Essay on Wagnerian - 3838 Words

Wagnerian I have a friend, Matthew, who is a Wagnerian. For those of you who dont know what that exotic species is, Wagnerian denotes someone who listens to the operas of Richard Wagner and loves them to a degree bordering on the unreasonable. And hes continually amazed by the fact that I dont get off on Wagner to the degree that he does. He also hit me once when I referred to Wagner as a proto-Nazi. Granted we were both a bit drunk at the time, but even so, you may get a bit of an idea how much respect and love Matthew has for the various works of Richard W. Nonetheless, I stand by both of those statements. Theres no point denying the proto-Nazi thing, since handsome Adolf said it†¦show more content†¦But even so, Im not blind to its shortcomings, and there are times when the Romantic fits and seizures become too much. Wagner, to me, represents Romantic excess. There was a great moment once in the TV series Blackadder where Blackadder describes just how evil the Germans are: they have no word for fluffy and their operas last three or four days. The first example is slightly exaggerated perhaps (say hi to the word flaumig, Edmund), but in the case of Wagners Ring der Nibelungen, the gibe is cruelly true. The whole thing really does last for four days (or evenings, at least). This is what I mean by excessive. Granted that the Ring is of course a series of four operas, not one, its still too much. Ive written before about how I dont like Mozart much, and one of the things I said then is that the sheer volume of young Wolfgangs output is one of the things that defeats me when I approach it. Wagners excesses are in the opposite direction; he wrote relatively few operas but they were almost all mind- and arse-numbingly long. I dont think any of them (other than perhaps The Flying Dutchman) clock in below three hours and most go over four. Way too much to handle for me. Still, Ive actually made an effort to get a handle of Wagner. A semi-proper effort too, not the half-arsed surface scratch job I did on Mozart. In preparation for this here bit of writing,Show MoreRelatedThe Idea of the Gesamtkunstwerk in the History and Theory of Film Music839 Words   |  4 Pagesthe Leitmotiv circulate widely, frequently detached from Wagner’s name and from his own theoretical treatment of them. Occasionally his influence is decried; more commonly, however, film music practitioners have received criticism for not being Wagnerian enough. In short, Wagner’s relevance is taken for granted, but the paths through which his influence was passed down to film are unclear. In most cases, the rather vague nature of the Wagnerist texts suggests that less rigorous routes were probablyRead MoreThe Two Act Comic Opera Barbier Von Bagdad1446 Words   |  6 PagesLisztian school, arousing anti-Liszt demonstrations at its premià ¨re in Weimar in 1858. 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