Ask Dave: Is Wagner's Music Toxic?

Is there some quality in Wagner's music that causes so many of its passionate advocates to be as obnoxious and vile as he was? It's a question that has dogged his operas since he wrote them, and it will continue to do so, I suspect. Here is my take on the matter, and I'm sure you have some thoughts as well.

[@tkengathegrateful4844]

Trust the art, mistrust the artist. Years ago, I attended a series of lectures on Wagner by a musicologist whose two specialties were Wagner and Verdi. He told a story of a reporter asking Verdi "Signore Verdi - Doctor Wagner has written two books about his theory of the theatre. Do you have a theory of the theatre?" Verdi answered, "Yes; the theatre should be full."

[@poetryonplastic]

I wish more people would just come to terms with the idea that artists do not have to be your heroes or even your friends. You don’t know them, and you don’t have to like them, that’s not how art works.

[@MDK2_Radio]

@@johnwalzer9187I hope you’re not implying that atheism is a flaw.

[@MorganHayes_Composer.Pianist]

@@MDK2_Radio or that catching syphilis/ being gay is a flaw ?!

[@MorganHayes_Composer.Pianist]

@@johnwalzer9187 Fair enough . I can see where you’re coming from .

[@Digrient]

I agree with that notion, but in the case of Wagner, who (deservedly or not - he was an anti-Semite beyond his surroundings) became really the poster boy of German Nationalism and Hitler’s special pretext for everything (we all know the heartbreaking results) - even more scrutiny is okay to be applied onto that particular composer/playwright.

[@willsingourd2523]

True but sad...

[@carmel1629]

Interesting talk. I would say Wagner was TOXIC BUT his music is INTOXICATING.

[@Bachback]

As an inhabitant of Planet Haydn, I sometimes take out my telescope to view Planet Wagner. One day I may visit.

[@ericleiter6179]

But you can still rest assured that there 's no place like home...I know, cause I live there too!!!

[@Anvanho]

My first exploration of the Ring, was by reading through it first! The plot(s) intertwine and snowball into a fury, it felt to me, I couldn't put the libretto down! After familiarizing myself with the story, I then dove into the music, and followed it along. There's everything and everyone in there! Gods; dwarfs; giants; maidens; half-brothers; half-sisters; serpents; dragons .. sheesh, just everything but a used car salesman, and he might even be there, might've just missed him.

[@johkkarkalis8860]

Good point. The "Ring" does travel well, in spite of the efforts of some manic directors to distort the epic out of shape. I don't know if used car salesmen have made an appearance in Valhalla, but hookers certainly have, as Rhinemaidens plying their trade at the base of a hydroelectric dam. Flosshilde as a madam? Say it ain't so!

[@jaykauffman4775]

As a Wagnerian I would say your post is excellent and makes perfect sense

[@curseofmillhaven1057]

My goodness there's so many artist's who I wouldn't want to have dinner with, but profoundly enjoy their work!

[@Hojotoho.Yall504]

I agree. I’m listening to his music, not inviting him over for dinner.

[@marks1417]

Probably the most clear-headed commentary on RW I've ever read. It's why I keep coming back to this channel.

[@MDK2_Radio]

I don’t intend this as boosting another channel, so please don’t delete this! Over at Colorado Mahlerfest’s KZbin channel, the artistic director has a lecture “Should Wagner Be Cancelled?” (spoiler alert, the answer is “no”) that I found very informative. It goes a bit more into depth about what Wagner’s music is all about as well as what kind of person be was. Recommended if you’d like more of a lecture than a chat on the subject.

[@Hojotoho.Yall504]

I get really frustrated that Wagner can’t be discussed without detouring into what an awful person he was every time. It’s all been said, but that’s not always the topic at hand. Thank you for addressing this. I love all of Wagner’s mature operas and he’s easily my favorite composer, but I have no desire to read his essays or another biography. Another great discussion. Thank you.

[@DavesClassicalGuide]

Yes, but that is Wagner's fault. He brought it on himself, unfortunately.

[@Hojotoho.Yall504]

@@DavesClassicalGuide​​⁠​​⁠ I agree it’s appropriate that his legacy is marred by his awfulness. I should have said he can’t be mentioned, not discussed, without detouring… I was thinking of comments like, ”I just got back from the Met, where I saw Norma, Falstaff, and Lohengrin,” and someone needs to throw it in *there*. Enjoy your weekend!

[@timyork6150]

Thanks for that take on the paradox which has been troubling me for many years. That is how to reconcile the evidence that Wagner was a self-centred, ultra-nationalist, racist and highly manipulative person with his creation of works of such transcendental power and beauty showing such an extraordinary ability to reflect the transitory light and shade of experience. I have yet to find a balanced biography which clarifies this; they are either too idolatry or too critical. If Wagner had not had this single minded drive to ride rough shod over any obstacles to the promotion of his art, much of it might never have been composed or, still less, staged. Collateral damage went as high as the "suicide" of the king of Bavaria but with the collateral benefit of some fantastic castles. As an anecdotal aside, one of the neighbours of my parents in their retirement was a godson of Richard Wagner. I knew him in the 60s and early 70s when he was well over 80. He was Rear-Admiral Hubert Dannreuther, whose father Edward was of German origin and a friend of Wagner but settled with a flourishing career in Victorian England. On Hubert's birth, Edward received a message from Wagner "congratulations on the birth of the new Wagnerian"! Another interesting fact about Hubert was that he was gunnery officer on HMS Invincible and one of 6 survivors when the ship blew up at the Battle of Jutland in 1916. I think that Hubert attached far more importance to his naval career than to his Wagnerian links.

[@johkkarkalis8860]

Thanks for the great family anecdote. Wagner is indeed one of those characters difficult to hold in equipoise. You love him or despise him. Another story, possibly anecdotal, was an extraordinary statement by the Fuhrer himself: "To understand me, to understand national socialism you must know Wagner". Ouch! Can you listen to works like "Meistersinger " or "Parsifal" entirely divorced from the baleful associations that go with this composer? At 83 I am much too old to be able to hold two mutually antagonistic thoughts simultaneously. When I saw Wagner performed on stage with the Metropolitan Opera I was overcome by the man's genius. When I see archival footage in stark black and white of the Nuremberg trials with their graphic testimony I wonder if I am truly a member of an enlightened species.

[@quaver1239]

Shanah Tovah, Dave Hurwitz. Thank you, thank you, thank you. 💕

[@MrDale53]

By some miracle, Wagner's personal vileness didn't influence his operas or his music. His opera plots are legendary and mythological (some say, archetypal); they seem to have come from some deeper place in him than his loonytunes conscious mind.

[@johkkarkalis8860]

Mr Dale, perhaps "myth" is impressed on the human genome, given that all civilizations had foundation stories - not subject to value judgment. Indeed, Wagner had his looney tunes moments, but his message had universal significance. Richard Wagner was made of resilient stuff, given the less than gentle treatment at the hands of an Eduard Hanslick. In the end even Hanslick admitted "Meistersinger" was a smashing success.

[@danyelnicholas]

You realise that CG Jung‘s archetype and Rosenberg‘s myth are genuinely fascist concepts?

[@johkkarkalis8860]

@@danyelnicholas There was, anecdotally, a joke passed around among the Nazi bigwigs that two people in the entire Third Reich read "The Myth of the Twentieth Century" , Alfred Rosenberg and Mrs. Rosenberg. He was considered a muddle-headed sort. I haven't read the Myth of the Twentieth Century. It's unlikely that I will. I understand that it's a very long screed attempting to show why the "Herrnvolk" should rule the globe. He borrowed some of his ideas from Houston Stewart Chamberlain who had connections to the Wagner family. Siegfried as archetype for the 20th century German male? Hm!

[@RossM3838]

Wagner called his personal bigotries “a poison” So he did have a grasp on why it must be left out of the music, for the most part.

[@Goetterdaemmerung86]

@@johkkarkalis8860 I believe, a triple paraphrased statement if you will, someone paraphrased Carl Jung who paraphrased Nietzsche. “People don’t have ideas, ideas have people.”

[@dennischiapello3879]

I'm so glad you gave a shout-out to Alex Ross's Wagnerism. Fabulous book. Ross' music criticism in general is perceptive, and he's a truly gifted writer.

[@craigkowald3055]

I have the book and it is next on my reading list.

[@ozoz9582]

There is no toxic music only toxic listeners…

[@MDK2_Radio]

Give Skrewdriver a listen and see if you still feel that way. 😉

[@Warp75]

@@MDK2_RadioNa they are just crap.

[@MDK2_Radio]

@@Warp75crap’s toxic…

[@Warp75]

@@MDK2_Radio Anyone that’s into Screwdriver probably need good psychological help.

[@adamfrye246]

I believe I have heard toxic chord progressions in popular music which create an unhealthy sense of satisfying effect, because those progressions weren't based on the idea of departure and return-the return being the satisfying part-the way music is traditionally written. (I am talking about something simple, not advanced). Instead it was something like deceptive cadences being used to tonicize a key instead of an effect of departure, or an elided cadence that didn't continue with anything reckonizable. It was like a musically theoritical snake slithering around in a toxic way. If true, the music itself was toxic, not just the way it seemed.

[@bloodgrss]

Wagner thought the world owed his genius a living, no matter how much money it took or what lies he told! Perhaps it did; he was a great composer. But what a despicable personality he was. The Alex Ross book is marvelous. May I also suggest, to any who wishes to look into the man and his music further, you could also do no better than reading 'Wagner: As Man and Artist' by the great English critic (and contemporary of Dave's rightly oft-quoted Donald Tovey) Ernest Newman. 1914, rev. 1924. It is both biography and musical critique, and written in a trenchant, witty, and brilliant style that makes it so readable today for musicians and laypersons alike. It really gives you a further sense of the fascinating man he was along the lines Dave is speaking of here. Well worth seeking out despite its age.

[@AlexMadorsky]

L’shana Tovah, Dave! I’ll put it this way…I won’t be ringing in the New Year with Dick Wagner. His music and thoughts helped to fuel National Socialism, so I personally choose to pass on listening to his music, but I don’t begrudge those who feel differently. Maybe this is an easy choice for me since I’m not an opera fan. In any event, enjoy some apples, honey, and challah!

[@scottgilesmusic]

Super video. I appreciate your keen insights and vast musical experience.

[@theoryjoe1451]

In the immortal words of Dr. Evil: "How 'bout NO!"

[@LEGITLEGEND4]

Very happy to hear you praise Alex Ross & Wagnerism. It is a terrific work and one of the best looks at Wagner, his work & beyond!

[@NancyW726]

Thank you! Lots of great points - I appreciate your point of view.

[@jgesselberty]

I enjoy Wagner. I have all of his stage works, including Die Feen, Das Liebesverbot and Rienzi. Yet I feel there is not a single work, which he could not have tightened up and trimmed a little, with the possible exception of Das Rheingold.

[@DavesClassicalGuide]

That's probably true.

[@josecarmona9168]

I absolutely agree!!

[@michaelotruba1308]

Doubtless, experiencing Wagner’s operas require stamina.“ Trimming” reminds me of that scene in AMADEUS when Mozart’s jaw drops at the comment from the Emperor about “too many notes…just cut a few and it will be perfect.” The screenwriter’s reply from Mozart “ Which notes did Your Majesty have in mind?” was pure gold, and goes unanswered. A work of fiction, but a dead accurate commentary on the artist’s perception of some criticism. I’m sure there are those who might quibble about the number of people painted in “The Night Watch,” or the degree to which Michelangelo’s David has his head turned, or the length of THE ILIAD.

[@Anvanho]

I sat fifth row center in a performance hall in Karlsruhe a few years ago and heard Das Rheingold! You don’t just see the brass section from there … you don’t just hear the brass section from there, you FEEL it! OMG! That final triumphant ascension to the heavens at the end!! Good lord, what music!

[@tkengathegrateful4844]

I agree - Das Rheingold might just be perfect.

[@bbailey7818]

I had a music and opera loving friend, but not a Wagnerian, who marveled at a man who could get people to act like him more than a century after his death. This was occasioned by a speech Glynn Ross gave onstage before one of the Seattle Ring operas, urging silence and unobtrusive behavior throughout the performance. And my friend had a good point. Why would you do that for Wagner but not for Mozart for heaven's sake? Or Verdi? I do wish we knew as little about Wagner the person as we do about Shakespeare, though.

[@Leakey57]

I have a theory that once upon a time society had the 'right shape' with the appropriate people in the appropriate positions: churchmen, policemen, doctors, politicians, philosophers, artists. Then we decided to lop off an office, and its function devolved on other offices unsuited to the purpose. So now we demand that policemen, doctors, politicians, philosophers be the ultimate Model of Ethics: blameless and authoritative. And even insist that our great artists be well above the mean minded average, not well below it.

[@robertmcmanus636]

Given recent events in the classical music world revolving around the NY Phil and sexual assault and all the online chatter by entitled individuals in positions of power (by way of their standing in the musician community), some of whom have actually paid the price of their obnoxious behavior by being fired, I'm convinced most of classical music is tainted and besmirched by the behavior of prominent musicians who consider themselves bigshots beyond the reach of any rules or decency. I'm utterly disillusioned, not just by those occurrences, but by my own personal experiences as a musician and would say almost ALL classical music culture is toxic.

[@DavesClassicalGuide]

No, classical music is hardly unique. It's the entertainment industry generally. Compared to what happens in popular music, television or film, this is nothing.

[@robertmcmanus636]

@@DavesClassicalGuide Well, it's SOMETHING to me. And it shows how scummy the whole scene is. People getting gigs through special "favours", random dismissal for not being part of the gang, conductors acting like f---heads(and getting away with it), conductors molesting boy choristers, people so uptight about not getting rehired they come to rehearsal sick as a dog, complete dismissal of musician concerns regarding work environment...the list goes on. And this is nothing new. Musicians, ironically, are probably treated better now than in the past. Why, given what we know, would we think classical music has a moral leg to stand on? I'm more disillusioned, more disgusted, than I've ever been. I guess I've been naive...

[@dmntuba]

BRAVO!!! Well said, sir👍 I will continue to listen & luv the music, but if I was leaving a performance of the ring a found Wagner on fire in the parking lot I wouldn't even stop to pee on him.🤣 And this past Thursday I picked up a new/used copy of Szell's highlights from the Ring with Cleveland...Good Stuff👍

[@georgesdelatour]

An excellent take. I think we have to be able to find value in the work of people whose beliefs or behaviour we dislike intensely. The worst thing is to try and argue that 1) Wagner was a bad person 2) therefore his chord progressions must somehow suck. A personal note. I’m probably about as non-Wagnerian as it’s possible to be. I like early music, Bach, Stravinsky, Steve Reich. I struggle with the sound of full-on “wobbly-jelly” vibrato singing, and I know that closes off a lot of great music to me. But in my second year at university, I had to study a Wagner opera - there were no course options which would get me out of it. So I went to see Tristan and Isolde. In spite of all my priors, I found the music absolutely amazing. To me it sounded like a beautiful orchestral tone poem, even if I had to put up with some annoying people wailing in German over the top of it! But even heard like that, it was incredible. Even though I’m still no Wagnerian, I’m glad I got to know some of Wagner’s music. You spot echoes of it in the most unlikely places. Debussy in particular has a fascinating attraction-repulsion to Wagner’s music.

[@jonathanhenderson9422]

Wagner's music is undoubtedly one of the pinnacles of Western art. It's a shame that music had to be made by a flawed human rather than a perfect god, but it is what it is. We don't always get the best art from the artists we'd most like/admire as people. As huge a fan as I am of Wagner's music I don't see much to like or admire about him as a person from what I know of his life and personality. Intellectually I can appreciate the influence he took from Schopenhauer and artistically I can really enjoy and appreciate how he incorporated that philosophy into his music and overall aesthetic conceptions. I always liked what he said about art's relationship with religion when he said: "When religion becomes artificial, art has a duty to rescue it. Art can show that the symbols which religions would have us believe literally true are actually figurative. Art can idealize those symbols, and so reveal the profound truths they contain," which seems eternally relevant in cultures full of religious fundamentalists... but beyond that I don't think Wagner was a thinker of much note.

[@goonbelly5841]

I could care less what kind of person Wagner (or any other composer) was, I just don't like his music. Camille Saint-Saens was reputed to have been a pedophile but I still like his music. A lot of people who lived hundreds of years ago had attitudes and habits that would be considered unacceptable by today's standards (social progress takes time) but that didn't prevent them from creating great art that can be appreciated today and for all times.

[@aaronrabushka2180]

Some years ago I saw a man on a plane carrying a pamphlet (which I still haven't read) called "Richard Wagner--the Terrible Man and his Wonderful Art." I think that sums up the situation.

[@hannureittu4310]

When i learned about Wagner's cult, i thought, 'ok, i'll be Weill's fan", and almost got there! Totally agree with Dave

[@ljiljanastanic9076]

Dear Mr.Hurwitz,you say that:There is nothing behind music,music is music-I think the same,I just say it in different words-Music is abowe everything ,above all arts-as Beethoven also thought ...Before I started to I adore wonderful,magical beauty of music,I loved literature and poetry the most.When I heard Wagner,I realized that MUSIC IS ABOVE POETRY.

[@clementewerner]

For me the paradox of Wagner the man, is that while he comes across as arrogant, needy, with offensive opinions he was not shy to broadcast, he also had devoted friends. Some of them may have needed him for professional reasons, as in working in the world of music and opera. But if he was so vile, and setting aside the kind of besotted fans that drove Nietzsche away- why did people seek him out and become friends with him? Was he generous with money, which he seems to have spent as soon as he got it? Did he have a sense of humour to make him good company? There must be answers that mitigate the worst aspects of his character, though he his hardly alone in having a bad reputation as a person. Interesting talk, anyway, Dave, and thanks for doing it.

[@alexsandroalvesartecultura5116]

Eu amo Wagner, é meu compositor preferido entre todos! E amo ouvir você falando sobre ele.

[@Cleekschrey]

Great points. Reminds me of the silly criticisms of Stockhausen.

[@melodymaker135]

Great piece Dave

[@apv4179]

Off topic, but will you ever do a “Best Carter 8 pieces for 4 timpani?” It’s been recorded a few times now…

[@DavesClassicalGuide]

I have no plans to do it.

[@johnhoie-hj7cg]

I’ve sat through the entire Ring cycle plus The Flying Dutchman, and listened to a recording of Tristan und Isolde. Sorry to say, but I’m immune. I don’t feel the need to defend myself or attack his fans. But for me, his music is the sonic equivalent of watching grass grow.

[@michaelsilverstone5710]

Well done Dave:)

[@classicallpvault8251]

The often heard argument is that Wagner was an anti-semite and his thinking preceded that of Hitler. What these same people forget to mention, is that, politically, he was a leftist and an avid follower of Mikhail Bakunin, and was a fugitive from Saxon authorities because he took part in revolutionary activities in 1848-1849 and had to be pardoned via the help of Ludwig II of Bavaria, before he relocated back to Germany in the 1860s. Politically progressive people who attack him, as well as right-wing authoritarians who defend him, would both be ideologically at odds with him. Yes, he was an anti-semite and highly nationalistic, but he was also an anarchist and not at all politically conservative.

[@gsdavis91]

Saying Wagner was a leftist is an oversimplification. The left and right wings of romanticism are often deeply (and paradoxically) intertwined, and this is particularly true of its German forms. For example, romantics might agree that the prevailing political and economic conditions needed to be changed; and one might well say that they were speaking truth to power and seeking reforms, all of which we instinctively think of as leftist. But, upon closer examination, their vision of the future was often deeply reactionary, and involved utopian idealizations of the Middle Ages, kingship, and feudalism. In other words, their socialist "futurism" was often primitivism. In order to go radically forward, they wanted to go radically backwards in a return to "purer" forms of society. In England, this complicated strain of Romanticism is apparent in Carlyle, who was idolized by leftists and democratic utopian reformers (Whitman worshipped him and called him the most important man since Christ), and at the same time was a bigoted, racist, pro-slavery reactionary luddite, who hated almost every aspect of modernity. I recall one of Wagner's letters (written in Italy) in which he rejoices at the absence of everything modern, which he equates with filth and decadence--this coming from the composer who paints himself as a futurist and did more to usher in modernism in music than any other composer. This isn't a simple man who operates using geometrically precise thinking--his thinking is deeply inconsistent. He is even inconsistent on the matter of Anti-Semitism. Sometimes he writes as if he were a millenarian pacifist, other times as a chauvinist militarist who rejoiced with bloodthirsty glee in the destruction of Paris. That's Wagner: just your everyday reactionary, right-wing, leftist, utopian, anti-modernist, futurist, monarchist, nationalist, cosmopolitan, egalitarian elitist.

[@MichaelGilman489]

That there have historically been far-left wing antisemites will be of no news value to any Jews, even far left wing Jews. I thought the point of this video was pretty straightforward, and bringing up these irrelevant side issues like “conservative-or-not?” feels like defensiveness.

[@67Parsifal]

This point needs to be made to the people who accuse Wagner of being a ‘fascist’, something he never was nor ever could have been. To the end of his life, he was committed to the left.

[@MDK2_Radio]

What’s “left” and “right” changes over time. All who were for American independence were liberal, including the slave owners who didn’t view Africans as equals. To be conservative meant to be a royalist. Such was it in the 19th Century too, but as ideas progress, what was once liberal becomes conservative. That’s the source of the notion that people become conservative as they age; in fact, they believe in much the same things they did when younger but the milieu is what changed.

[@nandinibagai7636]

​@67Parsifal which changes what exactly?

[@clavichord]

Let's face it, which other composer has written such beautiful, deeply romantic music to an incestuous love relationship between a brother and a sister?

[@robertjones447]

I would say any music that impels violence against wabbits, causing them to die of lead poisoning, is toxic indeed.

[@leestamm3187]

In "What's Opera, Doc?" The wabbit is killed by winds, storms, lightning bolts, and smog, not lead poisoning, unless the smog had some suspended lead particulates. No firearms were involved. 😁

[@robertjones447]

@@leestamm3187 You have exposed my shoddy musicology, Lee! 😅

[@tkengathegrateful4844]

@@leestamm3187 I believe that a spear and magic helmet were also involved.

[@leestamm3187]

@@tkengathegrateful4844 Correct. He stabs ineffectually with his spear into Bug's wabbit hole early in the proceedings. Later, his magic helmet gives him the power to invoke the storms, winds, lightning and smog by means of loud, frenzied incantations, accompanied by broad baton-like gestures with his spear. Out of this barrage, Bugs ultimately is struck down by a lightning bolt. All to Wagner music, of course.

[@leestamm3187]

People can be separated from the things they do, whether in art, music, literature, or science. Would we reject a cure for cancer because the one who developed it was a vile and repellent person? I don't think so, nor should we. The same is true for artistic expression. Wagner created some wonderful music. The fact that he was a world class jerk is irrelevant.

[@ericleiter6179]

Great analogy...very well put!!!

[@MDK2_Radio]

I respect anyone’s opinion if they simply can’t stomach Wagner based on extramusical reasons like who he was, what he said, or his association with the Nazis (though of course that’s not really his fault, having died 50 years before Hitler’s rise). But be straight and honest about that. Please don’t intellectualize your gut response. Gut reactions are valid, intellectual games of Capture the Flag aren’t. That goes for everything, not just music or other art that’s supposed to be highbrow.

[@goodmanmusica2]

if a person listens to Wagner's music (or anyone else's) for the first time without knowing anything about the author, he will be able to judge him only in musical terms, everything else is irrational suggestion. music can only be judged by musical parameters.

[@DavesClassicalGuide]

One would think...

[@adamfrye246]

Of course, so if someone asked "What would Mozart have thought of Gotterdammerung", I would have said he might have thought it was so unsubtle as to be crude but that's really what I think. But I wouldn't be the only one to think something like that, because I'm not the one who asked the question. So a reasonable answer would be if you think it might be, it probably is to a certain extent. And that is just based on the way the music sounds without a John Cage expanded idea of what kinds of sounds music can consist of.

[@duncanrichardson2167]

In W's mature work there is an overmastering insistence, a lust to assert which comes close to attempting the subjugation of the listener. In short, there is an assertion of will, which is widely felt to be unique in music, and perhaps unique in art. Very many people have found it alienating, even repellent, and on the whole this is the characteristic of Wagner’s work which those who dislike it dislike most. This assertion of will was very attractive to Hitler.

[@adamfrye246]

@@duncanrichardson2167 And that''s a musical effect maintained through a certain starkness of tone.

[@jimslancio]

First: I totally agree that Wagner is Donald Trump as a great composer. I was thinking that, myself. Second: While I love Wagner's music and believe it's great for the reasons you give, I deny the prevailing attitude that it's deep. I believe it's just the opposite. I'd call it "high concept," that is, having a premise that can be explained in under ten seconds. Composing by creating a tapestry of leitmotives is a high concept premise. A big part of Wagner's greatness is that he thought of composing that way.

[@atrampabroad8318]

"Does some of that vileness leach into his music?" For the most part it doesn't, but the character of Beckmesser (clearly "inspired" by the Jewish music critic Eduard Hanslick) is a pretty clear instance where his anti-Semitism leached into his music.

[@MDK2_Radio]

What specifically about Beckmesser’s characterization is antisemitic?

[@DavesClassicalGuide]

No, he's just a jerk. Opera is full of jerks.

[@petterw5318]

@@MDK2_Radio Plus a Jew would never have been a Meistersinger, so he's a gentile.

[@MDK2_Radio]

@@petterw5318because of the Guild rules? I’m trying to understand why a Jew couldn’t be a Meistersinger otherwise.

[@MDK2_Radio]

I’m still interested in what atrampabroad8318 believes is antisemitic about Beckmesser’s character. Wagner was lampooning Hanslick’s notion that music had to adhere to rules to be good. That’s why Beckmesser is so pedantic. Pedantry isn’t among the usual stereotypes. So what is?

[@eddihaskell]

Just as it got on Wagner's grossly antisemitic nerves that his patron, King Ludwig of Bavaria, insisted that the great Jewish conductor Hemann Levi premier his penultimate work Parsifal at Bayreuth in 1882, it would severely get on his nerves that conductors with Jewish backgrounds including Gustav Mahler, Bruno Walter (Schlesinger), George Solti, Daniel Barenboim, James Levine -- and others would become associated with his work. Was Wagner a nutcase bigot? Yes. Was his work played in the concentration camps? Reportedly yes. Are there direct references to antisemitism in his Operas (or any racism). No! You have to really stretch your imagination to find them in The Ring, Parsifal, or even Meistersinger. But there is something liberating about not surrendering great art to politics.

[@67Parsifal]

Wagner chose Levi HIMSELF to conduct Parsifal. Do you seriously think Wagner would have allowed Parsifal, of all his works, to be conducted by a ‘court appointee’? Wagner and Levi became friends and Levi was one of the pall-bearers at Wagner’s funeral. Although a Jew, he was given entry to Haus Wahnfried. As with the stage designer Paul Joukovsky, Wagner wouldn’t allow his ‘anti-Semitism’ to blind him to the talents of potential collaborators.

[@MDK2_Radio]

@@67Parsifalthat’s untrue. Wagner needed the Munich Opera’s musicians and other staff to perform Parsifal, and Ludwig made Levi part of the deal. Wagner absolutely fought that but had no choice. After he surrendered to that, he tried to persuade Levi to convert to Christianity. It was only after he heard Levi’s conducting that he finally came around. Levi became the de facto Parsifal conductor for many years, but eventually Cosima’s antisemitism, which was as vile as that of any brownshirt, got to be too much for him to bear.

[@MDK2_Radio]

Parsifal would correctly be described as his ultimate work. “Penultimate” means second to last, ultimate means last. But spot on comment.

[@eddihaskell]

Thank you for that! You improved my vocabulary!@@MDK2_Radio

[@walterht8083]

I think his plots do express his beliefs. Choosing Tristan and Isolde as subject matter, and the Hundig, Sigmund, Siegline trio story, imo proves he held the institution of traditional marriage as a binding contract between two people in very low regard. The heroes are the marriage breakers.

[@DavesClassicalGuide]

And Salome was a mall chick, Puccini a serial killer of women.

[@Bigandrewm]

I haven't done a deep dive into Wagner's music. I did recently give Der Ring des Nibelungen a try and I gave up after about halfway-through the 2nd scene. I found the music to be weirdly minimalistic and in a boring way, and the plot of the first scene meandered and just came off as really lazy writing. The dwarf Alberich flirts with the Rhine maidens who want nothing to do with him - fine. Then Alberich sees gold, gets blocked by said maidens who tell him straight-out that they'll let him have at the gold if he convinces one of them to fall in love with him, then after some painful negotiating, Alberich gives up on being nice, just pushes past the maidens (what happened to their ability to protect the gold???) and nabs it - so why did they bother with all the stupid flirting and posturing in the first place?? The set, costumes, and singers were all way better than what I saw of the actual opera. It's just not for me.

[@DavesClassicalGuide]

If you expect logic and reasonableness, you will never understand opera, never mind Wagner.

[@ferrisburgh802]

It would be easy to take an hour from Siegfried and Die Walkure and those cuts would not have a negative affect on the Ring in total.

[@bbailey7818]

IMO, cuts never improve anything. They only misrepresent works. As Schoenberg rightly said, cuts don't make long works seem short, they only make them seem short in places.

[@caleblaw2331]

I personally don't like Wagner operas. The overtures are great and I enjoy listening to those. But I prefer operas with singing lyrical melodies and I cannot relate to those Germanic mythology themes

[@rg3388]

Even if I were a cult member, the focus would be on the music. It would never occur to me to hang a portrait of Wagner on my wall. Instead, I would frame and mount a page of score. The man himself can go . . . fly a kite.

[@ronnyskaar3737]

Music is not toxic. But there is something about Wagner's music that makes me want to invade Poland.

[@duncanrichardson2167]

see my comment made on 20/9/2023 duncanrichardson2167

[@Digrient]

Some have argued that Wagner refrained from infusing not only his music, but also the dramas, with his vile personal antisemitism, for business reasons - after all, he heavily depended on Jewish support, not only as financial patrons, but also as invaluable creative collaborators such as (you mentioned that) the Jewish Hermann Levi, whom he chose (with more than a little push from major sponsor, gay King Ludwig II., who provided the orchestra) for the premiere of his last opera, “Parsifal”.

[@Digrient]

I may be overstating the obvious, but of course it’s not only about being Wagner’s MUSIC toxic (essential sponsor, arguably without whom we wouldn’t speak about Wagner today, later King Ludwig II., as a juvenile, fell in love with the /words/, without having heard a single note of music).

[@MDK2_Radio]

It’s one of those points that exists because it’s easy to allege without making much effort to prove it. It’s a credible notion but as far as I can see, there’s no real proof. They can try to point to Beckmesser and say he’s a Jewish stereotype, but it’s far too subtle to be sussed out if that’s what Wagner was thinking. What’s funny (or sad) is that many classic operas had some racism in them. Some of it was kept in relatively recent productions. In the 90s the Met put on and videorecorded The Magic Flute with Monostatos, a lustful Moor, performed in blackface (with Kathleen Battle as Pamina in the same production). “A More Humane Mikado” from The Mikado has a rhyme featuring the N word in its original text. I’ve heard recordings where it’s left in. There are other examples I’m sure, things like this that are far worse than anything present in Wagner’s operas, but nobody sweats those works or their composers and librettists. So unless someone turns up a letter or diary entry from Wagner saying “I really wanted to go after the Jews in X drama but had to hold back,” it’s not something I accept as true.

[@Digrient]

@@MDK2_RadioThat is really a good and common point about the Wagner reception: If Wagner had meant some of his characters as vile-Jewish, nobody in his own or immediate subsequent time (and there are libraries to be filled with Wagner reception at that time) had picked up on that. So at least he failed then.

[@davidaiken1061]

An insightful and provocative talk. You remind me, Dave, that there are two conflicting traditions on the question of the topic of "music and morals." You can trace them back to ancient sources East and West. One tradition, typified by Plato, asserts that certain types, styles, "modes" of music (I mean music qua music) can either corrupt or ennoble the soul. At the extreme one might cite the Taliban who have recently banned all music because they believe the art form itself is inherently corrupting. On the other hand you have those who assert that music "qua music" has no moral significance. So on the latter view Wagner can be criticized as a megalomaniac and anti-Semite, but the "notes themselves" the actual sounds that emanate from his scores as performed do not, and cannot partake of those vices. The latter position seems to be yours, Dave, and, on the whole I am in agreement. However, you didn't take into account Wagner's new kind of operatic creation as "Gesamtkunstwerk." My question is: can we distinguish, indeed separate, the texts, characterizations, and stage action from the "notes themselves."? Is not Wagner's music, qua music, implicated in the anti)-Semitic tropes and German nationalism that surface from time to time in the action, characterization, and rhetoric of, for instance, Hans Sachs? I don't have anything like an answer to this question, but it is a relevant one, it seems to me.

[@bbailey7818]

There is nothing anti-Semitic in anything Hans Sachs says or does. He is the liberal force in the opera set against the pedantry and bigotry of some of the other characters. Probably the greatest Sachs in the history of the work, Friedrich Schorr, was Jewish. The character himself has been portrayed as Jewish as with Stephen Wadsworth's production years ago in Seattle. It worked beautifully.

[@arnausubiracanaleta3162]

Would this also aply for the Bach people? I find there to be a diference between the Wagner/Bruckner cults and the Bach entusiasts. I feel that the sense of intellectual superiority that Bach offers stops them from being that kind of nasty human beings the Wagnerians and Brucknerians are. Don't get me wrong, I adore Bach and I play it almost every day, but you know what I mean...

[@gregorystanton6150]

“Intellectual superiority” sounds cultish to me. I see no difference in any of these cults.

[@paulbrower]

@@gregorystanton6150 It is "intellectual superiority" to push genuine science over pseudoscience or to promote rich culture over drivel. Such is justifiable. To claim moral superiority for such is inappropriate.

[@DavesClassicalGuide]

I agree.

[@gregorystanton6150]

@@paulbrower One man’s drivel is another’s champagne. Certain Bach enthusiasts are just as cultish as the rest. When you are in a place where you believe an artist, composer, can do no wrong, you are in a cult. Fact is, Bach wrote a lot of drivel. The trash-to-masterpiece ratio is uncommonly high, beaten perhaps only by Liszt. Brandenburgs are great, the orchestral suites are fine but boring compared to Telemann’s more colorful offerings, and the cantatas, save for a handful, are dreary snoozefests. Yes, Bach was a genius who wrote some great, impeccably-crafted music, but the cult of Bach worshippers when you lay out the facts, drop their dentures and begin insulting you. “Well obviously you lack the intellectual superiority to appreciate…”. I hate these people. Also the cults of Celibidache and Callas. And I will also go so far as to state that anyone who really believes that Mozart just picked up a violin when he was three and began playing without any lessons (rather than knowing this was just a fiction created by Leopold to sell more tickets to their concerts) is also in a cult.

[@reneblom2160]

"The Donald Trump of music". Ecxellent ! 😆👍

[@michaelsmith4854]

A very enjoyable talk. Enjoyed it 👏👏👏