Posted on 11/22/2010 4:52:19 PM PST by mojito
Late in the nineteenth century, men and women in apparent possession of their senses heard Richard Wagners new operas and announced that their lives had changed forever. Charles Baudelaire saw Tannhäuser in 1861 and gushed, Listening to this impassioned, despotic music, painted upon the depths of darkness, riven by dreams, it seems like the vertiginous imaginings of opium. (Baudelaire, author of The Flowers of Evil, meant this as a compliment.) The twenty-three-year-old Gustav Mahler, after hearing Parsifal, wrote, I understood that the greatest and most painful revelation had just been made to me, and that I would carry it unspoiled for the rest of my life. For the first time in history, a composer lent his name to a cultural movement with ramifications far beyond music. As Adolf Hitler observed in 1943, At the beginning of this century there were people called Wagnerians. Other people had no special name.
Why did Wagner loom so large to his contemporaries? The answer is that he evoked, in the sensuous, intimate realm of musical experience, an apocalyptic vision of the Old World. Wagners stage works declared that the time of the Old Regime was overthe world of covenants and customs had come to an end, and nothing could or should restrain the impassioned impulse of the empowered individual. Wagners baton split the sea of European culture.
(Excerpt) Read more at firstthings.com ...
Everything you know about high culture you learned from Bugs Bunny cartoons.
"LEOPOLD!"
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http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/2631405/posts
When Jerry was singing the song, "oh what heights we'll hit, on with the show this is it", I hadn't heard it in maybe 30 years but I was singing along.
I will venture to say that anybody who proclaims not to like like Wagner's music has just not given it enough time to work on them. Unless you are well acquainted with classical music, this is not the kind of music that will thrill you on first listen.
In fact, it has taken me literally years to fully absorb and appreciate the music of Wagner. But with each listen, it grows on me a bit more and it gets less "boring" with each listen.
For novices, I would start with Das Rheingold (the beginning of the Ring cycle) and then Die Walkure (the second part of the ring) and listen to them dozens of times before starting to explore further.
Meinst du das, oder sagst du das nur?
RIDE OF THE VALKYRIES (You Tube)For some *odd reason* my foot always slowly pushed the gas pedal down.
I like Twain’s comment on Wagner.
I saw the Lepage production of Rheingold. The author’s comments are spot on. It is in HD in the cinema...you don’t even have to go to New York. Personally, I’d recommend this experience to all.
What a great reunion that’ll be! :)
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