side. That worked for me
My first Wagner LP was the Fritz Reiner / CSO with Siegfried's Rhine Journey and the Meistersinger Preludes to Act 1 and 3. Prelude to Act 3 never gets played enough.
I'm probably one of the few Wagner fans who finds Meistersinger (well, I like the Overture and the church choral music right afterwards) a huge snooze.
Very very informativ. As David himself often says - what's not to love (about this talk). The episode is certainly the essensiel thing in Wagner, where the Leitmotifs can shine. My favourite is In the Walkure, when Brunnhilde approches Siegmund, Sieglinde sleeping by his side, to announce that he is going to die and can look forward to a wonderful afterlife with sweet girls in Valhalla. Die Todesverkundigung! Well, Siegmund refuses. He will stay with his sister/wife and is not attracted by heaven. This is a moment of wonderful humanity, Brunnhilde is convinced and takes his side, and has to pay for it. In my view this is Wagner at his best. The music in this episode! About Parsifal. I think the essensiel point is a pure psychological one. Kundry, the cursed women is the one to watch. Parsifal has a mother complex. As a boy he leaves his mother just like that and she spends the rest of her life in sorrow. Parsifal is deeply insensitive, he kills a swan for fun, no compassion at all. Kundry knows all this. The evil Klingsor uses her for all this knowledge is worth. This, I think, is the center of Parsifal. It is the story of how a mother complex is resolved.
Re: Das Rheingold as an intro to the recorded Ring........ it worked for Culshaw/Solti. TBH the opening with the deep bass and Rhine theme was my intro to the Ring.....
Yes of course Das Rheingold . The music is wonderful and the story is very interesting. For me, the most interesting of all his operas. In addition, it looks a lot like that of Tolkien's Lord of the Rings, which many people know thanks to Peter Jackson's films. On the other hand, I didn't understand what Wotan's monologue is that you find boring in Die Walkure. If it's the one at the end of Act III, it's magnificent. Besides, the whole of Act III is magnificent. I would even recommend it to a beginner.
It's in Act II. First there the long argument between Mr. and Mrs. Wotan, as Anna Russell would put it; then Wotan tells Brunhilde the back story in a very long monologue.
Yes, I suspect Dave was really meaning the Act 2 monologue, although the Wotan/ Brunnhilde scene @@selcano0575 in Act 3 (before you get to the farewell and the fire music) is a bit if a chore in my opinion, and not as justified in length, overall, as the Act 2 monologue, which is essential to understanding the whole of the cycle.
I got relatively recently into Wagner. Oddly enough, it was Tannhauser (thanks to What's Opera Doc? By Chuck Jones), oddly because I hear it isn't one of the "loved" ones by him. The fault in the delayed appreciation, also, was that my introduction was Tristan und Isolde... Which I found completely alien musicaly... I have no idea why, as I was into hard edged modernism, without any discomfort at the time. But Tristan... I'm still not over it I think...
This is an absolutely perfect talk on the subject. And yet it makes me wonder whether Wagnerian cultism may be due to the fact that one has to make so many concessions to the man and his music that one ends up abandoning one's critical faculties, as it were, and reverentially throwing oneself at him?
![Kirsten Flagstad - A singing lesson: How to sing Wagner [1950]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/S6Stoi8DAqU/mqdefault.jpg)
I believe a good number of us came to Wagner via bleeding chunks. The George Szell Ring highlights disc was the entree into Wagner World for me and my college friends.
Yes! Das Rheingold is a great introduction, partly because the leitmotif system appeals to a modern audience's sensibility for programmatic music. I would add the first Act of Die Walküre as the next step, because it works so well as a stand-alone, and because it's musically much more representative of what the rest of the Ring will be like. I remember as a teen being disappointed that the bright outlines and special effects (Anvils! Thunder! Screaming Nibelungen!) were left behind. But there are greater rewards to follow.
I'm with you.
Get you, yes. But there is some thunder and an anvil at least later on.
There is a version of the opening Das Rheingold used in one of the best horror movies of all time, 1979's Nosteratu, the Vampyre (Herzog) - at about 22 minutes in -- that is superb. The video of the rolling spring in the Carpathian Mountains adds to the effect.
The problem with Act I of Walkure is that the first half requires some endurance. Once you get to Ein schwert, things pick up quite a bit. How about Act III instead?
@@ER1CwC That is true. Act 3 is pretty irresistible all the way through.
Regarding the pacing and Verdi versus Wagner issue, I think a bit of the problem is that Wagner is considered to be high culture, whereas Verdi is considered pop culture. So the inability to countenance Wagner’s deadspots and general tediousness gets framed as “immaturity” and “inexperience.” I.e., it’s the audiences’ fault. Whereas Verdi’s conciseness and accessibility get perversely framed as signs of his lack of seriousness. (Puccini suffers from this even more.) There might also be some “Austrian/German music is high art” logic at play too. Wagner is considered “serious” like Mahler and Bruckner.
My judgment is that Wagner was a genius who seriously needed an editor.
Just returned from this year Bayreuth Festival. Lol. I thought about you and was laughing inside as I was sitting in the dark hot auditorium with other Wagner cultists. Gotterdammerung started at 4pm and ended after all the applause 10:20pm.
May I ask how long were the intervals? I think Wagner benefits from long intervals. And a brisk walk.
@@bbailey7818 Each break is exactly 1 hr in length. There are various places to get refreshments set up around the auditorium ranging from a glass of beer or chains and pretzels to a sit down restaurant that you pre-order from so your meal is ready when you arrive. All the food stations are very lovely.
I must say, the Valkyrie, act 1, is a masterpiece, that’s how the rest of the Ring should have been. I just can’t stand the rest. So it’s possible to detest Wagners operas and love pieces of it here and there.
When I listen to the orchestral Adventure or the Ring without words, I think it’s here in time when orchestral music starts to be interesting to me. It’s painting with music. I love it. But considering the length of Nibelungens Ring, there’s not a lot of melodies that can be used when making an orchestral work of Nibelungens Ring.
@@bbailey7818Looked thru my program books from 2013 to see if it showed the interval length, but it doesn't. But they were long, probably around 30 minutes as it gave me the chance to walk outside up a small hill, order and drink a beer, then come down in time to use the toilet and get to my seat. All very civilized.
1 hour
That’s the least intimidating discussion of Wagner I’ve ever heard. Thanks!!
Excellent video! I quite like the Siegfried Idyll as a beginning point for Wagner. It’s a relatively short time commitment, and gives you some beautiful music.
Thank you, but I disagree. The work is both atypical and extremely dull in most performances.
I remember very well the very first Wagner record that I got.....it must be said that I had an uncle of British origin who had made me listen to it before....I had find it grandiose.....in fact the very first disc was the ''wagner album'' by eugene ormandy and the philadelphia orchestra on columbia masterwork....it was a revelation for me....! as much the opening of Tannhauser as the magic fire music.....and the path has continued over all these years.....and I still love Wagner's music.
Yes, I remember that Ormandy album; it was my first Wagner album as well. I loved it. I soon followed it with other Wagner orchestral collections from Szell, Walter, Stokowski, et al.
Thanks so much for this series, Dave. I’ve loved and engaged in Classical music most of my life, but my tastes in regular listening have always been relatively confined to my very favorite composers. More recently, sometimes thanks to you (!), I’ve been branching out and revisiting. This series gives me a chance to revisit the ones that just haven’t “clicked” yet. With Wagner, as really with just about all other opera composers as well, I just CAN’T seem to be convinced to CARE about the characters and the plots.They all seem so ridiculous, uninteresting, and based on silly or outlandish situations. But as you always say, it’s good to keep trying, and keep on listening. I love the Tristan Prelude and Liebestod, but it’s so difficult to get through the whole of any of the operas. I will keep trying . . . Maybe a talk someday on “operas for those who hate opera”?
I was intrigued but not taken into the Ring Cycle back when PBS aired the 1990 Met production. But my mom gave me a CD of overtures and preludes (Ozawa/BPO) and later a Ring highlights CD (Mehta/NYPO) and I do have to agree that the overture to Flying Dutchman will grab anyone immediately. It took a lot longer to get into the operas in part because I wasn't into the form at all, not for another 10-15 years. But eventually I got there, and the Ring Cycle was the first full Wagner I got through. I think it helps to watch a video first, with the subtitles on, as the visuals will give your mind something to hang on during the dead spots. Hopefully the singers are good enough actors for their roles too. I think it's too hard to just listen to his operas if you haven't seen them first, but that's just me.
I also started with Das Rheingold (the Solti recording of course) and got hooked.
Same here. Apparently the striking of the rock by Donner was a "stereo showpiece" among the sound enthusiasts. It didn't hurt the Solti performance that the singing cast was excellent, as was the conducting.
Same here. The shortest and tightest of the four works. Few dead spots. And, no droopy Norns.
I totally love Wagner's overtures & preludes, Wagner's influence on later composers is paramount.
Haven't yet watched a second, but off the bat - hands down great list. Pretty much my introduction to the Wagner craze I had a decade ago (chirst it's been that long), minus Meistersinger.
"It's not a woke stuff", I liked that. 😀
Excellent selection - almost exactly the route I took into Wagner.
Also should be mentioned: Deryck Cooke's Introduction to the Ring, a recorded lecture, presenting the Ring's leitmotives, classified into families derived from basic motives that represent central symbols in the story.
I got into Wagner by listening to highlights. I think it was highlights from the Decca Rheingold on one side of the lp and Walkure on the other side. That worked for me
My first Wagner LP was the Fritz Reiner / CSO with Siegfried's Rhine Journey and the Meistersinger Preludes to Act 1 and 3. Prelude to Act 3 never gets played enough.
I'm probably one of the few Wagner fans who finds Meistersinger (well, I like the Overture and the church choral music right afterwards) a huge snooze.
Very very informativ. As David himself often says - what's not to love (about this talk). The episode is certainly the essensiel thing in Wagner, where the Leitmotifs can shine. My favourite is In the Walkure, when Brunnhilde approches Siegmund, Sieglinde sleeping by his side, to announce that he is going to die and can look forward to a wonderful afterlife with sweet girls in Valhalla. Die Todesverkundigung! Well, Siegmund refuses. He will stay with his sister/wife and is not attracted by heaven. This is a moment of wonderful humanity, Brunnhilde is convinced and takes his side, and has to pay for it. In my view this is Wagner at his best. The music in this episode!
About Parsifal. I think the essensiel point is a pure psychological one. Kundry, the cursed women is the one to watch. Parsifal has a mother complex. As a boy he leaves his mother just like that and she spends the rest of her life in sorrow. Parsifal is deeply insensitive, he kills a swan for fun, no compassion at all. Kundry knows all this. The evil Klingsor uses her for all this knowledge is worth. This, I think, is the center of Parsifal. It is the story of how a mother complex is resolved.
Mother complex? Yuck.
Re: Das Rheingold as an intro to the recorded Ring........ it worked for Culshaw/Solti. TBH the opening with the deep bass and Rhine theme was my intro to the Ring.....
Yes of course Das Rheingold . The music is wonderful and the story is very interesting. For me, the most interesting of all his operas. In addition, it looks a lot like that of Tolkien's Lord of the Rings, which many people know thanks to Peter Jackson's films.
On the other hand, I didn't understand what Wotan's monologue is that you find boring in Die Walkure. If it's the one at the end of Act III, it's magnificent. Besides, the whole of Act III is magnificent. I would even recommend it to a beginner.
It's in Act II. First there the long argument between Mr. and Mrs. Wotan, as Anna Russell would put it; then Wotan tells Brunhilde the back story in a very long monologue.
@@dennischiapello7243Yes, indeed, you are right. I don't know why it seemed to me he was talking about Act III.
Yes, I suspect Dave was really meaning the Act 2 monologue, although the Wotan/ Brunnhilde scene @@selcano0575 in Act 3 (before you get to the farewell and the fire music) is a bit if a chore in my opinion, and not as justified in length, overall, as the Act 2 monologue, which is essential to understanding the whole of the cycle.
That's the one! Wotan is a bit dull generally, though.
"A crashing bore" is how Anna Russell put it. She also quipped in a live show I saw, "...then Wotan nags Brunhilde into a coma." @@DavesClassicalGuide
I got relatively recently into Wagner. Oddly enough, it was Tannhauser (thanks to What's Opera Doc? By Chuck Jones), oddly because I hear it isn't one of the "loved" ones by him. The fault in the delayed appreciation, also, was that my introduction was Tristan und Isolde... Which I found completely alien musicaly... I have no idea why, as I was into hard edged modernism, without any discomfort at the time. But Tristan... I'm still not over it I think...
This is an absolutely perfect talk on the subject. And yet it makes me wonder whether Wagnerian cultism may be due to the fact that one has to make so many concessions to the man and his music that one ends up abandoning one's critical faculties, as it were, and reverentially throwing oneself at him?
I think for some people that may be true, but not for most.
Nah, great music is great music.
you really love Wagner, I see, wonderfull
9 minutes before the first recommendation. How Wagnerian! 😂 (please don’t ban me. I’m just teasing 😊)
OF couse you were!
"Afflatus" - a apposite word to apply to Wagner.
Poor Lohengrin... Never a look in. Even with sumptuous duets and trios... Sigh...