Britten and Wagner Anniversaries: Nothing to Celebrate?

[MrGongGong]

Well I aint listening to anymore Wagner, nor will I follow football.

Wise move
but in the Kipper future it's all water polo anyway .......... (according to Fripp Here comes the flood best version on Exposure methinks)

[Lateralthinking1]

I have concluded on the basis of this discussion that the personality of Britten is being airbrushed. Rather as Michael Jackson is still being played on the radio, the facts are not quite clear enough to be sure and to many that's a huge relief. Their stature and their music are such that any removal of the music would seem more tragic to many than anything that might have occurred during their lives. With Glitter, it was easier. His "work" was wholly disposable. Similarly it is clear to me that Wagner is just too huge a figure in classical music ever to be challenged directly. He survives purely on the basis of the protection in musical merits and history. The point about Britten's homosexuality is definitely a sleight of hand. If it wasn't, we would be discussing Bernstein and many others.

[Mr Pee]

acousmatic music events ................ (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acousmatic)

Like those Brass Band contests where the judges sit behind a screen....or muzak in a McDonalds....

What a load of pseudery...although that seems to be your speciality.......

[MrGongGong]

Like those Brass Band contests where the judges sit behind a screen....or muzak in a McDonalds....

What a load of pseudery...although that seems to be your speciality.......

You don't really like music , do you ?
or it's just a nice noise in the background
your loss troll man

[Beef Oven]

Wise move
but in the Kipper future it's all water polo anyway .......... (according to Fripp Here comes the flood best version on Exposure methinks)

I have a soft spot for Gabriel's version sung in German

[MrGongGong]

I have a soft spot for Gabriel's version sung in German

I think it's Afrikaans
and was going to say that also ....... but this is a bit OT

"the oceans will rise........."

[Beef Oven]

I think it's Afrikaans
and was going to say that also ....... but this is a bit OT

"the oceans will rise........."

On that note, I'm off for some Kip

[Barbirollians]

And I shall be listening to no Verdi whatsoever. I find his operas dreary in the extreme.

.

You have my deepest sympathy - now Parsifal there's dreary .

[gurnemanz]

You have my deepest sympathy - now Parsifal there's dreary .

... rising to the bait...I stood for for five hours, aged 23, for Parsifal at the Proms under Boulez in 1972 and was riveted from start to finish.

[Barbirollians]

Riveting someone to the floor ! That's a bit excessive to stop them leaving .

I struggle with the Ring , am bored rigid by Parsifal and Lohengrin, can cope with Tannhauser , soon tire of the Meistersingers and think Tristan is one of the greatest things I have ever heard and am riveted a la gurnemanz .

Mr Pee there are lots of good Verdi performances to be seen on Sky Arts - perhaps they will convert you

[Mandryka]

I just find Wagner's proven anti-semitism a huge problem. It seems to me that Orff gets a far worse press for his politics. That is because his music isn't regarded as highly rather than that he was a bigger offender. I very much doubt he was more anti Jewish.

Chopin was an even bigger anit-semite than Wagner (something I learned on this forum) but few people seem to have a problem with him.

Let's face it - and I apologise in advance for the banal and hackneyed point I'm about to make - most artists have done or said dodgy things in their careers, even if they're not always widely known. And those that haven't actually done such things have almost cerainly contemplated doing them.....

Some people have a problem with Britten's hypersensitivity, but I find it rather endearing: you've got to love a bloke who'd cut a dinner guest after said guest had expressed a fondness for Rosenkavalier. :)

[Lateralthinking1]

Chopin was an even bigger anit-semite than Wagner (something I learned on this forum) but few people seem to have a problem with him.

Let's face it - and I apologise in advance for the banal and hackneyed point I'm about to make - most artists have done or said dodgy things in their careers, even if they're not always widely known. And those that haven't actually done such things have almost cerainly contemplated doing them.....

Some people have a problem with Britten's hypersensitivity, but I find it rather endearing: you've got to love a bloke who'd cut a dinner guest after said guest had expressed a fondness for Rosenkavalier. :)

I much prefer the music of Chopin to Wagner. It is fascinating though how passion for someone's music can be such that almost anything will be excused. Were any of the greats mass murderers? Guys, is it OK though? The Independent reports on Chopin:

"Regarding his publishers as "Jews" he deviously played one off against another. Not that he liked Germans, either. "Jews will be Jews and Huns will be Huns – that's the truth of it, but what can one do? I'm forced to deal with them," he wrote in 1839 to a friend who was helping with negotiations. "The Preludes are already sold to [the publisher] Pleyel, so he can wipe the other end of his stomach with them if he pleases, but since they're all such a band of Jews, stop everything else till I get back.""

A reader of the newspaper responds:

"To label Chopin as "anti-semitic" has to be the shortest short-cut to thinking ever published. Because he felt taken advantage of by some people, and because they happened to belong to a certain group, does not make him anti-anything. He never flatly admitted to hating any group of people even though that given group was widely unpopular throughout Europe during that time".

On one level, you have to laugh. It is probably a misfortune of being a footballer in 2013 that allegiances are never sufficiently robust in the event of racism to provide that kind of irrational defence from supporters. Then again, what it does show is that music is able to draw people together. It can even be a union of a listener and a far from harmonious composer. The scarves are still waved. Having said as much, I am open to the view that the historical contexts must, in fairness, be understood. Anti-semitism was indeed rife but this too has to be counter-balanced in any assessment with the understanding that many weren't anti-semitic.

Having read more this evening, I have decided that Wagner was quite mad, more than he was necessarily bad. Some of his essays were extreme to put it mildly. At the same time he had close friendships with Jewish people. My feeling is that there was a bit of flounce in connection with Meyerbeer (and to a lesser extent Mendelssohn) and that was inflated into a philosophical/political rhetoric. That in truth was largely borrowed although he took it to what very arguably was an unprecedented level of ugliness.

[Mr Pee]

You don't really like music , do you ?
or it's just a nice noise in the background
your loss troll man

Can't stand it. That's why I have hundreds of CDs, an expensive Hi-Fi, went to my first Ring cycle back in the 1970s, went to music college, have a performer's diploma on the Clarinet, and once started queing at 4am to get a day seat for Die Walkure at the Royal Opera House.....

[Eine Alpensinfonie]

You don't really like music , do you ?
or it's just a nice noise in the background
your loss troll man

I recall my days as a music student. Regrettably, in our spare time, we spend much energy on insulting the music loved by whomever we were talking to.

[Sir Velo]

Speaking of Polish music, let's not forget that this year is also the centenary of Lutosławski, arguably the greatest Polish composer since those two!...

I'd go further and say the 2nd greatest Polish composer of all, behind you-know-who.