Wagner & Beethoven

[Chaszz]

Originally posted by Rod:
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.

You answered a quote which I was re-editing while you were answering it, so you may want to look at the original quote again, which has more to it now.

If you shipped your collection to my place, the result would not be significantly different. As I've been trying to say, appreciating Handel more than before and appreciating Beethoven on authentic instruments, due to your efforts, has been enlightening but has not significantly changed my likes and dislikes in classical music. The list I gave above of composers I've listened to was not casual listening at all, and the only reason my listening has not been as exhaustive as some others has been that I've had parallel serious interests in other arts and other subjects as well, and also my own painting and sculpture which have occupied a lot of my time.

I've paid attention to your Handel site and alhtough I've enjoyed the music for the most part, there has been nothing there that has drawn me back to hear it more than once. If you can exclaim that this is evidence of a shortcoming on my part, I won't deny it, but the Siegfried funeral music has been running thru my mind repeatedly for days since I posted it last week, and the fact that you cannot understand the greatness of it I take as a lack of comprehension on your part. To put it plainly, to my mind your appreciation solely of Beethoven and Handel is not evidence of others' lack of discernment but your own lack of ability to comprehend a great deal of great music.

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

[Rod]

Originally posted by Chaszz:
You answered a quote which I was re-editing while you were answering it, so you may want to look at the original quote again, which has more to it now.

I have done so.

Originally posted by Chaszz:

If you shipped your collection to my place, the result would not be significantly different. As I've been trying to say, appreciating Handel more than before and appreciating Beethoven on authentic instruments, due to your efforts, has been enlightening but has not significantly changed my likes and dislikes in classical music. The list I gave above of composers I've listened to was not casual listening at all, and the only reason my listening has not been as exhaustive as some others has been that I've had parallel serious interests in other arts and other subjects as well, and also my own painting and sculpture which have occupied a lot of my time.

So be it.

Originally posted by Chaszz:

I've paid attention to your Handel site and alhtough I've enjoyed the music for the most part, there has been nothing there that has drawn me back to hear it more than once. If you can exclaim that this is evidence of a shortcoming on my part, I won't deny it, but the Siegfried funeral music has been running thru my mind repeatedly for days since I posted it last week, and the fact that you cannot understand the greatness of it I take as a lack of comprehension on your part. To put it plainly, to my mind your appreciation solely of Beethoven and Handel is not evidence of others' lack of discernment but your own lack of ability to comprehend a great deal of great music.

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

The problem with Wagner is not that he lacks ability, far from it, but by my criteria as identified above he is to my mind seriously lacking. In comparison to Beethoven, as I perceive his music, the other guys you mention are always lacking in one respect or another, even Mozart. I do make the effort to listen to other composers music, hence the extreme refinement of my opinion. Quite simply Chaszz, in comparison to Beethoven I just don't think those guys are good enough despite B's debt to some of them. Considering there is a significant opinion in the CM communitiy that would agree Beethoven was the greatest composer my ultimate position is not unradical. My radical position is that I do not feel the need to buy music that thus by default is inferior in one way or another artistically.

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


[This message has been edited by Rod (edited August 06, 2003).]

[Steppenwolf]

Rod,

Your dismissive comments about Wagner's music (and the music of anyone other than Handel and Beethoven) reveal an extreme and obnoxious arrogance. Not content with just saying "Wagner is not my taste, not my style" you imply that anyone who does not share your exact artistic taste is a cretin, or a eccentric nutcase. "Wagner will drive you insane"? P-LEASE! How can you expect something like that to be taken seriously?
Many brilliant, gifted and intelligent people have adored Wagner's music, including the composers Shoenberg, Mahler, Strauss and even Tchaikovsky, Verdi and even Bizet (take note, Nietzsche!). But I suppose you know better than all of them. Your taste and artistic appreciation is superior.

[Joy]

Originally posted by Rod:
I just don't think those guys are good enough despite B's debt to some of them. Considering there is a significant opinion in the CM communitiy that would agree Beethoven was the greatest composer my ultimate position is not unradical.

Rod, I would be curious to learn what exactly made you fall in love so much with Beethoven (and Handel) in the first place?
What drew them to you musically so much that you discard the others? Have you been a lifelong listener to both as I have with Beethoven?




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'Truth and beauty joined'

[spaceray]

Originally posted by Steppenwolf:
Rod,

Not content with just saying "Wagner is not my taste, not my style" you imply that anyone who does not share your exact artistic taste is a cretin, or a eccentric nutcase.

I have just read a life of Nora Barnacle,lifetime mate of James Joyce.Opera lovers Nora and Joyce disagreed about Wagner,she loved W but Joyce did not. By all accounts the model for Molly Bloom and Anna Livia Plurabelle and the Irish author were a very odd couple ,she was a waitress from Finns Hotel and he an intellectual Dandy.But music was the constant that held them together all their lives dispite their not agreeing about Wagner.

[Peter]

Originally posted by Rod:
My radical position is that I do not feel the need to buy music that thus by default is inferior in one way or another artistically.

It isn't inferior by default but by your own opinion. In any case not all Beethoven's music is on the same level as the 9th symphony so you must have broken your own criteria!

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'Man know thyself'

[Chaszz]

Your criteria may be fine for your own taste but there is nothing absolute about them. Romantic, expressionist or baroque art often does not confrom to the rules of the classic. This does not mean it is any less valid, it is just different. The classic period in ancient Greek art was followed by am expressionist/baroque period; the classic era of Renaissance art was followed by a baroque period; the classical era in music was followed by a romantic era. These things are as regular as clockwork; each expresses the changed spirit of its age and is equally valid. The only real test of music or art is not whether it follows some arbitrary rules which someone has set up; it is whether people still respond to it when its creators are dead and gone. All this baroque and romantic art and music has fulfilled that test. Someone who "rules" that such music or art is invalid because it doesn't conform to his own wishes is only showing his own limitations, not that of the music or art. Also he is showing his own inability to feel; and his desire to impose his own limited criteria on other people, as if they have no intelligence or judgment of their own.

[This message has been edited by Chaszz (edited August 06, 2003).]

[Amalie]

Well put Chaszz, I agree with you 100%.
Your understanding of Wagner is very profound.
Wagner's music in particular is the product of a Germany or German speaking world that had changed since Beethoven's day. Beethoven's was a pre-industrial age, (but not in England where the first Industrial Revolution taking place at that time), whereas Wagner's music is a product of a mechanized age, the Marxist world of the wage Labourer, and the movement of peoples into growing towns into the countryside. Wagner shows himself keenly aware of the growing industrialization of Germany from the 1840's onwards in the Rhinegold, where he has Alberich and the dwarves working day and night underground in the mines in a simulacrum of what Wagner regarded as a new and deadly form of exploitation of workers.
Obviously Wagners art is a reaction to this Industrial world, which Beethoven was not or was only just aware of. Wagner thought also that the operatic mode was more suitable to this new world than Beethoven's symphonic mode of the Napoleonic age.

Everyone's understanding or appreciation of Wagner is different, some people just get a mental block when it comes to understanding the 'Ring'.

To Rod,
No one is pretending to be specialists here, It is just that Chaszz has a 'feel' for, and understands where Wagner is coming from. In my estimation, Chaszz is no novice as you suggested earlier, in fact I rate him as a thinker and a highly intelligent person.


[This message has been edited by Amalie (edited August 07, 2003).]

[Rod]

Originally posted by Peter:
It isn't inferior by default but by your own opinion. In any case not all Beethoven's music is on the same level as the 9th symphony so you must have broken your own criteria!

I disagree Peter, The artistic purpose and 'magic formula' are omnipresent in Beethoven's output. This is my whole point, even a minor work by Beethoven posesses these same qualities. You know I believe the essence of the artiste is always revealed through their art, which I why I have such an easy time dismissing Wagner's output. If dismissing Wagner makes me a nutter, god help the sane people.



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

[Rod]

Originally posted by Steppenwolf:
Rod,

Your dismissive comments about Wagner's music (and the music of anyone other than Handel and Beethoven) reveal an extreme and obnoxious arrogance. Not content with just saying "Wagner is not my taste, not my style" you imply that anyone who does not share your exact artistic taste is a cretin, or a eccentric nutcase. "Wagner will drive you insane"? P-LEASE! How can you expect something like that to be taken seriously?
Many brilliant, gifted and intelligent people have adored Wagner's music, including the composers Shoenberg, Mahler, Strauss and even Tchaikovsky, Verdi and even Bizet (take note, Nietzsche!). But I suppose you know better than all of them. Your taste and artistic appreciation is superior.

I on occasion feel the need to bring Romantic music lovers here in particular into touch. If you don't the place becomes swamped by such people. On more than one occasion in the past this forum has ceased to become a Beethoven forum altogether, instead becomming a sounding board for Romantisists who ultimately have only a minor interest in Beethoven, if any. Peter will testify to this if his memory serves him well.

I have tortured my self too many times already with the lack lustre efforts of the composers you mention above. Even within the CM establishment, the generally accepted top four greatest composers includes not one from the Romantic era. Perhaps the establishment is not so crazy after all.

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

[This message has been edited by Rod (edited August 07, 2003).]

[Rod]

Originally posted by Amalie:

To Rod,
No one is pretending to be specialists here, It is just that Chaszz has a 'feel' for, and understands where Wagner is coming from. In my estimation, Chaszz is no novice as you suggested earlier, in fact I rate him as a thinker and a highly intelligent person.


[This message has been edited by Amalie (edited August 07, 2003).]

Chaszz referred to himself as a novice, having only been listening to Wagner for a year or so. My comments are not reflecting peoples intelligence or lack of it, rather their ability to discern art from non-art.

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

[Rod]

Originally posted by spaceray:
I have just read a life of Nora Barnacle,lifetime mate of James Joyce.Opera lovers Nora and Joyce disagreed about Wagner,she loved W but Joyce did not. By all accounts the model for Molly Bloom and Anna Livia Plurabelle and the Irish author were a very odd couple ,she was a waitress from Finns Hotel and he an intellectual Dandy.But music was the constant that held them together all their lives dispite their not agreeing about Wagner.

Whilst your attempt at moderation is to be admired, I'm afraid nothing gives me greature pleasure than dimissing the works of the 'great' Romantic composers, I have been nobely witholding myself until now. Anyway sometimes a little conflict is good when stagnation sets in.

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


[This message has been edited by Rod (edited August 07, 2003).]

[Rod]

Originally posted by Joy:
Rod, I would be curious to learn what exactly made you fall in love so much with Beethoven (and Handel) in the first place?
What drew them to you musically so much that you discard the others? Have you been a lifelong listener to both as I have with Beethoven?

I never heard Beethoven properly until I was 19 or 20, Handel much later still. I was not into CM at the time but something about B's music captured my attention, the manner of its construction and nobility of the music, these things I found emulated only in Handel's output. When you listen to this music you are granted temporary audience with the residents of Olympus! With the others it is just not the same.

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

[Peter]

Originally posted by Rod:
My comments are not reflecting peoples intelligence or lack of it, rather their ability to discern art from non-art.

Why do you consider yourself the ultimate authority on this?

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'Man know thyself'

[Rod]

Originally posted by Peter:
Why do you consider yourself the ultimate authority on this?

I do not recall stating I was anything of the sort. You can take or leave what I say. You state on your own home page regarding Beethoven being possibly the worlds greatest composer. I ask you to elaborate upon this comment, if you believe it to be true, that is.

You forget the many arrogant episodes orchestrated by CM fans with regard to various pop artistes at this forum over the years. Though I am no fan myself of most of the pop music concerned I thought the critics were in no position to judge, given their own questionable tastes. Even Britney Spears sings better than some of the hideously overblown sopranos I've heard. You see, I have a long memory Peter, going back to the days at edepot, if your memory is anything like as good you will understand why I feel no particular allegiance to the CM scene on the whole.

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

[This message has been edited by Rod (edited August 07, 2003).]