Very controversial, and yet very amazing. I love wagner, say what you will. he put so much passion and drama into his works, and I would LOVE to see Tannhauser or Die Ringen someday. however, they arent cheap sells, $900 canadian for nosebleed tickets in Toronto. Does anybody else love him? or even hate him? hes great, but thats just my opinion.
Well I think Wagner was extremly talented, but his reputation is inextricably tied to Nazism and Hitler. Nonetheless, he was still a fine composer.
I dislike Wagner - not only his music, which I find tedious and over emotional, but also his proto-nazi views. In my opinion, he represents everything bad about 19th c romanticism.
Besides, I enjoy his overemotional sound, it hits me emotionally, and that is a good thing for music to do. He wasnt the rabid anti-semite that everyone makes him out to be, he had a jewish friend of his conduct the opening night of Parsifal actually (quite the honour). Just because he was hitlers favorite doesnt make him bad. John Lennon was the favorite musician of the man that shot him, therefore, if wagner was a nazi, john lennon was suicidal.
Not at all - some romantic art/music/poetry is great. However, I don't like Wagner's version very much at all. Regarding Wagner's anti-semitism - it is an established fact. Well documented. Even Nietzche fell out with him over this very issue.
And yet there are no anti-semitic themes in his music anywhere. Wagner was an anti-semite yes, but not nearly as bad as he is made out to be. He didnt outright hate Jews, he had Jewish friends, and as I have said before, he honoured at least one of them greatly by appointing him as the opening conductor of Parsifal. Wagner was about as big of an anti-semite as Miles Davis was a racist against whites. I wouldnt really call him a racist either, he just severly mistrusted white people, whatever. I still like both of their music, their political views do not concern me. Wagners breed of anti-semitism is a largely dead one, it was doubtlessly different from Hitlers racialized anti-semitism. Wagner held an older, more medieval strain of anti-semitism based on religious beliefs, not racial hatred. This strain is all but dead in the contemporary era, therefore it concerns me no more than chattel slavery. They were both horrible practises, and lessons from history for sure, yet history is their home, as neither are the same in the world I was born into. Certainly both slavery and anti-semitism still exist today, but slavery is much more corporatized (one could easily argue it is worse now...eating free trade chocolate is like smoking confederate tobacco), and anti-semitism much more racialized, indeed, every problem the world had 300 years ago has either stopped or changed into something more decietful and dangerous. The old problems were bad, but they do not apply to today, and therefore they do not fill me with scorn and hatred. A good example of this is if I mention the names Hitler and Genghis Kahn, the name of Hitler is the only one that is likely to fill the reader with hate. They both killed roughly an equal number of people (the Mongol conquests have claimed an estimated 80 million), and Hitler certainly wasnt more evil than Genghis Kahn, yet I feel hatred for Hitler and I am emotionless for Genghis Kahn, indeed I am interested in the stories of his exploits. This is because Genghis represents alien hatred while the hate of Hitler revolutionized the very word hate, and certainly changed the nature of anti-semitism. Wagners anti-semitism was no worse than mistrust, if it had been an equal mistrust of the french people, there would be no controversy. I understand the reason why, that the holocaust happened to the jews and not to the french, but surely you must understand the folly of judging a man by what some nut who liked his music, as did millions, did decades after his death. It would be like calling Karl Marx a blatant and violent classist due to the actions of Stalin, which any true Marxist distances himself from as much as he distances himself from Nazism, or like saying Sayyid Qutb is a terrorist just like Usama Bin Laden. I have deep respect for Wagner, Marx, and Qutb, and deep hate for Hitler, Stalin, and Bin Laden. but whobefore the holocaust could understand anti-semitism ? (for the purposes of keeping it in a modern context, I include Islamophobia and anti-Arabism as anti-semitism, arabs are semites too, and hatred of arabs and muslims is the new accepted racism, and therefore it is what needs to be watched) But I ramble. I like Wagner alot, and if I lived in the Nazi state, I would be one of the first people killed due to my subversive beliefs and open mouth. Wagner does not equal Nazism. If you dont like his music thats great, but try to realize that it isnt just Nazi bullshit. Stephen Harper loves the beatles, that does not make them conservatives. I should stop now, Ive rambled enough and made my point several times.
"Wagner was an anti-Semite from, at the latest, 1850, when he wrote 'Judaism in Music' (Das Judenthum in der Musik). This essay was first published anonymously in the 'Neue Zeitschrift für Musik' in two instalments in September that year. RW took as his starting point earlier articles in which Theodor Uhlig had attacked Meyerbeer's 'Les Huguenots'. RW reprinted his article practically unchanged in 1869, thereby provoking demonstrations at the first performances of 'Die Meistersinger'. It includes the following assertions (page references are to Wm Ashton Ellis' English translation of the Prose Works, which follows the 1869 revision): 1. Jews are hateful (passim) 2. Judaism is rotten at the core; a religion of hatred (PW3 p90-1) 3. Jewish composers are comparable to worms feeding on the body of art (PW3 p99) 4. Jews are hostile to European civilisation (PW3 p84-5) 5. The Jew rules the world through money (PW3 p81) 6. The cultured Jew is "the most heartless of all human beings" (PW3 p87) 7. The Jews should, like Ahasuerus, "go under" (PW3 p100) RW, however, did not explicitly advocate anything like extermination; and in his private life had close Jewish friends who appear to have regarded him with considerable affection. Nonetheless, his second wife Cosima held strongly anti-Semitic views. After RW's death, Bayreuth became a focal point for anti-Semitic and right-wing individuals, encouraged by Cosima. This culminated in the marriage of her daughter Eva to the right-wing ideologue, Houston Stewart Chamberlain, who saw world history in terms of conflict between races. The son of Richard and Cosima, Siegfried, was more balanced, ruling out racial exclusivity at Bayreuth, but he died in 1930. His English-born widow Winifred developed a close friendship with Hitler when he was still a young unknown, and was largely responsible for Bayreuth's Nazi links. A good starting point for reading about RW's anti-Semitism is the book by Jacob Katz, 'The Darker Side of Genius'. A number of recent books have taken a fresh look at this subject, including: * 'Wagner: Race and Revolution' by Paul Lawrence Rose, who presented a view in which racial and anti-Semitic ideas were the driving force behind Wagner's creativity, even in 'Der fliegende Holländer'. Many Wagner scholars vehemently oppose this view, in particular harshly criticising Rose's scholarship; see for example Stewart Spencer's review ('Wagner', January 1995, pages 46-48). * 'Wagner and the Anti-Semitic Imagination' by Marc Weiner, is a study of Wagner's anti-Semitism that has been met with hostility by many Wagnerians, although other Wagnerians, including the author of this FAQ and also Anthony Arblaster in his review ('Wagner', January 1996, pages 44-47), think that Weiner sheds light on some dark corners of Wagner's character. These two books refer to earlier articles by Hartmut Zelinsky which ignited a heated controversy in Germany. Zelinsky interpreted RW as a proto-Nazi, and attempted to demonstrate that racial and anti-Semitic schemes lay beneath the surface of RW's music-dramas. Hartmut Zelinsky's published writings include: * In 'Musik-Konzepte 5: Richard Wagner: wie antisemitisch darf ein Künstler sein?', ed. H-K. Metger and R. Riehn. Article entitled: 'Die Feuerkur des Richard Wagner oder die neue Religion der Erlösung durch Vernichtung', Munich 1978. * 'Richard Wagner: ein deutsches Thema: Eine Dokumentation zur Wirkungsgeschichte Richard Wagners 1876-1976', Frankfurt am Main 1976, Vienna 1983. * In 'Parsifal: Texte, Materialen, Kommentare', ed. A. Csampai and D. Holland. Articles entitled: 'Richard Wagners letzte Karte', 'Der verschwiegene Gehalt des Parsifal'. Hamburg 1984. Although himself a critic of Zelinsky, Barry Millington has presented arguments for an anti-Semitic theme in 'Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg'. The relevant articles are: * 'Nuremberg Trial: Is There Anti-Semitism in Die Meistersinger?', in 'Cambridge Opera Journal', volume iii, 1991. Reprinted in 'The Wagner Compendium', London 1992 and in 'Wagner in Performance', New Haven 1992. * 'Richard Wagner's Anti-Semitism', in the 'Musical Times', December 1996. Reprinted in 'Wagner', May 1997, vol. 18 no.2. Other sources that discuss Wagner's anti-Semitism include 'Aspects of Wagner' by Bryan Magee (who has also written an interesting article on the subject, included as an appendix to his 'Wagner and Philosophy'), 'Richard Wagner: the Terrible Man and his Truthful Art' by M. Owen Lee, and Dieter Borchmeyer in chapter 5 of the 'Wagner Handbook', in an appendix to his 'Richard Wagner: Theory and Theatre' and, at greater length, in his recent book on this subject (proceedings of a seminar held in Bayreuth). Hmcw participant Simon Weil has written a study, 'Wagner and the Jews'. It can be found online at < http://members.aol.com/wagnerbuch/intro.htm >."
Ewok- it's all a matter of personal taste and preference on one level. I respect your right to like Wagner or anything else. I'm just not of a similar persuasion. As I say, I hate his music! German music begins really with Bach, and ends with Brahms. After that, it began 'to rot' to use a 'wagnerism'. Wagner, then Schoenberg -- ughh! Sorry - after all, it's only music!
He's not exactly my favourite. Theoretically, technichally - interesting. But to me, an unpleasant and quite harrowing experience.
