Britten and Wagner Anniversaries: Nothing to Celebrate?

[MrGongGong]

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The ability to write and talk about works by others should not to be slighted.

So why do some decide that it's all a load of Pseudo nonsense ?
I don't agree with Adorno's take on popular musics but found reading his works most illuminating.

[ahinton]

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Without scholars or critics, many great works of music, literature or art may not have stayed with us. And without those many excellent reviewers whom we know, the enjoyment of music for a lot of us would definitely be much poorer. The ability to write and talk about works by others should not to be slighted.

Indeed not - and I neither disagree with you in principle nor slight it per se; I merely observe that (a) some writings that fall under the category or musicology or criticism make suspect claims based upon insufficient scientific evidence and (b) beyond certain technical issues, writing about music is, as whoever it was first said, like dancing about architecture to the extent that using words to write about something unconfined by verbal expression has its own inherent problems further enhanced not insignificantly by the factor of subjectivity.

[ahinton]

So why do some decide that it's all a load of Pseudo nonsense ?
I don't agree with Adorno's take on popular musics but found reading his works most illuminating.

I could not answer your question because I've never encountered anyone who has decided that it's all a load of pseudo nonsense; that's not, however, to say that pseudoscience has never infiltrated the world of musicology...

[MrGongGong]

I could not answer your question because I've never encountered anyone who has decided that it's all a load of pseudo nonsense;...

cherchez le troll

[ahinton]

cherchez le troll

Must I?(!)...

[MrGongGong]

Must I?(!)...

I wouldn't go there if I were you

[Mandryka]

Perhaps the Wesendonck Lieder and Siegfried Idyll.

A lot of anti-Wagnerites quite like the Siegfried Idyll: it is, after all, very difficult to take exception to.

People with scant knowledge of German tend to appreciate the Wesenconck Lieder - because Mathilde's verses are rather banal and ordinary. Mind you, so are the words to Elgar's Sea Pictures.

[Flosshilde]

Which just goes to show what geniuses Wagner & Elgar were.

[Barbirollians]

Indeed at making silk purses out of sow's ears .

[ahinton]

Indeed at making silk purses out of sow's ears .

And much more besides, surely?...

[amateur51]

A lot of anti-Wagnerites quite like the Siegfried Idyll: it is, after all, very difficult to take exception to.

People with scant knowledge of German tend to appreciate the Wesenconck Lieder - because Mathilde's verses are rather banal and ordinary. Mind you, so are the words to Elgar's Sea Pictures.

Oooh Wesenconck Lieder eh? I hope that's not an intentional. or maybe a Freudian slip about Wagner's anti-semitism (or indeed your own), Mandy

[Barbirollians]

And much more besides, surely?...

Of course .

[MrGongGong]

A lot of anti-Wagnerites quite like the Siegfried Idyll: it is, after all, very difficult to take exception to.

People with scant knowledge of German tend to appreciate the Wesenconck Lieder - because Mathilde's verses are rather banal and ordinary. Mind you, so are the words to Elgar's Sea Pictures.

and , if you are to be believed, ALL other writing in the English language (though you are spot on with the Elgar )

[Mary Chambers]

A lot of anti-Wagnerites quite like the Siegfried Idyll: it is, after all, very difficult to take exception to.

People with scant knowledge of German tend to appreciate the Wesenconck Lieder - because Mathilde's verses are rather banal and ordinary. Mind you, so are the words to Elgar's Sea Pictures.

Also many of the words Schubert transformed. (My German is quite adequate, actually.) I tend to like song cycles, though I prefer Mahler's, Schubert's or Britten's to Wagner's.

I'm not anti-Wagner. He just doesn't, on the whole, write the kind of music I enjoy. Is that allowed?

[Barbirollians]

x

I'm not anti-Wagner. He just doesn't, on the whole, write the kind of music I enjoy. Is that allowed?

I hope so - with the exception of Tristan that is how i feel about Wagner.