Wagner & Beethoven

[Chaszz]

Originally posted by Rod:
It was an honest response Chaszz. The fact is, if I thought there was any strong connection between the music of Beethoven and Wagner I'd probably like Wagners music. Of course there is the phenomenon of the 'Wagnerisation' of Beethoven's music to consider. Trouble is to my my mind most of B's output does not stand up to this kind of interpretation, which is probably why so many people have told me they think Beethoven is boring. No one can or, I predict, will, be able to say any of the Beethoven mp3s presented at the 'authentic music' page are boring. Beethoven symphonies sould be, in a way, scary. A shock factor and dynamism is required that you never hear in late Romantic music. If you heard Saval's Eroica you'd be shocked for sure!

I know it's an honest response. What is your take on the droves of listeners who flock to Bayreuth every year and endure hard seats and heat to hear the music the way Wagner intended; who buy Bach CDs; who love Brahms, Mendelssohn, Schubert, Mozart, Shostakovitch, Prokofiev, Telemann, Haydn, Bruckner, and many other composers who are not Handel and Beethoven. Are these people

1. Fashionable dilettantes who pretend to love things they don't understand

2. Degenerate representatives of a decadent era

3. Superficial people who confuse a pretty melody with real music

4. Deparaved lovers of bloated horn writing

5. People who have not had the advantage of hearing Beethoven and Handel on period instruments by good bands.

6. People who hear something in the music that you don't

or what...

If you answer no. 5, well I've heard those works on this board and your Handel site and while I like them a lot it hasn't lessened my love for other composers. And I daresay if you query members of this site or your Handel site they'll also say they like the mp3s but they still listen to other composers also.

So I still ask, what is your take on all these listeners?

By the way, I lsitened to the funeral march on Amazon and it sounded like the funeral march I already know...

Chaszz


[This message has been edited by Chaszz (edited August 02, 2003).]

[Sorrano]

Originally posted by Amalie:

My husband thinks that the greatest modern
conductor of the 'Ring' is James Lavine and the Chicago Symphony.
I shall be interested to know who your favourite conductor is Chaszz?

Lysander.

[This message has been edited by Amalie (edited July 31, 2003).]

Some years ago Levine and the Met performed the Ring which was presented on PBS. I was fortunate enough to see most of it and was deeply moved by the entire drama. While Solti is highly recommended by critics (I've purchased the CD recording but haven't listened to it yet) he has much to do to outperform the Levine version. As a result I finally coughed up the money to buy the DVD version (now available on Amazon) as well as the Levine version of Parsifal on DVD. These are very fine performances.

[spaceray]

Do you remember what year this was broadcast on PBS '82 or '83 I dimly recall.
We had a big party and watched all....how many
hours of opera was this?,I remember it seemed to go on all through the week end.I didn't watch it all as I was in charge of the catering and up to my ears in dirty dishes for most of the party.Wagnerites are a very interesting group ,very diverse and very passionate about their Hero.

[Tito]

Wagner wrote two symphonies, in his youth.
One in Do Mayor, another one in Mi Mayor.
They are not anything to go out of your way to listen to, technically very "basic". I have a 10 yrs. old CD of them, by the Tokyo Symphony.

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Tito

"Without music, life would be a mistake", Nietzsche

[Joy]

Originally posted by spaceray:
[B] Do you remember what year this was broadcast on PBS '82 or '83 I dimly recall.
We had a big party and watched all....how many hours of opera was this?B]

I watched this entire production myself on PBS and was fascinated by it. I remember the stages and scenes were out of this world and the music was something equally as wonderful. If I recall it was in the mid 80's perhaps? About 8 hrs. long? I remember it took like 5 or 6 evenings to watch it. I think my brother taped it as he is almost as big a Wagnerite as Chaszz!

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'Truth and beauty joined'

[Rod]

Originally posted by Chaszz:

So I still ask, what is your take on all these listeners?
[/B]

If I am to chose from the list you have supplied, from my concert going experience No.3 would come nearest, and these were largely Beethoven concerts!

Originally posted by Chaszz:
By the way, I lsitened to the funeral march on Amazon and it sounded like the funeral march I already know...

Chaszz
[/B]

Strange you can gather so much from a few seconds of an ultra low-resolution sound file. I've heard nothing like this recording even in comparison with other period instrument efforts.

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"If I were but of noble birth..." - Rod Corkin

[This message has been edited by Rod (edited August 04, 2003).]

[Rod]

Originally posted by spaceray:
Wagnerites are a very interesting group ,very diverse and very passionate about their Hero.

They did a TV documentary here on British Wagnerites and I can tell you they were a scary bunch.

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"If I were but of noble birth..." - Rod Corkin

[Sorrano]

Originally posted by spaceray:
Do you remember what year this was broadcast on PBS '82 or '83 I dimly recall.
We had a big party and watched all....how many
hours of opera was this?,I remember it seemed to go on all through the week end.I didn't watch it all as I was in charge of the catering and up to my ears in dirty dishes for most of the party.Wagnerites are a very interesting group ,very diverse and very passionate about their Hero.

I saw this in the later '80's. More like '87 or '88.

[Chaszz]

Originally posted by Rod:
They did a TV documentary here on British Wagnerites and I can tell you they were a scary bunch.

This could also be said of certain Beethoven fans if the present writer were not too gentle and polite to say such a thing.

[Chaszz]

Chaszz: Are these people

1. Fashionable dilettantes who pretend to love things they don't understand

2. Degenerate representatives of a decadent era

3. Superficial people who confuse a pretty melody with real music

4. Deparaved lovers of bloated horn writing

5. People who have not had the advantage of hearing Beethoven and Handel on period instruments by good bands.

6. People who hear something in the music that you don't

or what...

If you answer no. 5, well I've heard those works on this board and your Handel site and while I like them a lot it hasn't lessened my love for other composers. And I daresay if you query members of this site or your Handel site they'll also say they like the mp3s but they still listen to other composers also.

So I still ask, what is your take on all these listeners?

Rod: If I am to chose from the list you have supplied, from my concert going experience No.3 would come nearest, and these were largely Beethoven concerts!

Chaszz now: Ok, pretty tunes. So what about the classical music fans who listen avidly to "difficult" music: Schoenberg, Bartok, Babbitt, Stockhausen, or, not as far out, Brahms Symphony No. 4, Sibelius' Violin Concerto, Wagner's and R. Strauss' operas, Mahler's symphonies, etc., etc. Are these also being swayed by pretty tunes? Obviously not. So what category do THEY fit into? Or create one of your own if you want...

[Amalie]

Further to Rod's post about British Wagnerites, my husband who is certainly very keen on Wagner told me about a Wagner society meeting he went to in London a couple of years ago, to see whether it might be worth joining, his comment afterwards was that it was the strangest gathering of people he had ever witnessed since a Blair political rally.
When I asked him about it, he said that the only thing that was discussed was points of order and the people there seemed obsessed by the minutiae of committee agendas and speeches. Perhaps it is something about gatherings of people for a certain object in point where they just seemed totally bogged down in detail. Inevitably also these things get monopolized by the politicos who have their own agenda.
Without elaborating, he also said, the people there were peculiar and eccentric in the extreme.
But the important thing is surely just to pursue ones interest in the music, Wagner, Beethoven, whoever.




[This message has been edited by Amalie (edited August 04, 2003).]

[Rod]

Originally posted by Chaszz:
Chaszz: Are these people
If you answer no. 5, well I've heard those works on this board and your Handel site and while I like them a lot it hasn't lessened my love for other composers. And I daresay if you query members of this site or your Handel site they'll also say they like the mp3s but they still listen to other composers also.

This is the essence of my whole point. I did not begin listening to Beethoven or Handel on period instruments, I bought the stuff by Karajan and Brendel etc like everyone else, but unlike many a so-called music scholar I could tell intuitively that something was wrong whith this music. I could tell because I was actually LISTENING to it, and I haven't had a music lesson in my life. This is not rocket science.

It is my contention, which I have stated here before, that many if not most CM fans are just into the sound of this genre and feel no need for further serious artistic discernment. No different to what pop fans do in fact.

The tunes don't have to be 'pretty' in the conventional sence, but the lack of discernment means that any old piece of rubbish will find enough of an audience just as in pop music.


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"If I were but of noble birth..." - Rod Corkin

[This message has been edited by Rod (edited August 05, 2003).]

[Rod]

Originally posted by Amalie:
Further to Rod's post about British Wagnerites, my husband who is certainly very keen on Wagner told me about a Wagner society meeting he went to in London a couple of years ago, to see whether it might be worth joining, his comment afterwards was that it was the strangest gathering of people he had ever witnessed since a Blair political rally.
When I asked him about it, he said that the only thing that was discussed was points of order and the people there seemed obsessed by the minutiae of committee agendas and speeches. Perhaps it is something about gatherings of people for a certain object in point where they just seemed totally bogged down in detail. Inevitably also these things get monopolized by the politicos who have their own agenda.
Without elaborating, he also said, the people there were peculiar and eccentric in the extreme.
But the important thing is surely just to pursue ones interest in the music, Wagner, Beethoven, whoever.

[This message has been edited by Amalie (edited August 04, 2003).]

I am not in the slightest surprised. You see, here we have an actual eye witness account that proves the reality of the situation. For anyone to be that seriously into Wagner's music they've got to be at least a little crazy. The music itself demands it to my ears. For your husband to have this free vision of honest reality, I suspect he cannot be too much of a Wagner specialist, whether he believes it or not!

Chaszz, by your're own confession you are something of a Wagner novice. I humbly suggest you save your time, money and sanity by directing your musical attentions elsewhere. Of course you will disregard this advice, but I've been a Beethoven 'fan' for over 17 years - let's see what you feel about Wagner after listening to him almost day after day for this length of time (once you've been let out of the asylum that is!).


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"If I were but of noble birth..." - Rod Corkin

[Chaszz]

Originally posted by Rod:

I am not in the slightest surprised. You see, here we have an actual eye witness account that proves the reality of the situation. For anyone to be that seriously into Wagner's music they've got to be at least a little crazy. The music itself demands it to my ears. For your husband to have this free vision of honest reality, I suspect he cannot be too much of a Wagner specialist, whether he believes it or not!

Chaszz, by your're own confession you are something of a Wagner novice. I humbly suggest you save your time, money and sanity by directing your musical attentions elsewhere. Of course you will disregard this advice, but I've been a Beethoven 'fan' for over 17 years - let's see what you feel about Wagner after listening to him almost day after day for this length of time (once you've been let out of the asylum that is!).

With all due respect, I've been listening to Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Brahms and others since before you were born. This has developed along with interests in other arts, especially visual, which have informed and reinforced each other. What you impute to a 'lack of disernment' on my part or on the part of other CM fans, I impute to an inability to comprehend on yours. Wagner is the latest in a line of composers and other great artists I've been interested in, and measures up in many ways to the others.


[This message has been edited by Chaszz (edited August 05, 2003).]

[This message has been edited by Chaszz (edited August 05, 2003).]

[Rod]

Originally posted by Chaszz:
With all due respect, I was listening to Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, Brahms and others before you were born. Wagner is the latest in a line of composers I've been interested in, and measures up in many ways to the others.

With all due respect I've spent more hours listening to Beethoven than yourself, everyone else here, Karajan, Furtwangler, Bohm and Brendel and all the others put together.

Beethoven's kind of music for me is an elevated art form, not a casual pastime. For alot of CM fans this is not the case. Ask yourself for what purpose does art serve? I suggest to 'nobelise' and enlighten the spirit. Then I look for the 'magic formula' - the manner of construction that is perfect, nothing too developed, nothing underdeveloped, accessible yet still engaging the mind. A consistantly tasteful disciplined and inventive musical delivery.

When these two elements are considered, after a lot of deliberation, I came to the conclusion only Beethoven and Handel have matched both to the highest possible degree. At one time I thought only Beethoven had this combination, largely because until recently you never heard Handel on the radio or in concert other than 3rd rate renditions of Messiah. So you see I have no vested interests about who gets the accolades.

Of course the proof as alway is in the hearing, hence I've proved more with a few mp3s about 'authentic' Beethoven than years of argument at discussion boards such as this one. Bearing this in mind, if I shipped my Beethoven/Handel collection over to your place I guarantee you would be of the same opinion, for I am sure, Chaszz, you are not one to deny the truth when presented with it. You accept the music at my Handel site is good yet I have had extreme difficulty getting people to join - 'Handel?' they say, 'HANDEL??' If that does not prove my point about the general CM community I don't know what will.

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"If I were but of noble birth..." - Rod Corkin


[This message has been edited by Rod (edited August 05, 2003).]