Posted on 05/25/2013 5:24:11 AM PDT by Borges
200 years after his birth, the composer's family and fans remain split on his legacy.
He was a brilliant composer, a confirmed anti-Semite and an undeniably significant influence on the history of music. And today, he would have been 200 years old.
That man, of course, was Richard Wagner.
“Only Jesus, Napoleon and Hitler had more written about them,” said the German newspaper Die Welt’s culture affairs critic Manuel Brug recently.
Wagner is considered one of the more revered and most vilified composers in the annals of the classical music. He was not only an anti-Semite; his compositions were practically the theme music for the Third Reich. In Israel, he is boycotted.
As the 200th anniversary of his birth approached, a number of books were published on Wagner, one of the more critical volumes being written by his own great-grandson. Gottfried Wagner is a 66-year-old musicologist now living in Italy. In "You Shall Have No Other Gods Before Me," he claims that one can discern in Wagner's compositions a deep-rooted anti-Semitism as well as misogyny.
"His works contain a wide diversity of racist and sexist writings," Wagner recently told the AFP. "He developed his own racist theories. Given what we know today, one can no longer ignore the facts and state that ‘this is only beautiful music.’" Wagner the great-grandson has drawn up a forceful charge sheet against the composer, claiming that the time has come to strip away the idealism that has cloaked the composer for so long.
“I have no interest in besmirching him, but there is nothing to be gained by hiding the truth and by idealizing the man," he said. "People like Wagner should not be immune. I represent a moral stance. I refuse to participate in a soap opera."
(Excerpt) Read more at haaretz.com ...
Exactly. If you separate Streisand's singing from her politics, you have great music. Verdi's "La donna è mobile" is a tremendous aria, but misogynistic in its lyric, etc, etc.
To quote Mark Twain: “Wagner’s music is better than it sounds.”
Well said.
Notable Europeans disliked Jews? Who'd a thunk it!
William Shockley, the inventor of the transistor, had viewpoints that some regarded as racist. Therefore we should reject solid-state electronics. Step away from that PC!
LOL!!!
Amusing side note, Arthur Q Bryan, the actor who voiced Elmer Fudd, is buried here...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valhalla_Memorial_Park_Cemetery
One of his more bizarre, and this is saying a lot, films by Ken Russell, was “Lisztomania”. A weird take on the truly weird life of Franz Liszt, including his son in law, Richard Wagner.
It starred Roger Daltrey of The Who, with a cameo appearance by Ringo Starr and Oliver Reed.
Oddly enough, it roughly paralleled the life of Liszt, considered perhaps the best pianist in history, who could also be called the first rock star, leading a chaotic life that few modern rock stars could best.
Wagner was shown as a vampiric parasite on Liszt, wearing a cap with the name Nietzsche on its brow.
A fitting tribute to two bizarre guys.
Well... I can do without Streisand, even without her politics! LOL
But YES. You are RIGHT! :-)
You mean to tell me my PC isn’t PC?
It would have been good if Gottfried had said that 70 years ago. It's a little belated now. Enthusiasts for Wagner's music are still around, I'm not sure than very many people today seriously idealize Wagner the man.
Gottfried's right about his family's ugly Nazi past, but there's some unintentional comedy here. The story of Wagner's descendants and their internal struggles over control of the Bayreuth festival is very much a "soap opera." Whether Gottfried is acting from a legitimate "moral stance" or unresolved Oedipal resentment or rage at being one of the losers in the power struggles is something none of us can know.
Instrumental music can’t be racist or anti-semetic.Music *lyrics* certainly can be but various frequencies created by violins,cellos,pianos,flutes,etc simply can’t be.
music can be racist?
like rap?
oh wait, thats not music
That's correct,it's *not* music.And unlike Wagner's work,"rap" has "lyrics".Wagner might have been anti semetic,I don't know,never having studied his life.The Nazis may have adopted his works as examples of "pure Aryan art" but that reflects on the Nazis,not on Wagner.
Tony Palmer, who started out as Russell's assistant, was the good cop to Russell's bad cop or the angel to his devil, making more serious documentaries about a whole series of composers, including a television dramatization of Wagner's life (starring Richard Burton in one of his last roles).
to be fair, Wagner wrote the librettos to his operas. And those librettos have been interpreted as racialist screeds.
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