# Prejudging a composer's personality.



## emiellucifuge (May 26, 2009)

All too often someone says something about Wagner, like "I dont like him because he wasnt a nice person" or "I voted for Brahms because Wagner was an ***hole".

I dont claim that Wagner was a lovely person, but the amount of criticism directed against his personality is out of proportion, while some composers who comitted perhaps worse actions as never discussed.

Lets examine the historical facts:
- His first wife left him for another man, but he took her back.
- After he and his wife separated he supported her financially until her death
- He did begin affairs with a married woman
- He wrote essays dismissing jewishness in music
- Many have pointed out that anti-semitism was an institutionalised and common trait at the time
- He had many jewish friend, including one which he described as 'one of the most beautiful friendships of my life'
- His personality has been interpreted as 'Arrogant', 'confident' and that he had quite an ego.

If we now compare this to a few other composers.

Debussy
- At the age of 18 he began an 8 year long affair with a married woman. This only ended when he moved to Rome.
- He later had a 9 year relationship with a woman, they lived together, though at one point he had an affair with another, and eventually left her for her friend.
- This friend he later married.
- While married he sent away his wife, and took another married woman on a vacation.
- Upon returning he wrote his wife, notifying her of their separation.
- His wife attempted to kill herself. He was alienated from his friends, and his mistress disowned by her family.
- Eventually he and his now pregnant mistress fled to england 
- He has been described as argumentative. A singer who performed Melisande wrote this of him:
"As a teacher he was* pedantic*-that's the only word. Really pedantic [...] There was *a core of anger and bitterness* in him-I often think he was rather like Golaud in _Pelléas_ and yet he wasn't. He was-it's in all his music-a very sensual man. *No one seemed to like him*."

I dont wish to pass judgement on either of these composers. Indeed it seems a trait common among geniuses that they have difficult personalities. I merely wished to point out an imbalance.


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## SiegendesLicht (Mar 4, 2012)

I love this forum!

I may be wrong but sometimes it seems to me that at the core of all anti-Wagner criticism lies exactly that little essay of his called "Jewishness in Music". The train of thought runs something like this: "He must have been a real villain to have written something like this" and then other alleged Wagner's sins get heaped on top of that. Whereas had the essay never existed, those other not quite nice things he did would be dismissed as merely common human faults.

And the essay itself is so notorious because of certain events that began to take place 50 years after Wagner took his place in Valhalla. He could neither know about nor prevent those events. Neither could he prevent a certain man whose name starts with H from saying one must listen to Wagner in order to understand his (the H-man's) warped ideology. So, I think most of Wagner's bad reputation actually comes from the circumstances that he had no power over. I wonder how much would the reputation of Beethoven suffer if someone had, for example, killed a hundred people in a terror attack and left a note saying Beethoven's 9th had inspired him to do it...


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## SiegendesLicht (Mar 4, 2012)

And no, my admiration for Wagner has not blinded me to his faults. Of course he had faults, he was just a normal human being with his own weaknesses and quirks, just like every one of us. Apart from his genius, that is.

And personally for me the sexual perversions of some other composers, like Tchaikovsky (if the stories of his liking little boys are true, of course) are immensely more off-putting than anything Wagner might be guilty of.


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## kv466 (May 18, 2011)

For me it's all about the music,...I couldn't care less what a composer did or didn't do or how they behaved or treated others or how many siblings they had interactions with or what they did to the family goat or,...pretty much anything they did other than how they compose music. I would never let any outside factor help determine how I feel about a work or piece of music other than the piece itself.


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## HarpsichordConcerto (Jan 1, 2010)

We inherit their music, not their direct personality unless they are still alive and you happen to know them. But it's fun reading the "gossip" of these dead folks. I want to know whether Schubert was bisexual or not (won't change my love of his music). I want to know more about Bruckner's apparent morbid fascination with death and dead bodies (won't change what I think of his music) etc. etc. Anybody know?

This is the gossip column! One thing is for sure, the majority of these folks were as human as you might not have presumed, if you are not relatively familair with their biographies. Our greatest fault was to build romanticised perceptions of many of them over time.


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## emiellucifuge (May 26, 2009)

HarpsichordConcerto said:


> We inherit their music, not their direct personality unless they are still alive and you happen to know them.
> 
> One thing is for sure, the majority of these folks were as human as you might not have presumed, if you are not relatively familair with their biographies. Our greatest fault was to build romanticised perceptions of many of them over time.


This is exactly my point. I feel that Wagner is often stigmatised for certain aspects of his life, which are taken out of their greater context. Subsequently, people unjustly choose to lower their opinion of his art.

I had hoped that by drawing comparisons to another great artist who does not suffer the same symptoms, but has arguably performed the same evil deeds, those people would see their folly.


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## MrPlayerismus (Jan 2, 2012)

However,one cannot dismiss the fact that the personality of one composer plays a significant role in his music.I would not say that this is spontaneous though.The fact that Bruckner may have been a necrophiliac doesn't have any relation at all with the kind of music he wrote.On the other hand though is Shostakovich.He changed style in every different piece.That is not his personality having an effect on his writing,but him doing that on purpose,just to trigger different events on his regime.

It certainly does not play a big role what the composer did in his life,in order for one to like his music,but everyone is interested in the biography of the composers they listen,it is just the human nature to be curious.


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## mensch (Mar 5, 2012)

emiellucifuge said:


> All too often someone says something about Wagner, like "I dont like him because he wasnt a nice person" or "I voted for Brahms because Wagner was an ***hole".


I must say I'm guilty of this trait. I heavily dislike Wagner, partly because of his alleged character. And I must confess Claude Debussy is one of my favourite composers. Because both men have such dissimilar ideas about music, it's nice to have some extra dirt to throw around at Wagner (or Richard Strauss, Hector Berlioz for that matter).

As MrPlayerismus points out part of the personality of the composer will be reflected in their music, particularly in the Romantic school. That's not to say Wagner wrote vile or antisemitic music - if that's even possible. But I think everybody will agree that most of his music conveys a certain sense of awe, proudness and strength, both musically and in actual duration. I mean, they're monumental, massive works.
Wagner in a sense was the same, a proud man holding strong opinions and possessing a polarising character. His opinions carried weight, which is why his disparaging remarks about Mendelssohn in the essay "Jewishness in Music" made such a devastating impact on the popularity and evaluation of the latter. 
I don't know, maybe Wagner was just living in the wrong time to vent his strong opinions, because as you say anti-semitism was a pretty normal stance in the 19th century and much of Wagner's opinions which now seem racist would have been completely socially acceptable. I think his strong personality, also reflected in his music, is part of the fact that people commonly prejudge him.

I'm willing to believe that Debussy did some pretty amoral things during his life and was appreciated more for his music than for his social graces. His music is of a different kind than Wagner's, due to the impressionistic nature it sounds less monumental and sure of itself. That's not to say Debussy's music is better than Wagner's, it's just different. If Debussy was argumentative, angry or bitter as a person one would certainly not characterise his music as such. Pedantic, maybe if you listen to his Children's Corner. 

Another example, Beethoven, not known for his jolly personality doesn't evoke the same reaction in most people, in my experience. Sure, it's often pointed out that Beethoven's gruffness and roughness is reflected in a lot of his output, but he's seldom condemned for it. I must say I only feel so strongly about composers of the (later) Romantic era, which is not that strange considering the characteristic notion of pouring ones highly individual emotions into art.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

Problem is, Wagnerites are fighting a reargaurd action, because they know he is not that popular amongst the broad classical music listenership. Well not as popular or obsessed over as by the relatively small group of Wagnerites. There's various reasons, of course. Not necessarily to do with his personality or political views, but that may be part of it. He was a towering figure in music of his time, but most listeners who are okay with his orchestral or choral highlights, bits and pieces (how many brides have gone down the aisle to the _Bridal Chorus_?), but most of them I'd guess would hate to sit through a whole opera of his. Verdi, his nearest rival for greatness in opera in late 19th century, doesn't get this sort of negative reaction overall. & he doesn't need Bayreuth as a monument where the groupies can hang out every year, Verdi's music IS his monument.

I knew that Debussy was not a nice man to be around either. Neither were a whole host of others in one way or another - Beethoven with his temper, Mahler working his musicians hands to the bone, Gesualdo snapping and murdering his wife and so on.

Politics is more complex, but I do look up to the composers who did not toady to the Nazis, like Kodaly, K.A. Hartmann and Hindemith. Their reaction was what I would aspire to do in that situation, overall, of course I don't idolize them as saints, they're just people like anyone else.

As for life under the Soviets, don't forget that in the 1948 Zhdanov decree a number of composers where condemned as "formalists," - incl. Shostakovich, Prokofiev, and also (which is hard to believe, since their music is more of traditional bent) Myaskovsky and Khatchaturian.

The "bad guys" here were composers like Khrennikov, who was a huge fan of Stalin and producing Socialist realist rubbish and calling that legitimate art, whipping the other guys with it as leader of the Soviet Union of Composers, an instigator of the oppression of 1948. But who knows him now? He's in the dustbin of history, as is his propaganda music. His quotes on his wikipedia page are quite chilling, he was a true believer right until the day he died in 2007, this very mean person. If someone gave me a cd of his music, I would immediately destroy it, or at the very least decline to accept it. So yep, I indeed do prejudge the likes of Khrennikov, getting those big commissions, while real composers like Shostakovich, Schnittke, Gubaidulina had to largely live off doing film scores as they were on some black list of one type or another...


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

It is a patently absurd mistake to think the artist IS the work. 'nuff said.

ADD:
I guess this wants some shoring up in light of other commentary... 
By all historic accounts, Chopin's personality was that of a supercilious, vapid non-empathetic prig, yet we have... Chopin. 

As a teacher of mine said about all the 'what they think Chopin may have been thinking or feeling when he compose ______, "I don't care if he had a toothache when he wrote it."


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## Clementine (Nov 18, 2011)

PetrB said:


> It is a patently absurd mistake to think the artist IS the work. 'nuff said.


I disagree to an extent. Music, perhaps more then anything else _does_ speak for its creator in a way that other art forms do not. After all a composer is responsible for creating his or her own musical language, and the often intuitive decisions they make in writing their music comes from personal preference. And personal preference is well, personal.

That said, since music only has _contextual_ qualities and not _inherent_ qualities, a judgment in character based solely off the music is risky. But with a little historical background of the music and the man, I think parallels between the two aren't difficult to find. Haydn uses humor because he has a sense of humor. Wagner writes 16 hour operas because he thinks we care. As to whether or not I discriminate music based off the creators personality: no. Everyone has faults, but everyone has good in them too; if a composer is exceptional at expressing either, then they're worth my time.


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## tgtr0660 (Jan 29, 2010)

kv466 said:


> For me it's all about the music,...I couldn't care less what a composer did or didn't do or how they behaved or treated others or how many siblings they had interactions with or what they did to the family goat or,...pretty much anything they did other than how they compose music. I would never let any outside factor help determine how I feel about a work or piece of music other than the piece itself.


I can't agree more with this post by the fellow Floridian...

(I can't believe there are two people who like classical music in the state of Florida )


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## kv466 (May 18, 2011)

^^

(Haha,...three! Let's not forget our good buddy, Lou.) :cheers:


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

A more recent example, is the convicted killer CHarles Manson, a composer (even though not classical, I'll introduce this here as it's highly relevant). A list of his discography HERE. The likes of Guns n' Roses have covered his songs. I wonder if he gets the royalties, are people funding a murderer by buying his songs? Do they know this?

The wikipedia article linked above says this, however, most people when he was convicted of all those horrific murders had the sense not to buy his album, just released then -



> ...On March 6, 1970, the day the court vacated Manson's status as his own attorney, LIE, an album of Manson music, was released.This included "Cease to Exist," a Manson composition the Beach Boys had recorded with modified lyrics and the title "Never Learn Not to Love". *Over the next couple of months, only about 300 of the album's 2,000 copies sold*...


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## StlukesguildOhio (Dec 25, 2006)

Problem is, Wagnerites are fighting a reargaurd action, because they know he is not that popular amongst the broad classical music listenership.

Seriously, is Wagner really any less popular than nearly any composer whose oeuvre was predominantly limited to opera? Bellini, Rossini, Donizetti... even Puccini and Verdi rarely show up in discussions to an extent that matches equivalent non-operatic composers. I might also point out that arguing in favor of Wagner is quite likely far less of a rearguard action than the championing of the Second Viennese School or Contemporary music... yet I would not expect those who admire the same to back down in the championing of that which they admire.

Verdi's music IS his monument.

And yet where are those championing Verdi to the same extent as Wagner? Verdi's music is great; don't get me wrong. _La Traviata_ was the first opera I ever saw (on TV) and I was immediately enamored... It remains one of my absolute favorites. _Aida_ was the first opera I ever saw in real life, and it converted me into an opera fanatic for life. Yet Wagner's music is no less of a monument. His impact upon subsequent music was greater than that of any composer since Beethoven, and this influence carried over into the other art forms as well, where numerous artists and writers were profoundly inspired by his ideas and achievements.

...most listeners who are okay with his orchestral or choral highlights, bits and pieces... (how many brides have would hate to sit through a whole opera of his.

Is this any less true of Verdi? Puccini? Rossini? etc...

I do look up to the composers who did not toady to the Nazis...

That's fine... but are you looking up to them as men... or as composers? How does there moral stance in any way effect their aesthetic achievements?






The "bad guys" here were composers like Khrennikov, who was a huge fan of Stalin and producing Socialist realist rubbish and calling that legitimate art, whipping the other guys with it as leader of the Soviet Union of Composers, an instigator of the oppression of 1948. But who knows him now? He's in the dustbin of history, as is his propaganda music. His quotes on his wikipedia page are quite chilling, he was a true believer right until the day he died in 2007, this very mean person. If someone gave me a cd of his music, I would immediately destroy it, or at the very least decline to accept it. So yep, I indeed do prejudge the likes of Khrennikov, getting those big commissions, while real composers like Shostakovich, Schnittke, Gubaidulina had to largely live off doing film scores as they were on some black list of one type or another...

And yet what if Khrennikov had been a great composer? How many artists of real merit were employed or accepted the patronage of some of the most blood-thirsty tyrants and despots in history? We can easily take the high moral stance with the Nazis and the Soviets for the simple reason that both were notoriously bad at recognizing the artists of real merit within their own regime.


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## StlukesguildOhio (Dec 25, 2006)

Haydn uses humor because he has a sense of humor.

Haydn employs wit and humor because wit and humor were highly valued attributes in the music of the Classical/Rococo era.

Wagner writes 16 hour operas because he thinks we care.

Wagner writes grandiose operas on mythological/historical themes because Romanticism placed a great value upon the elements of grand scale, the "sublime", great mythological/historical themes (ie. Berlioz, _Les Miserables_, _War and Peace_, etc...)


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

^^To answer you, just look at this forum. The hubris of Wagnerites matches that of the man himself. I don't come across assertions that say Verdi is the peak, everything else is dross around here.

Let's compare him to Debussy, in the OP. Say Debussy to most classical listeners, and they are okay with him, some love him. Say Wagner, and most will say they're not into that heavy going stuff. Maybe a stereotype but that's what I hear most of the times.

The likes of Debussy, Puccini, Verdi, Beethoven, etc. don't need a fanclub. Their music speaks for itself. They didn't need to get psychologically disturbed princes to fund them to build a monument to themselves.

I don't deny Wagner's innovations, originality and even genius, but I hate it when he's used as a battering ram by Wagnerites around here to belittle other's equally valid tastes.

I'm not the hugest fan of J.S. Bach, but let's face it, he's got near universal admiration from classical listeners across the board. Wagner at the very least is controversial in many ways. He's atypical of opera for a start, in most cases the cliche "it ain't all over till the fat lady sings" only apply to his operas, not other composer's operas. Not the ones I know better & love, at least.

As for modernist ideologues I have as little time for them as hard core Wagnerites. I hate dogma and false dichotomies.

As for your last paragraph, are you for real? Don't you want to get what I was saying about Khrennikov and his ilk? He was pure evil. Just read the Wikipedia page on him for starters. I don't chide eg. Shotakovich for joining the Communist Party in about 1960, he was very harsh on himself for that, saw it as a moral death. He hated the Communists. But Khrennikov was a true believer in Stalinism (which lead to millions of deaths, unless you don't know the obvious facts of that?). Khrennikov destroyed countless careers of composers who were real composers, not a poor excuse for a human being, let alone a composer.

In short, I've just had enough of people here not admitting that certain things stand as facts. In my three years here, I've never had Verdi or Beethoven rammed down my throat. I have had Wagner and Bach plenty of times. The fact that I've gone "back to Bach" and partially converted to the latter is a small miracle in regard to that, and I did it off my own bat, put downs are not good at promoting music, you know, it has the opposite effect (which is why I correspondingly hate hard core modernists judging people for not liking certain types of modern music - it's the same bad attitude, it's not about knowledge, it's about attitude).


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## brianwalker (Dec 9, 2011)

I'm not the hugest fan of J.S. Bach, but let's face it, he's got near universal admiration from classical listeners across the board. 
Plenty of people on TC don't like Bach, but the main problem is that there are fewer extra-musical reasons to dismiss him since 1. He wrote pieces that are short 2. He didn't have a messy personal life. Because there are fewer *excuses* to hate Bach, he appears to be more "universal". In addition his oeuvre is so large and diverse in form and medium that it takes more effort to get acquainted with his "essence", as opposed to Wagner, who wrote in one form, opens himself up for dismissal by an impatient person who has only listened to a few preludes and famous choral passages.

The nature of Bach's person-hood, the form of his music, and the body of work makes it harder for the attacker to put his attack in terms of anything *other than* "I don't like his music." while Wagner's extra-musical elements gives the detractor reasons to lay down his assault.

Let's compare him to Debussy, in the OP. Say Debussy to most classical listeners, and they are okay with him, some love him.
How can you hate a 4 minute atmospheric solo piano piece?

The likes of Debussy, Puccini, Verdi, Beethoven, etc. don't need a fanclub. 
And their lack of enthusiasm is a virtue?

Wagner writes 16 hour operas because he thinks we care.

Puccini wrote sordid kitschy melodramas because ....

As for modernist ideologues I have as little time for them as hard core Wagnerites. I hate dogma and false dichotomies.
I've seen little of Couchie denigrating modern music.


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## StlukesguildOhio (Dec 25, 2006)

It is a patently absurd mistake to think the artist IS the work. 'nuff said.

Indeed!

Romanticism, and the notion that the "true" work of art can only be achieved when the artist gives vent to his or her "true" voice, and Freud with his notions of the subconscious and the idea that the work of art can reveal much concerning the biography and the inner thoughts of the artist both are largely responsible for our current confusion between the artist and the work of art. A good many, I fear, have a rather skewed idea of the "man behind the curtain". There is something of a contemporary tendency toward literalism, straight-forward candor earnestly delivered with a straight face. Quite too often the audience succumbs to an unconscious tendency to equate the opinions and behavior of characters with that of their author... the painter... the composer There is an intractable assumption that everything the artist produces is "autobiographical," or the notion that the "voice"... the "I" of the poem or play or painting or opera is always the artist himself or herself. We have no problem entertaining the idea that Shakespeare could give vent to a broad array of characters... none of which we might think of as undoubtedly "expressive" of the author himself although many still confuse reality from the play. How often do we hear, Shakespeare said, "Neither a borrower nor a lender be?" of course Shakespeare didn't say any such thing. The character Polonius, invented by Shakespeare said that famous line... and it was undoubtedly intended to convey a degree of irony considering what we had already witnessed in the same character's actions. Yet many seem to be allergic to irony... or to anything that suggests that art is something more than mere "self expression". Many express a degree of consternation with Stravinsky because of his chameleon-like nature. If one accepts the notion that the artist has one true voice expressive of his or her inner being, then certainly to bounce around stylistically like Stravinsky (or Picasso) is to avoid be true to oneself.

Oscar Wilde recognized that:

_The artist is the creator of beautiful things. To reveal art and conceal the artist is art's aim.

All art is at once surface and symbol.

Those who go beneath the surface do so at their peril.

Those who read the symbol do so at their peril.

It is the spectator, and not life, that art really mirrors. 
_
(It is as much the audience as the artist that art mirrors or "expresses").


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

^^brainwalker, I am talking of that fact that I have come across a grand total of ONE hard core Wagnerite in real life in decades and yet every single classical listener I know personally either likes or loves J.S.Bach. So being the odd one out, I sussed out how to get into Bach's music in my own way (not the way of some of his fans online, eg. saying if I don't like the _Mass in B minor_ or heavy going stuff of the sort, that means I don't like all of the rest of BAch. Rubbish false dichotomies as usual).

This forum must be a parallel universe in some ways, but there are members here who have said or implied they don't worship or even some cases detest Wagner, eg. -

Polednice
Yours truly, Sid James
Hilltroll
Vaneyes
Kv466
samurai
regressivetransophobe

... are the ones I can think of now. An eclectic group of people, we have some things in common but not others. Fact is, I don't worship anybody.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

brianwalker said:


> ...
> 
> Let's compare him to Debussy, in the OP. Say Debussy to most classical listeners, and they are okay with him, some love him.
> How can you hate a 4 minute atmospheric solo piano piece?
> ...


You just go on with your false dichotomies and the worst of worst stereotypes, which show to me a certain desparation in wanting to win, when basically, this is not about a contest, this is about facts.

Eg. Most classical listeners don't like opera. If these people like some opera, they are likely to like Wagner the least. This is anecdotal but adds up. Eg. classic FM radio, most of it has a couple of slots during the week for opera or bits of operas, but most of the time they don't play opera. So what does that tell you? Hint: the majority of classical listeners are not into opera, at least not heavily/regularly. So even a smaller proportion of these people will be likely to like Wagner.

This is common sense, but forget it.


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## StlukesguildOhio (Dec 25, 2006)

Let's compare him to Debussy, in the OP. Say Debussy to most classical listeners, and they are okay with him, some love him. Say Wagner, and *most* will say they're not into that heavy going stuff. Maybe a stereotype but that's what I hear most of the times.

"Most"?... Most? And yet what do we find here at TC on our own thread devoted to the "greatest operas"?

*-1 Der Ring des Nibelungen (Wagner)*
*-2 Tristan und Isolde (Wagner)*
-3 Le Nozze di Figaro (Mozart)
-4 Giulio Cesare (Handel)
-5 Les Troyens (Berlioz)
-6 Don Giovanni (Mozart)
-7 La Traviata (Verdi)
-8 La Boheme (Puccini)
-9 Der Rosenkavalier (Strauss)
*10 Die Meistersinger von Nurnberg (Wagner)*
11 Die Zauberflote (Mozart)
12 Carmen (Bizet)
*13 Parsifal (Wagner)*
14 Il Barbiere di Siviglia (Rossini)
15 Otello (Verdi)
16 Tosca (Puccini)
17 Cosi fan Tutte (Mozart)
18 Wozzeck (Berg)
19 Salome (Strauss)
20 Lucia di Lammermoor (Donizetti)
*21 Lohengrin (Wagner)*
22 Eugene Onegin (Tchaikovsky)
23 Aida (Verdi)
24 Les Contes d'Hoffmann (Offenbach)
25 Don Carlos (Verdi)
26 Rigoletto (Verdi)
27 Elektra (Strauss)
*28 Tannhauser (Wagner)*
29 L'Orfeo (Monteverdi)
30 Moses und Aron (Schoenberg)

This was voted upon by all interested members of Talk Classical. Now I won't argue that it proves that The Ring is the greatest opera ever written, or any such nonsense, but it surely proves that *"most"* classical music fans... at least those that like opera... do not hate Wagner.

The likes of Debussy, Puccini, Verdi, Beethoven, etc. don't need a fanclub.

And yet certainly they all have their own fan base. One might surely argue that any number of composers... certainly Beethoven, Mahler, Mozart, and Bach have a fan base no less obsessive than that of Wagner.

Their music speaks for itself. 

And once again... so does Wagner's

They didn't need to get psychologically disturbed princes to fund them to build a monument to themselves.

You do know what Bayreuth is, don't you? It is not a monument to Wagner. It is a theater... designed to allow Wagner to stage his works in an ideal manner. What composers have not wished to see their works performed under the ideal situations? How many have sought out the greatest singers and soloists... the finest theaters... employed the most dramatic special effects (canons, lights, dancers, etc...)

I don't deny Wagner's innovations, originality and even genius, but I hate it when he's used as a battering ram by Wagnerites around here to belittle other's equally valid tastes.

Examples, please. Where has Wagner been used by members here to belittle another composer any more than any other major composer? I might draw attention to the fact that you, yourself have just used Debussy, Puccini, Verdi, Beethoven, etc. to belittle Wagner:

_"Debussy, Puccini, Verdi, Beethoven, etc. don't need a fanclub. Their music speaks for itself."_

If Wagner is ever hoisted upon this site in any extreme manner, it is largely done tongue-in-cheek... in a manner no different from Polednice's comments on the superiority of Brahms or my own portrayal of Bach as God.

I'm not the hugest fan of J.S. Bach, but let's face it, he's got near universal admiration from classical listeners across the board. Wagner at the very least is controversial in many ways. He's atypical of opera for a start, in most cases the cliche "it ain't all over till the fat lady sings" only apply to his operas, not other composer's operas. Not the ones I know better & love, at least.

Again, Wagner seems to be quite well admired by those who seriously love opera. I would suggest that part of the controversy around Wagner has to do with the simple fact that he is so highly rated... commonly within the top ten composers of all time... if not the top 5... and yet his oeuvre is limited almost solely to opera. A good many of those who dislike opera... or are lukewarm about it at best... bristle at the notion of an opera composer ranked above Mahler or Brahms or Bruckner... or their favorite composer of choice.

As for the stereotype of "it ain't over 'til the fat lady sings"? How does this apply anymore to Wagner than any other composer? Certainly there have been a number of zaftig Sopranos who have performed Wagner... but I have seen no less number of such singers performing any number of Italian operas, Mozart operas, Baroque operas, etc... Brunhilde and Sieglinde were no more written as "fat" characters than were many of the young lovers portrayed by Sutherland and Pavarotti.

As for your last paragraph, are you for real? Don't you want to get what I was saying about Khrennikov and his ilk? He was pure evil. Just read the Wikipedia page on him for starters. I don't chide eg. Shotakovich for joining the Communist Party in about 1960, he was very harsh on himself for that, saw it as a moral death. He hated the Communists. But Khrennikov was a true believer in Stalinism (which lead to millions of deaths, unless you don't know the obvious facts of that?). Khrennikov destroyed countless careers of composers who were real composers, not a poor excuse for a human being, let alone a composer.

Again... the question remains... "What if Khrennikov were a great composer?" Would that fact he was a real jack-*** taint his music? What about Mayakovsky and Khachaturian who also signed his "sentence... against traitors against the motherland, fascist hirelings"? Personally, I've never heard the least thing by him so I can offer no thoughts on his music. I did note that Stokowski performed his first symphony while Mstislav Rostropovich gave premieres of his cello concerto and two violin concertos.

And again I turn to Carlo Gesualdo whose biography, if anything, seems far worse than that of Khrennikov:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carlo_Gesualdo

In spite of all I know of Gesualdo the man, I am profoundly moved by his music for the simple reason that the artist and the art work are not one and the same. Yet I probably wouldn't want to hang around with him any more than I'd want to hang out with Wagner... or even Beethoven for that matter.






In short, I've just had enough of people here not admitting that certain things stand as facts. In my three years here, I've never had Verdi or Beethoven rammed down my throat.

I guess you haven't been around this site as much as I thought. I don't know how many times I have come across Beethoven's "fanboys" scoffing at Mozart as a "lightweight" or suggesting that Schubert is not even worthy of being considered in the same sentence with Beethoven. And of course there have been the champions of Modern and Contemporary music who have snidely suggested that all those who dislike this or that Modern/Contemporary composer simply haven't listened enough... or their tastes haven't matured enough. The reality is there will be composers... artists of every form... whose works won't gel with our personal tastes. Seriously, I haven't seen anyone here openly hell-bent upon converting you into a true Wagnerian.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

^^ Well thanks for your post but I think I have made my point strong enough. YOur point about reading between the lines for humour is true, it's difficult in real life sometimes, let alone online.

What I would extrapolate is that for Wagner, his personality and all that, it militated against him, largely. As I said before, it may have had little to do with him ultimately, just an issue of perception, right or wrong. & his limited niche in opera (but as I said, Verdi etc. are not nearly as controversial, look at Stephen Fry's recent film _Wagner and Me_).

But for Gesualdo, I think what he did (murder) kind of "sexed up" his life, it added not detracted from his mystique. Eg. the film made about him in the 1960's(?, I remember it's in black and white) in Italy made him much better known than before. In comparison, look at Josquin des Pres, the Beethoven of his day, we hardly know a thing (apart from some sketchy details) about his life or personality. So hardly anyone knows Josquin, yet he made a huge impact on music of his time and after.

I think for these guys as well, their lives, or "psychobiographies," actually added to their image (or Hollywoodised them) -

*Liszt* - a number of films, eg. the one with Dirk Bogarde
*Stravinsky* - eg. the recent _Coco and Igor_ movie
*Percy Grainger *- The film _Passion_ (1990's) with Richard Roxborough
*Mahler *- the film_ Mahler_ with Robert Powell (about 1980)
*Tchaikovsky* - Ken Russell's _The Music Lovers_
*Beethoven* -_ Immortal Beloved_
*Mozart *- _AMadeus_
*Gershwin *- _An American in Paris_ (an ancient film, the composer's friend, Oscar Levant was in it)

As for *Wagner*, there was a TV series with *Richard Burton* in the title role. A friend of mine saw it, but I didn't. I remember that it was praised. I would guess that by then (c.1980's) Wagner's reputation had been kind of rehabilitated, on the rise again, after the damage done by the Nazis.



StlukesguildOhio said:


> ...
> 
> In spite of all I know of Gesualdo the man, I am profoundly moved by his music for the simple reason that the artist and the art work are not one and the same.....


THey are not the same, but in the wild emotions conveyed in his madrigals, his life and temperament is in there undoubtedly. They get darker and darker as they reach the final set. By that time, he was an exile in another part of Italy, he had a death wish on his head by his late wife's family. This kind of shows in the music, musicologists agree across the board. His health got worse and he died prematurely, I think in his forties. He was not in a good space towards the end, that's for sure, and this comes to the fore in his music. Musicology has moved on since the _art for art's sake_ movement that Oscar Wilde and others where part of, but anyway...


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## mensch (Mar 5, 2012)

brianwalker said:


> Let's compare him to Debussy, in the OP. Say Debussy to most classical listeners, and they are okay with him, some love him.
> How can you hate a 4 minute atmospheric solo piano piece?


I'm sure you're generalising, but I'll bite. An average performance of Debussy's "Pelléas et Mélisande" takes almost 3 hours (granted it's not 15 hours or 4 days, but still), "Le Martyre de Saint Sébastien" takes around an hour to perform whereas "Jeux" and "La Mer" have a duration of about 15 to 20 minutes. So using his piano miniatures as an example seems a bit unfair.



StlukesguildOhio said:


> And yet what if Khrennikov had been a great composer? How many artists of real merit were employed or accepted the patronage of some of the most blood-thirsty tyrants and despots in history? We can easily take the high moral stance with the Nazis and the Soviets for the simple reason that both were notoriously bad at recognizing the artists of real merit within their own regime.


The problem with Khrennikov it appears (I haven't heard is music) that his compositional practice was heavily influenced by party politics. He was also the right man for the job, his conservative musical notions must have helped him to justify his campaigns against composers "unfit" for the Soviet spirit. I can't imagine Shostakovich, Stravinsky or Ligeti being the Soviet party's main prosecutor of dissident composers.
Also, being employed by blood-thirsty monsters is something different from actively participating in the blood-thirst and atrocities committed by ones employer.



PetrB said:


> It is a patently absurd mistake to think the artist IS the work. 'nuff said.


Certainly, I think no one is disputing that. But often the personal traits of the composer/artist will influence or be noticeable in the work in some way, this is true even for pre-Romantic music, but especially for the High Romantic era.


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## Clementine (Nov 18, 2011)

StlukesguildOhio said:


> Haydn uses humor because he has a sense of humor.
> 
> Haydn employs wit and humor because wit and humor were highly valued attributes in the music of the Classical/Rococo era.
> 
> ...


Oh jeez, can't you respond to the substantive portion of my post and not just the quick one liners? There I was oversimplifying, and the second comment was meant as tongue in cheek. But I think you're oversimplifying as well. A writer doesn't write comedy because it's popular, it's written because the writer is genuinely funny. Do you think for a moment that if Haydn had no sense of humor his music would be nearly as effective in that regard?

I'm tethering myself now and avoiding a rant. I think I made my point clear earlier, but I'm happy to take questions!


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## SiegendesLicht (Mar 4, 2012)

Sid James said:


> The "bad guys" here were composers like Khrennikov, who was a huge fan of Stalin and producing Socialist realist rubbish and calling that legitimate art, whipping the other guys with it as leader of the Soviet Union of Composers, an instigator of the oppression of 1948. But who knows him now? He's in the dustbin of history, as is his propaganda music.


Offtopic: in the former Soviet Union Khrennikov is anything but forgotten. He is still very much respected and his songs are often performed at concerts occassioned by national holidays and other "official" events. But then the Russians still hold very much to their Soviet past in every way.



Sid James said:


> The likes of Debussy, Puccini, Verdi, Beethoven, etc. don't need a fanclub. Their music speaks for itself. They didn't need to get psychologically disturbed princes to fund them to build a monument to themselves.


Ludwig II was not psychologically disturbed, he just loved Wagner a lot. And yes, he was one of those people who knew him personally and still loved him.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

SiegendesLicht said:


> ...Ludwig II was not psychologically disturbed, he just loved Wagner a lot. And yes, he was one of those people who knew him personally and still loved him.


Ludwig II's psychological illness is disputed, of course the science of psychology was yet to develop, so it's hard to tell. There were politics involved as well. However, his brother who succeeded him (in title only, not in practice) was basically certified to be insane. These things run in the family. In any case, Ludwig II was what I'd say prone to these grandoise schemes that made Bavaria virtually bankrupt (eg. that fairytale castle), and Wagner's Bayreuth was I'd guess one of these factors. I see him as prone to being influenced and kind of lonely in his eccentricity or whatever it was, also he was homosexual, thus an outsider. Wagner being the opportunist he was (and constantly bankrupt himself) would obviously have honed in on these weaknesses and insecurities.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

mensch said:


> ...The problem with Khrennikov it appears (I haven't heard is music) that his compositional practice was heavily influenced by party politics. He was also the right man for the job, his conservative musical notions must have helped him to justify his campaigns against composers "unfit" for the Soviet spirit. *I can't imagine Shostakovich, Stravinsky or Ligeti being the Soviet party's main prosecutor of dissident composers*...


Those guys where a different league in many ways from the likes of Khrennikov and R. Strauss who were okay with heading the musicians unions under the rule of two of the most horrible dictatorships on the planet. Of course, the latter was apolitical, whilst Khrennikov was much worse, a true believer. I'm talking of politics here now, not their music.


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## StlukesguildOhio (Dec 25, 2006)

Those guys where a different league in many ways from the likes of Khrennikov and R. Strauss who were okay with heading the musicians unions under the rule of two of the most horrible dictatorships on the planet. Of course, the latter was apolitical, whilst Khrennikov was much worse, a true believer.

How can Richard Strauss in any way be equated with Khrennikov? How can he in any way be portrayed as apolitical and freely cooperating with the Nazi's?:

Strauss never joined the Nazi party. He studiously avoided Nazi forms of greeting. He initially believed that only through cooperating with the Nazi regime would he be able to promote and preserve some semblance of German art and culture as well as assuring the preservation and continued performance of banned composers such as Mahler and Claude Debussy. Central to his actions was his need to protect his Jewish daughter-in-law and Jewish grandchildren.

Because of Strauss's international eminence, in November 1933 he was appointed to the post of president of the _Reichsmusikkammer_ or State Music Bureau. The Bureau was actually headed by Joseph Goebbels and other high-ranking Nazi officials, but Strauss and other legitimate musicians, including Wilhelm Furtwängler, were appointed as to the positions of president and vice-president. These positions were in title only and intended to legitimize the reputation of the Bureau. Strauss was dismissed from the post in June 1935, when a letter to his Jewish librettist Stefan Zweig, critical of Nazi racial profiling, was intercepted by the Gestapo, while Furtwängler resigned over his refusal to adhere to the ban on Hindemith's _Mathis der Maler_. Strauss privately scorned Goebbels and called him "a pipsqueak." He attempted to ignore Nazi bans on performances of works by Debussy, Mahler, and Mendelssohn. He also continued to work on a comic opera, Die schweigsame Frau, with his Jewish friend and librettist Stefan Zweig. When the opera was premiered in Dresden in 1935, Strauss insisted that Zweig's name appear on the theatrical billing, much to the ire of the Nazi regime. Hitler and Goebbels avoided attending the opera, and it was halted after three performances and subsequently banned by the Third Reich. 
In 1938, when the entire nation was preparing for war, Strauss created Friedenstag (Peace Day), a one-act opera set in a besieged fortress during the Thirty Years War. The work is essentially a hymn to peace and a thinly veiled criticism of the Third Reich. With its contrasts between freedom and enslavement, war and peace, light and dark, this work has a close affinity with Beethoven's Fidelio. Productions of the opera ceased shortly after the outbreak of war in 1939.

Toward the end of the war, Strauss wrote:

_"The most terrible period of human history is at an end, the twelve year reign of bestiality, ignorance and anti-culture under the greatest criminals, during which Germany's 2000 years of cultural evolution met its doom."
_

These do not strike me as the actions of a man that was either sympathetic toward the aims of the Nazi regime, nor apolitical. Rather they strike me as the small acts of rebellion available to a man in his circumstances... especially when this composer, who had turned 68 when Hitler came into power, needed to continually consider the perilous situation of his Jewish daughter-in-law and his grandchildren.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

StlukesguildOhio said:


> ...
> How can Richard Strauss in any way be equated with Khrennikov? How can he in any way be portrayed as apolitical and freely cooperating with the Nazi's?...


I did not equate R. Strauss with Khrennikov. I said they were different in terms of ideology (the former with no ideology, the latter nothing but ideology), that's what I said in the post you quoted. Both extremes are no good.

What I did say is they both fulfilled similar positions of authority, heading what amounted to musicians unions that basically dismantled musical life in Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia respectively. That is a fact.

In any case, like Wagner, R. Strauss is controversial. We've had this conversation before. Plenty of books on them both, extracts on googlebooks if you want to look. I remember in another one of our similar arguments regarding R.S., I proferred a part of a book (a link to that online), which shows what a minefield this guy is, in terms of his activities in the Nazi era. It all boils down as to how you interpret certain facts. We've both gone our separate ways, but please don't caricature what I say.

You can separate them from their art, as you were arguing re Khrennikov. Go ahead. Your ideology is not my ideology. Not in this case anyhow.

Which leads me to this - to answer my own question "Do you prejudge a composer based on their personality or politics?" Well, I'm afraid I do with the likes of Khrennikov. I am emotional but I admit it. I was a history scholar and read the horrible FACTS of what the likes of what this guy's overlords did. Go to his wikipedia page, as I said, his legacy is largely negative.

As for Wagner & R. Strauss, I accept them as in a different league from Khrennikov, they were great composers. It's true that we have to ultimately assess them on their music, not on their politics (or lack of it, etc.). They're not the only ones to have big egos, etc. But what I'm saying is that I've heard some of their music, I'm not prejudging.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

SiegendesLicht said:


> Offtopic: in the former Soviet Union Khrennikov is anything but forgotten. He is still very much respected and his songs are often performed at concerts occassioned by national holidays and other "official" events. But then the Russians still hold very much to their Soviet past in every way...


Well that comes across as something like German old Nazis, or today's neo-Nazis, who still sing the_ Horst Wessel Lied_. Sure it's respected by people, some people, in the country of the composer or piece, it has some meaning to them (which to me as far away from that, but knowing what these dictatorships did, strikes me as chilling). However, I'd guess you won't find Khrennikov or this type of thing performed outside Russia with much frequency.

I must add that another composer who was endorsed by the Soviet regime - but not by Stalin, it seems, he was condemned in the 1948 decree - was Dmitry Kabalevsky. He doesn't have the negative aura surrounding him as Khrennikov though, I don't think Kabalevsky believed in Stalinism, maybe he was a more progressive type Communist. His _Comedian's Suite_ is in the repertoire, a kind of_ lollipop_, light classical music piece.


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## Cnote11 (Jul 17, 2010)

I'm suddenly very interested in Khrennikov.


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