How I Discovered...Wagner
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 13 ก.ย. 2023
- This one was a project, but then, perhaps these days we take some iconic composers for granted and assume (wrongly) that getting to know them should be effortless. How did you get familiar with Wagner's music? Was it easy or, like me, is it a work in progress?
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Early 1990s I was a messenger in Los Angeles stuck in rainy traffic on a gloomy day, at the 10 & 405 juncture (apparently the busiest freeway intersection in the US at the time).
Inching along on the overpass I flipped on KUSC (classical station here) on my car’s cheap AM/FM radio. Already playing was the most gloriously romantic orchestral music I’d ever heard…soaring, changing keys via seasick chromaticism then resolving, soaring higher, begging to be resolved again. The piece was still going when I got to my destination. After delivering the package I returned to my radio but the piece had ended and something entirely different was playing. I’d missed the host (Jim Svejda?) announcing piece/composer/orchestra/conductor. Didn’t have a cell phone back then or I would have called the radio station.
That music really stuck around, haunting me for weeks. It had been one of those moments. Like Dave and so many others my first actual exposure to Wagner’s music was probably through that Warner Brothers cartoon. Never listened to any Wagner knowing that it was Wagner.
Shortly after that I happened to read a description of the Tristan chord and it’s importance and of Wagner’s music in general. Then thinking back to that rainy day in the car: “That aching chromaticism + sheer length = maybe Wagner???”🤔
Went to the library and checked out a CD of Karajan (on EMI) conducting some Wagner overtures, including Tristan overture/Liebestod.
And…that moment near the beginning of the Tristan when the orchestra came in full, like an explosion of rose petals, -I KNEW I’d hit the bullseye and was back in that amazing, timeless world.
💥🌹🎯❤️
The Wagnerians in my family (I’m born 1966 in Munich) were much more of an obstacle than they helped, especially my Great-Aunt (*1920) who was - it was everything she’d known - certainly a Nazi at the time, and remained very much “law and order” all through her life. I associated Wagner with her for a long time.
I really discovered Wagner through my husband, who was a fan, but on a more intuitive level; through really following the texts, which often are crude, but Wagner understood drama; and I had the chance (first with no interest) to experience Waltraud Meier a couple of times on stage, and she really was a key to open up that human experience that these operas are.
My Mom had a record of Birgit Nilsson singing excerpts from Tristan und Isolde. My Dad and I called it “rigor mortis.” Well, after figuring out the prelude and Lieberstod, I played the second side-Isolde’s Narrative and Curse. After a couple of listening, I found I liked to-much to BOTH of my parents’ chagrins! I was fortunate to hear and meet La Nilsson after a concert at Royce Hall, UCLA-I was 17. Also, in my teens, PBS broadcasted The Golden Ring-Culshaw’s recording of Gotterdammerung. I saved my pennies and brought the 6-LP Solti recording. I was in another world-much to BOTH my parents dismay! My Mom told me she created a Frankenstein!
I can also blame my mum for arousing interest for this music as she recalled the wonderful 'swirling violins' in the Tannhauser Overture in a concert at the Théâtre des Champs Elysees in the early 60s in Paris during her student years, coming from the overseas. Was actually introduced myself by a Mauritius radio programme called Studio Classique playing a quite captivating chorus lp (Tannhauser, Flying Dutchman, I think by Wilhelm Pitz) in the times, inherited from colonial rule, when cyclone warnings were signaled by the Huntress fanfare from Delibes' Sylvia.
My journey was much the same. Wagner overtures my and bits conducted by Antal Dorati. In Jr High School. Then a big leap: the Solti Götterdämmerung for my birthday and then tickets to hear Nilsson as guest artist with orchestra. I was hooked totally. One thing I remember: I found Tristan utterly depressing at age 15, listening to all that Schopenhauer-inspired yearning for oblivion. I was too young for the words but not the music.
I think Gotterdammerung is far and away the greatest recording ever. Of any genre.
You should have your own show on Sirius satellite radio, so knowledgeable and so informative. It’s incredible. ❤ and I’ve spent thousands of dollars on box sets because of you. 😊
What's opera doc......still brings a smile when a tune comes up while listening to a Wagner disc. Awesome talk.
I discovered Wagner around the year 2003 via one of my father's classical compilation discs, 'Most Thrilling Classical Music Ever.' The Wagner piece it contained was Barenbiom's instumental rendition of The Ride of the Valkyries with the Chicago symphony orchestra.
I could not stop playing it. I was mostly mostly a fan of rock and rap, but absolutely floored me.
I needed more of this type of music so I visited my local Barnes Noble and picked up some Wagner highlights discs featuring the Seattle Symphony orchestra and Gerard Schwartz. I think those contained the Paris version of Tannhauser overture and the 'liebestod' with Alessandra Marc.
After that I was completely hooked by then so I made the jump to his complete operas. Not knowing much about the works, I was put off by the extremely long sections of rhythmless dialogue. It was tough going. But I continued find 'bleeding chunks' that blowed my mind, like Wotan's farewell to Brunhilde, the Act 2 duet from Tristan und Isolde, and Good Friday Music.
This was the music I had been waiting for. I wasn't sold on the operas though.
It wasn't until I read many books about the music and libretti that I could stomach listening to the whole ball of wax. I was obsessed, still am.
Now I listen to one act at a time. It's satisfying for me to pretend they are symphonies or tone poems.
Wagner is still my favorite composer, but I struggle with him for a lot of reasons. For one thing, these are huge works that are difficult to pull off effectively. I'm always dissatisfied with one aspect of recordings, whether it be the sonics, performances, or bad conducting (Goodall).
And in my opinion most of the best performers were alive during the age of crappy recordings. It breaks my heart 😂 This is why I attempt to cobble together the best version I can from multiple recordings. I made my own 'Potted Ring.'
Wagner was an awful person so I wouldn't blame anyone who isn't comfortable with his music. Periodically I wonder if it's worth my time.
Yes, I think antisemitism bled into operas, especially with the Mime character. For instance it's clear to me the music associated with him lampoons Mendelssohn's style at a few points.
And there are plenty of other brilliant and just as satisfying composers who aren't bigots. I love so many, Shostakovich, Beethoven, Mahler, Scott Joplin ect
That said, I can't quit that old wizard of Bayreuth. One day I hope to see one of the mature works on stage.
I can live without seeing the early stuff like Tannhauser and Lohengrin. I find a lot of the music to be patchy.
By the way, has anyone else noticed that Wagner took a motif from the allergo maestros of Brahms' 3rd piano sonata? It's within the role call scene in act 1 of Meistersinger.
Carl Hershberger
Tannhäuser is my least favorite Wagner. Except for the Overture and Venusberg Bacchanale, Paris version.
Goodall is a horror. Both as a person and a conductor.
My introduction to Wagner came in two ways. First, I bought a "Wagner without Words" LP with Ormandy/Philadelphia on Columbia that had lots of marvelous excerpts and loved it. In terms of complete operas, does anyone else remember that WKCR used to play the entire Solti "Ring" on (I think) Washington's birthday (I may be wrong about the date)? After reading about "Rheingold" in the "Victor Book of Opera," I turned on KCR very early in the day for "Rheingold." I was hooked immediately by the "Rheingold" prelude.
Thanks for your recollection, Richard.
My initiation to Wagner came in an 8th grade music class at Shaker Hts. Junior high school many, many decades ago.
Glorious monaural sound heard through a record player that was part of a large elaborate piece of hardwood furniture.
The music: the acts 1 and 2 preludes from "Lohengrin".
Next came the purchase of a Wagner concert by the Detroit Symphony with Paul Paray on Mercury (monaural of course).
Don't tell anyone, but my principal reason for buying the record was the neat album cover.
Some years later I was at a performance of "Meistersinger " and the "Flying Dutchman".
I was hooked.
I never had the chance to thank that music teacher at Shaker for putting on that old recording.
The Flying Dutchman Overture for me. I heard it in an elementary school music class. The opening thrilled me, still, I think, some of the most evocative sea music ever.
My first encounter with Wagner's music was the Rienzi Overture conducted by Otto Klemperer.
That was almost forty years ago.
I was hooked straight away.
I remember when as a kid I watched John Boorman's excellent film Excalibur. At that time, I didn't know that the beautiful music heavily used in the soundtrack was Wagner's. Many years later, after I had almost completely forgotten Excalibur in details, I heard for the first time the Trauermarsch on Siegfried's death from Gotterdammerung. I clearly remember how the first images that inexplicably popped up in my mind as automatic associations were those of knights in dark armors fighting during a night lit up by burning flames. Soon after that, I watched Excalibur again and found out that my association was actually the film's opening scene in which the Trauermarsch has been used. Obviously, the movie had impressed me very much as a child, but only after I realized what a great part the music had also played in that. This is how my huge appreciation (not a cult-like!) of Wagner's music started. The first music drama I listened to in its entirety was Die Walkure in the magnificent interpretation of Marek Janowski and Stattskapelle Dresden. I still regard this part of the Ring as the most beautiful and profound music Wagner has ever written.
I had only just started listening to opera (only The Magic Flue and Rigoletto, at that point), and came across a book called The Wagner Operas, by Ernest Newman. I was so inspired by the 110-page chapter on Die Meistersinger, I immediately purchased a copy of Solti's Vienna recording. Well, today I think I have more than 20 complete recordings (though some live ones have cuts); the latest (Thielemann's Salzburg Festival live performance) arrived 2 days ago.
Wagner was actually one of the first composers I listened to. It was a relative of mine who owned all the operas on Cd, and I borrowed one opera at a time and listened to them.
I started out whith Lohengrin (Solti)
followed by Tannhäuser (Sinopoli)
Then I bought Niebelungens Ring (Böhm)
and eventually I have heard all his operas whith the exception of Die Feen.
Best wishes Fred from Kristianstad.
When I was a teenager in Mississippi, I was already hooked on orchestral music, but I was aware there was a whole world of opera out there too, of which I knew nothing. So I asked some older, wiser musicians which operas would be good ones for me to start with. They all said things like Bohème, Carmen, Magic Flute, Traviata, Cav & Pag, etc... but then added "whatever you do, don't get any Wagner operas! They'll be way too far over your head for now!" So of course, I rushed right out and bought the entire Ring -- the Furtwangler/Martha Mödl one on about 18 discs. Loved it.
At age 21, after moving to CA, the first opera I ever went to see was Flying Dutchman in San Francisco. I told the lady where I was living that I was planning to go. "Oh, that sounds like a good one to take the children to!" -- guess she thought it would be some charming trifle about little Dutch boys with wings and wooden shoes. I had to tell her, um no, the Flying Dutchman was a cursed phantom black ship with blood-red sails; not really meant for kids.
As for Parsifal, I like it -- the Good Friday music (if only he hadn't messed it up with the voices) is absolutely the music of heaven; no more celestial tune has ever been written on this earth. I'll make em play it at my funeral.
I was the only kid on my block with a complete Ring recording back in the 1970s/80s with the old Murray Hill release of Furtwangler's La Scala ring. It was affordable and was a great experience for a young brass player.
I’ve been a musician since 8, and my sister would bring me to the orchestra every week. They played Wagner excerpts often, especially Die Meistersinger. I can’t say that this got me into Wagner even though it was my first exposure to his music.
I have to say that back in 2000 I watched a Formula 1 crash compilation video that had the ‘Ride of the Walkaries’ as the accompanying music, and somehow that got me hooked. I’ve been an avid ‘Wagnerian’ ever since. Been to 6 full ring cycles so far.
This is 180º in opposition to the current me, but until my early 20's I hated all music with operatic singing styles. As well, I could barely stomach vocal music in other genres. Re Wagner; during high school I got hold of Klemperer/Philharmonia Wagner Overtures. Success! I played Die Meistersinger until the grooves were worn down to nothing. Tannhäuser Overture and Dutchman were hits too. That one disc satisfied my need for Wagner for several years until three or so years after HS when I was in the workforce.
At AST (Ampex Stereo Tapes) we duped from 3rd gen masters all of the open reel and cassette based commercial releases. One day one of my inspectors wanted me to check out a glitch to decide whether the lot was a reject, etc. It was a run of the "London" label release of the glorious complete Solti Ring. She cued it up to the start of Die Walküre-II. My jaw dropped to the floor. Ecstasy reigned! When Wotan entered, which of course I hated because it was vocal, I reached for the monitor fader and rammed it to the bottom. Then, magically, one of the rejected boxes found its way into my overcoat and I found myself running that prelude over and over at home, every time muting my preamp upon Wotan's entry. Very soon thereafter I made an excerpt tape of sections of the Ring, all non-vocal of course :--) Then at age 24-ish, I stumbled into Wunderlich doing Die Shöne Müllerin and it simply stunned me. The voice somehow clicked. Clicked hard.
Twenty years later I would be found, after having spent a small fortune for a tour package to Bayreuth including performance tickets, sitting in the Festspielhaus soaking up the Ring and three other productions. David, I agree with you re Parsifal, Dutchman, and Lohengrin, but not Tristan, apparently (for argument purposes, which means I'm unsure, I sometimes claim Tristan-II is Wagner's greatest work). And yes, Meistersinger is a gem. I'm confused about your antipathy re chromaticism. I do recall you made a video about chromatic "sluuuudge", but thought you were being playful. Hmm...saved for another time.
I think it was Tolkien for me as well who helped me into Wagner. Not directly, but it opened me up to the concept when I started listening to excerpts from the Ring on youtube and really liking them. And then I took the plunge and listened to Rheingold and I liked it so much I became a little obsessed - for a few months at least. I think it was actually the Ring that gave me a serious passion for classical music.
Thank you so much, Dave. As a Wagner fan, it's great to hear how you gradually, sort of, came under his spell! I was introduced to classical music and opera when I was about 12 by an older friend who was a voice teacher at a local college. I particularly loved opera but much to my friend's chagrin (he loathed Wagner) I fell in love with Wagner and especially the Ring. It happened at the local library where I found Solti's recording of Das Rheingold. It was actually the cover that drew me in with the illustrations of gods, dwarves, giants and the whole Norse thing. Wow, I thought, I need to listen to this. (I became a Wagner fan and a Solti fan on the same day, which probably makes you shudder LOL). I too, was into the whole Tolkien thing at just about the same time, so all kinds of things coalesced into my liking of Wagner, but above all, it's about the music. Have you ever noticed that Wagner couldn't write a bad ending? I mean the Rheingold ending is exciting as all get out, but the final LP of any of his operas just can't miss. Thanks for your comments, Wesley.
I first encountered Wagner at a "young person's concert" - not that I was into music as such, but because those attending got the afternoon off school. It was my first-ever experience of a live orchestra - BBC Welsh Symphony conducted by Bryden Thomson - and the compère was Jack Brymer, who also played the Mozart concerto. One of the other pieces on the programme was the Siegfried Idyll, which didn't particularly grab me, but what _did_ pique my interest was Brymer's intro, where he told the story of Siegfried and this thing called the "Ring Cycle". Intrigued, I headed to my local library and borrowed the Solti recording of _Siegfried_ on (mono) LPs. It was the first opera I'd ever heard, but I was instantly hooked. By coincidence, Siegfried would later become the first opera I ever saw live, and it remains my favourite opera in the Ring.
That Met Tristan with Eaglen and Heppner was also my first Tristan on stage. I remember seeing it on a Monday night, and for five hours you could hear a pin drop in the audience (when the hall wasn’t flooded with the sound of Wagner). People were engrossed! I do think the direction and design of that particular production were underrated at the time.
When I was a student, a friend described the different scenes of Tristan und Isolde to me, illustrating them with musical excerpts from the Furtwängler-Flagstad-Suthaus recording (skipping "the more boring parts"). I was swept away by his enthusiasm and emotional reactions towards the music, and by the time we arrived at the Liebestod I was completely hooked. I love both the Furtwängler and Böhm recordings, but my favourite rendition is the Jurowski (Glyndebourne label) recording with Anja Kampe and Torsten Kerl - with a slightly dry but extremely intimate orchestral sound.
Wonderful post (as always)…my introduction to Wagner was due to hearing (for the first time) the Karajan/Janowitz recording of Strauss’s Four Last Songs, some 30, or so, years ago…I was immediately spellbound by Janowitz’s voice and had to find more of her recordings…the first recording I found was the Kubelik Lohengrin…and so began my journey with the music of Wagner…after hearing multiple recordings of Lohengrin, over the years (and, yes, I love the Kempe too), it’s always seemed to me to me that the casting of Janowitz/Jones was/is a stroke of genius…Janowitz’s ethereal Elsa, against Jones’s shrill, malevolent Ortrud is perfection for my ears…together withKubelik’s direction…heaven…
I think vocal melodies to Wagner were almost an afterthought. He writes a passage like the Liebestod. The singer rides on top like a surfer taken away but the wave is always the point, not the surfer...
Unless you have a really outstanding vocal performance like Margaret Price in Kleibers Tristan, who makes you sit up and pay attention to the singing
When I was 8 I fell in love with a book called Norse Gods and Giants. This led me other books on the Norse sagas, as well as Greek mythology. A friend of my parents pointed out that this German guy had turned some of the sagas into operas. I didn't really know what an opera was, and I pronounced Vagner Wagner (Hey, American kid here) but I eventually started exploring Wagner, and opera, and classical music generally. So Wagner led me to Verdi, Puccini, Brahms and Berlioz. Yes, the whole Hitler thing was also frowned on in my Jewish household, too. And my parents were a little dismayed when I signed up for German at school. The Wagner recording I loved was the Solti Ring (including the thunderclap at the end of Act II; toll, oder?) The first Wagner opera I saw live was Parsifal- I never made it easy on myself. Wagner gave me opera and the whole of classical music, which I might have discovered through music lessons, but maybe not. Thank you , Maestro! L'shanah tovah to all...
I discovered Wagner while in college in the late 1980s. This is the time when I discovered classical music beyond the few LPs my father had, so Wagner was part of it. I got to understand that the Ring was important but it was not until I was out of college and could afford to buy CDs that I was able to get a hold of Solti's Ring. I had to import it from the USA to Costa Rica and it costed me a fortune to take it out of customs. I remember making a point of listening to the whole thing with full attention: 4 consecutive Sunday afternoons. I thought it was simply amazing. A few years later I saw Meistersinger at the Prague State Opera. Another amazing experience. In 2019, however, I leveled up in the Wagner game and was able to see the Ring as put in scene by the Düsseldorf Opera: the 4 operas in a 10 day span. It's really something else to watch the Ring on scene. The only other Wagner opera I've heard in its entirety is Parsifal, and I though it was excruciatingly boring.
Though I had heard some of the music in the background of shows, commercials, and various other places, it was junior year of music school that the Wagner lightbulb finally got turned on. As an undergrad student I took an Aesthetics class and the Professor started the semester, before saying a word on the first day, by having us sit down with the lights off and played a recording of the prelude to Lohengrin. I know it's common for Lohengrin to be the gateway into Wagner for a lot of people but that really did it for me and I became a lifelong fan (though not a cultist!).
I also read the Music Appreciation 101 summary of Wagner before I listened to him, and had an idea of what I thought his music sounded like from pop culture references. What I wasn't prepared for was how his mature music has this unbelievable sensuousness to it. I remember a commenter on another video saying something to the effect of "Tristan is almost pornographic" and I completely understand what they mean.
The cult is definitely off-putting, but what helped me understand it better was Alex Ross's excellent book "Wagnerism." You really do get the sense that, for better or worse, he was the most consequential cultural figure from the second half of the 19th century.
As a boy my father purchased an anthology of famous orchestral music from our local supermarket in a large album format of long play records with extensive pages of historical background and pictures concerning each composer and their included work. No piece impressed me more than the opening Prelude to Die Meistersinger. It was the counterpoint that most amazed me.
How did I get into Wagner? Very oddly... and it started when my Dad took a German officer prisoner in the North African desert during WWII. They became friends (that's another story) after the war - and the officer was one of those determined to reclaim German music from the Nazis - he became an amateur promoter of Jewish German composers banned by the regime such as Mahler and Mendelssohn - and he encouraged my Dad to do the same in Britain. This included Wagner - the top 'prize' for reclamation. This was their small way of rebuilding a civilised Europe - and both were fervently anti-Nazi each for their own reasons - in my Dads case it was 'meeting' the SS battalions. That anti-fascism rubbed of on myself - but I could never get past the plot of Meistersinger - so I bypassed it and went straight to the 'Ring'. It took a long time - I was in my 40s when I began to appreciate and like Wagner. I still dislike Meistersinger though...
That’s quite a story, thanks for sharing!
In high school I got to play English Horn in a band arrangement of Elsa’s Procession to the Cathedral. That was the first focused attention I paid to his music. But of course there are bits of Wagner all over popular culture, so I was exposed very gradually. I didn’t start to really study until I got deep into Tristan in my early 20s. Now at 60, I doubt I have enough time left to really learn all the great music he wrote (ignoring the lousy early works).
I just want to add that Prof. Robert Bailey always began his Wagner course quoting the remark about the most-written-about figures in Western civilization, and Shakespeare was 2nd, followed by Wagner.
Like you Dave, Wagner's music entered my consciousness through "What's Opera Doc" but my first real introduction to the composer came in high school. My English teacher made us read Deems Taylor’s essay, “The Monster” and to illustrate the dichotomy of horrible man/great artist played us some orchestral excerpts from “Siegfried” (the Forest Murmurs, I believe). One thing led to another and before long I had checked out the Solti Ring from my local library and became intoxicated by the whole thing. The Metropolitan Opera was just unveiling its first new Ring Cycle in the late 80’s and I bought my first ticket to an opera (“Die Walküre”) and fell head over heals for both Wagner and opera in general. The rest is history and Wagner remains my favorite composer ‘til this day! To add to your follow-up post, I agree that Wagner’s music is not toxic, but I find it completely hypnotic. It finds a way to trigger the pleasure centers of my brain in a way that no other music can. And it does take many decades to appreciate all of the operas. I have come to terms with Parsifal but am still struggling with Meistersinger! And yes, the Wagner cult can be scary. In my teenage enthusiasm for my new discovery, I briefly joined the Wagner Society of New York, only to run away screaming in terror.
As a teen, I got into Wagner via Tolkien, like you. I grew up in Syracuse, and Henry Fogel was program director of the local classical station. For at least a couple of years he did an annual marathon, broadcasting the entire Ring in one day (that particular year he played the Solti). I stuck with it from beginning to end, and was hooked. And yes, it was the similarities to Lord of the Rings that got me curious to experience it.
My much older brother was an opera buff, and had some recordings of Wagner, which helped my early on appreciation. Also, loved the cartoon It's Opera, Doc too :). Later, I enjoyed reading about his place in 19th century cultural history, and listening to some of the music. However, I wasn't so keen on him until later, after yes like you seeing a production of Die Walkure on stage in London many years after that. I still mainly listen to the Ring to be honest. I also really love Anna Russell's 'exogesis' of the Ring, which frankly helped my understanding of these operas. :)
Finally, someone knows about Anna Russell. I became acquainted with her analysis of the Ring as a junior in college when talking the third trimester of Music History. I previously knew about the Ring, but listening to Anna explain the story and sing the various themes was hestarical😂. “It’s all true you know.” And to be honest, she was right, in the most deliciously, bizarre way.
I also remember another time when I had an encounter with a musical theme from a Wagner opera. While taking the Undergraduate Record Exam test in music at the end of my senior year, there was a string of questions on analyzing several bits of a musical theme. During the process I recognized that it was the opening sequence of Tristan and Isolde. One of the last questions was can you identify the theme and who wrote it. Thank you Music History class.🎉
The best known piece of music by Wagner is "Here Comes the Bride." At some point in my childhood, I was told by my parents that it's often avoided at Jewish weddings because the guy who wrote it hated Jews. My first encounter with other music of his was playing "March of the Meistersingers" in my junior high school orchestra. I don't recall seeing the "What's Opera, Doc?" cartoon as a kid, but there were probably other cartoons and TV comedies that played the Walkure theme for special effect or showed singers screeching in horned helmets. Then, when assembling a classical LP collection, I came across albums of orchestral highlights by Leinsdorf, Ormandy, Stokowski and others. I believe I first heard Wagner being sung in Met Opera radio broadcasts of "The Ring" around 1964-65, and that's when I became interested in the stories, the singers, the conductors and all the rest.
An inherited QRS piano player roll of the Tannhauser overture. My grandfather explaining to me that "Here Comes the Bride"
was originally part of a Wagner opera, but the other famous wedding march was from Mendelssohn. My 6th grade teacher
introduced us to Lohengrin, preludes act I and III, and Flying Dutchman. I was the only one in class who showed any interest.
And that’s often the way…many are called but few are chosen, as they say. Not everyone can “get it,” as with everything.
Fantastic post, Dave. I had a similar start with Bugs Bunny as a kid (great Elmer Fudd impression, by the way!) and similar aversion to the stuff surrounding Wagner. I wish I had Tolkien as the conduit, but I think hearing the Ride of the V in Coppola's war film got me interested. But then many (many!) decades passed until I got curious more recently to explore the music on its own terms. My steps have been to collect some wonderful highlights LPs and box sets from the 1950s and early CD sets of Solti's Ring (apparently mastered before loudness became a thing). I'd be curious to see parts of the Ring live! I also have a secret wish that someone would edit Fritz Lang's silent version of Die Nibelungen to Wagner and screen it at surviving movie palaces -or better yet, screen it with a live performance of Wagner as accompaniment. I think that would be quite an experience. So far I'm struck by the quality of epic drama I hear in the music; those anvils and horns are a powerful touch! But I'm also sometimes mystified by the long segments with characters singing back and forth at full force and with seemingly little melody. It's not catchy in that way. I think having the libretto and following the story will be a necessary next step for me.
Ironically, Fritz Lang would have hated the use of Wagner's music to accompany his film "Die Nibelungen." He wanted the two works to be seen as totally separate art pieces with nothing in common except the literary sources. In Germany Lang's two "Die Nibelungen" films, "Siegfried" and "Kriemhild's Revenge" (Kriemhild is the character Wagner called Gutrune and in the original, after Siegfried's death, she remarries a man named Etli who is the historical Attila the Hun), were shown with an original score Lang commissioned from Gottfried Hüppertz, but in the U.S. they were issued with a pastiche of Wagner "Ring" themes arranged by Hugo Reisenfeld as the live accompaniment, much to Lang's disgust.
I must confess that when it comes to Wagner, I have a love/hate relationship to him and his ideas. The first time I discovered him was when I listened the Overture to Tannhäuser. It was beautiful and glorious. Later, my dad warned me about him. Well, I didn’t listen to much Wagner after that. While I in college, the Orchestra played Tannhäuser Overture in the fall and do highlights from the Ring. I enjoyed playing both concerts. During that time I tried to listen to the whole Tannhäuser. I could only take so much of it. So, I’m still on a journey when it comes to him, but it will be an unfinished one. He did write beautiful music, but I can only take so much. Besides there’s other composers who I rather listen to including Dvorak, Brahms, and Bruckner (not BRUCKNER 🐎🐎).
Paul D.
Hattiesburg, MS
I discovered Wagner through Francis Ford Coppola’s Apocalypse Now when I was 14 or so. I discovered The Doors 🚪 as well.
I discovered Wagner through the orchestral excerpts from the Ring. Then on to the Solti Ring recordings. I then saw the Met Ring in the 70's. I find I enjoy opera in general visually rather than on CDs.
Very interesting. My parents had a collection of encyclopaedias and there was a description of Wagner's Ring which I found fascinating. I could never get into the Lord of the Ring stuff but was really interested in the Vikings. So I bought the recordings and then booked to see Siegfried. It was the prelude to act 3 that hooked me. I bought the ENO English ring recordings and got to know the cycle. Since then I have seen several cycles and individual parts as well as other recordings. Apart from the ring the only other piece i really like is Tristan. I can cope with the others in the theatre but not on record. I think it was Clara Schumann, who was not a fan, but commented that it was very different hearing it on stage than looking at the score
In 2012, the nearby opera company was producing a full Wagner opera for the first time, and about twenty other college freshmen and me (all of us opera noobies) had our tickets paid for. It was the Flying Dutchman.
But then somewhere in 2019 or 2020, I was doing my own research on musical instruments. There's a youtube upload of a TV spot featuring the MET opera brass rehearsing Ring exerpts for their 2012 cycle. I just had to hear more of where these sounds came from.
(My school should have waited for the next semester to pay for opera tickets, when that company put on Pirates of Penzance)
My journey toward Wagner parallels yours, Dave, almost exactly. Though my parents loved classical music, I don't think I ever heard a note of Wagner growing up (except of course via that deliciously satirical Bugs Bunny cartoon!). My father's Jewish heritage understandably turned him against that composer, and my mother's succinct verdict: "Too heavy!" While a college student I came to enjoy some of the standard orchestral excerpts, and my music history teacher insisted on the "revolutionary" tag for Tristan's chromaticisms. Around that time I purchased Klemperer's 3-LP set of orchestral excerpts and enjoyed them but they didn't prompt me to explore the operas themselves. My turn toward the operas came, as with you, Dave, from reading Tolkien. By the time I was in my mid-twenties I had read the "Lord of the Rings" at least three times. Yes, I think I was something of a Tolkien cultist, or at least an aficionado. Then one day it dawned on me that Wagner wrote a operatic tetralogy on a similar theme (though without the happy ending). So I took a deep breath and decided to explore Wagner's "Ring," via the Goodall production. Why Goodall and not Solti? Goodall is in English and that made any Tolkien parallels vividly clear. I was hooked, and went on to explore the other operas gradually over a span of thirty years. My personal favorite remains "Meistersinger," because of its lyrical beauties, contrapuntal mastery, and touching portrayals of human relationships. No gods, thank God. I do always flinch toward the end of Act III where Sach's in his final oration bids us to "obey your German masters." But otherwise I rank that opera with Mozart's Figaro and Strauss's Rosenkavalier as the top three greatest comic operas.
Meistersinger is so human, warm and beautiful. But you put your finger on the one bit at the end that I wish would get cut. It used to be omitted regularly outside of Germany and could be again. Looked at closely, its not really the tirade of some mad politician, but it comes across that way. It's a minute and a half out of four and a half hours we can do without.
@@bbailey7818 In his latest tirade, Sachs also says that Germany's greatness must be recognized for its art and not through war. Wagner simply defends German art. So where is the problem. I don't understand what's bothering you. I'm surprised you said this bit is cut in some countries. Which? Because in France and Spain I have never heard of that. And I don't think that in Asia this shocks anyone. Only we Westerners denigrate our culture. The others admire it while defending their own.
The bit you quote shouldn't be cut. Neither this one nor any. Furthermore, who decides to amputate a work and according to what criteria? Nationalism? Are people who are, despicable? Schoenberg was nationalist and even said that he was going to give Germany a hundred years ahead with his music. I go to Vietnam very often and well, people are very nationalist. Ho Chi Minh was. He made his people aware of what they were. This freed them from the French yoke and they were able to resist American power. Today Vietnam is a free and beautiful country.
Bugs Bunny wearing a Brunnhilda wig and helmet, riding a fat white horse to the strains of the Tannhauser overture was my intro to Wagner, too, but it was before What's Opera, Doc? ever made it to TV. The scene was in the 1944 cartoon, “Herr Meets Hare,” a wartime lampoon of Nazi Germany; that's the one I saw on TV in the fifties. The director was Friz Freleng, but the writer of both cartoons was Michael Maltese. I wish I could remember the aha! moment when I discovered where that goose-pimple-raising music actually came from.
I discovered Wagner when I was a teenager and had started to read Nietzsche. Nietzsche's books ara quite cheap in Brazil, you can buy them in newsstands. Later I studied German and Phylosophy at University. Unfortunately I never saw an opera by Wagner on stage, they are rarely staged in Brazil.
In newsstands! When's the next flight to Brazil?!
I’m not sure if this was actually my first conscious encounter with Wagner, but my first memory of Wagner was a performance of a modern production of Siegfried. The set of Act I featured a giant metal tree with random people dangling dangling from or sitting on the branches. There was also no hint of any ring of fire in Act III. And add the fact that Act I is a slow boring of hard boards…. Not a great introduction. But I did find the following season’s performance of Gotterdammerung more interesting. Although why Act II was set on top of a long table, and why there was again no hint of any fire or horse in the Immolation Scene - the burning of Valhalla consisted simply of people in dress shirts standing still in a circular formation - I still don’t know.
It's worth keeping in mind that Nietzsche's comment about Carmen was a bit of hyperbole, intended to knock Wagner and his aesthetics down to size. He said as much, somewhere sometime later.
After the Ring, my most memorable discovery in Wagner arrived via the LP of highlights from Tristan, which began with the love scene from Act II. The floating orchestral texture and hazy harmonies, particularly during Brangaene's offstage singing, struck me as a precursor to the day's "ambient" or "space" music, only more beautiful.
No, it's not worth keeping that in mind at all.
Wagner was a presence in my parents' wartime black box of 78s in the form of the Sailors' chorus from the Flying Dutchman but it didn't make much impact on me. By contrast, the early LPs issues from Furtwängler and Flagstad of the closing scene of Götterdämmerung followed by the complete Tristan & Isolde, which I collected act by act, came as absolute revelations. I was hooked and became an ardent Wagnerite. The next acquisition was Furtwängler's Die Walküre with some disappointment that Mödl did not measure up to Flagstad not Franz to Hotter, whom I had heard on the radio by then. My first theatre experience was also Walküre conducted IIRC by the slow motion Goodall with a Siegmund and Sieglinde who were so physically incredible as young lovers that it could have discouraged me. However, the Solti Ring, much aided as you say by Deryck Cooke's commentary, soon corrected that. I was a relatively late comer to Die Meistersinger and Parsifal. My interest started to wane with a spouse who is allergic to Wagner, partly due to her exposure to Parsifal at a very early age. So, I don't think that I have ever attended a Wagner opera with her. However, Initially we lived in a large house where I was able to listen to Wagner at length without disturbing her too much. In the last 10 years we have lived in a smaller and more acoustically transparent house so that I have listened recently to much less Wagner though I still crave for it.
This is why God created earphones-for marital harmony. 🙌🙌😊🙏
Here is my parallel experience of how music alters visual perception. My first Traviata was Caballe. When she came onto the stage my first thought was who would pay this woman [remember she is a courtesan not some innocent little girl] to be with them. By the time the Libiamo was over that no longer mattered at all and I was completely enthralled by her. I think only very great singers achieve this.
My introduction to Wagner was watching Leni Riefenstahl's Triumph of the Will on PBS as a teenager. No I was not interested in Nazism but was into film at the time and just beginning to appreciate classical music. I was struck by your comment that in your high school years everybody was talking about Tristan and Isolde. In my high school nobody was talking about Tristan and Isolde: they were talking about Led Zeppelin and The Grateful Dead.
That wasn't exactly what I mean, if it's what I actually said...
That was worthy of Anna Russell!
"No, they didn't live on the river. They lived *in* it!" (leans back, exclaims over a sigh, presses back of hand against forehead...)
Listening and loving orchestral music I had to listen to Wagner eventually I got drawn into the vocal side by default
Who is not going to be seduced
The Ring because of the amazing story and Epic Drama and the most moving predicament and interaction of the characters was and still is overwhelming
Then Tristan happened - which is a wonder
One of the most amazing creations in all art
Parsifal where time stops - beautiful with that weird strange fascinating second act - what is going on there Dr Freud ?
Lohengrin- love it’s pure innocence betrayed
Die Meistersinger is the one I don’t get as much
The hearty humour is turgid / jerum jerum and Beckmesser etc do my head in and Walter is a vain prat
As you say - see them live - they work amazingly well and actually zip by
Gotterdammerung especially- believe me - 2bd and third acts seem short
This spread to other opera - Italian / Verdi the French - much later
But especially to German Lieder - I love Schubert - the greatest Schuman and sadly not known well enough the great Hugo Wolf
Wagner is the best example of bad person/great artist
One has to continually sort that dilemma out in one’s head
The music does that actually
Hitler's favorite Wagner opera was Rienzi. This shows the taste and the musical level of Hitler.
I discovered Wagner by listening to the Valkyrie in its entirety.
Concerning the stagings of the ring, for me that by Patrice Chéreau for Bayreuth at the end of the 70s is gorgeous . But the ones I see on TH-cam or on CDs are terrible, unwatchable. I prefer to listen the music without looking at the picture.
Me too.
I don't remember if it started with Tolkien or the Ring, but I did listen to Tannhäuser on LP when I was about 15, and it sounded much more interesting than Mozart, Rossini or Verdi. And then Parsifal in Copenhagen when I was 21 years......but I only to listen to opera in connection with performances (except for rare operas).
Oddly enough it was watching "The New World" that turned me. I was familiar with the music already; before that I'd forced myself to slog through Das Rheingold many times to try to get it but I found it to be q phenomenal bore. But the prelude juxtaposed with the beautiful cinematography it just clicked, and I've been a convert ever since.
I remember Elmer Fudd singing,” Kill the wabbit…”! That parody WAS hilarious!
I discovered Wagner through hearing The Ride of the Valkuries, I was very young so it took me a long time to appreciate the rest of the music. And I agree about Parsifal 🤢
"What's Opera, Doc?" I was 8 or 9 when I saw it in a movie theater.
Trying to think back. For me it was probably Tolkien as well. As it’s not expensive to buy Wagner now, it’s hard to remember how expensive these lp sets seemed to ordinarily teenagers in the late 70s! So actually hearing the operas took a long time, especially as I was in the north of Scotland. I’d record things on cassettes off radio 3, recall Goodall’s Siegfried and a Meistersinger with Sawallisch from Munich, for example. How exciting it was when I could buy the Karajan Rheingold (I still have a soft spot for it).
As for the politics, yes, perenially difficult for good reasons. You can be enormously influential in some very bad ways, and I think, alas, Wagner is as important as Marx as a late 19th century figure, as he articulated a theme of the “race struggle” that is unfortunately still with us, but which it would be foolish to simply look away from and ignore. His revolution was in terms of feeling, not rationality, and to me it is thought provoking to look at this in the face. Tolkien is a bit like this too….
I know Dave doesn't like it, but for a kid, the Flying Dutchman was exciting, the overture, the sailor's voices echoed by the horns, and the supernatural fun of Act 3. After G&S, that was my intro to Wagner and "serious" opera (Fricsay DG, in those days on American Decca.) Then Lohengrin (Act 3, oh, that's where that comes from! ). The rest was easy for me including Parsifal. With one exception--like Dave, Tristan was tough. (DG Bohm). Eventually it kicked in though I still don't get Act 3. It could have been a two act opera, Melot kills Tristan, Isolde sings the Liebestod. But I do love the surging, unresolved chromaticism of it all. Though maybe Marke needn't go on quite so long?
By the way, Nietzche's sister said that he became actually, if unwillingly enthralled by Parsifal at Bayreuth, regardless of what he said about it publicly.
Growing up, and still, I love Verdi, Mozart, Handel, Puccini and Strauss but Wagner was the gateway to it all. (And Sullivan is still glorious.)
P.S. I think I must have heard Die Walküre a hundred times and I have never once ended Act 3 without wiping tears off my silly face. So incredibly moving and beautiful. "Der Augen leuchtendes Paar" Whew!
Trust nothing that Nietzsche's sister said about him.
I've really struggled bringing Wagner into the fold because of his politics - and I am of similar background as you, so it was pretty tough for me to wrap my head around diving into the music of someone so hateful. A few things changed it for me.
1. Barenboim's lengthy essay on his site about how HE came to terms with it. Some of this goes way too far for me - I don't at all agree with DB's assumption that Wagner would NOT have been on board when he saw "how far" the Reich went with its hatred - I think that's completely presumptuous and reeks of DB just trying to come to terms with the artist vs. the person. But some of his points definitely made me rethink my stance.
2. Your video about separating the person from the music ("Why do we think artists ought to be good people")
3. The realization that I would be leaving out a huge chapter in terms of building my knowledge of how classical music evolved through the years if I chose to ignore Wagner's place in the timeline
Since then I've grown to really love his music, and just forced myself to acknowledge that sometimes really crappy people were still brilliant artists. Thanks for continuing to educate.
I can understand anyone being repelled by Wagner the man-a malignant narcissist for sure, as the term is currently bandied about. And because the man wrote the music, I can understand the aversion to the music. However something I read in a Wagner biography tempered my views a bit: A young Jewish Wagnerite committed suicide (as Wagner had written about) to atone for his birth. When told about this, Wagner was deeply horrified and shaken. Perhaps the story is apocryphal, but I realized that perhaps Wagner didn’t actually believe his own blather. Sadly, later generations took it very seriously. 🙌🫶🙏
@@thomasdeansfineart149 interesting. He’s still going to always be vile to me, but man could he write a hell of an opera.
"What's Opera, Doc?" is how I discovered Wagner, without knowing it. 😂
I’ve tried to discover Wagner, but my brain won’t let me. Maybe one day I will get it
Please. Your Elmer Fudd is too good.
But I disagree with you about Parsifal. Full of some of his most beautiful and original music, with a newfound subtlety.
Parsifal's music IS gorgeous, I agree, but the opera is atrocious.
Every time I hear Wagner I let out a Wilhelm scream. One has to admit though that Wagner does make great music for bombing villages (adding insult to injury:).
I love the 'Donald Trump' of classical music. Wonder who the 'Richard Nixon' would be....?
Someone brilliant but morally bankrupt at the end of the day. Maybe Prokofiev, who let his first wife languish in a gulag?
Excellent attempt at the right sort of answer :) @@AlexMadorsky
The Richard Nixon of opera is of course Richard Nixon (thank you, John Adams).
My discovery of Wagner was at age 15, when my music teacher (not Jewish) told me what Wagner had written about Jews in music. She said he was a horrible man. I agreed, and still agree. I have not done as well as you have, Dave; at age 81 I continue avoiding his music. Being born during the Shoah had a very strong effect.
I just can't get into him. It's all so overblown and somehow comes across as preposterous. I also feel his his egomania and toxicity as a human being seeps into the substructure of the music. I can't prove but that's the way I hear it.
I appreciate Wagner. I just don’t enjoy it.
Is that along the lines of Mark Twain's "Wagner's music is better than it sounds" ?