# Bach: passions vs Wagner: Ring operas



## BenG (Aug 28, 2018)

This looks like a really strange poll, but out of most of the really long, pieces for orchestra and choir, these are probably talked about the most, so.. yeah which one will you go for?


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## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

Bach's passions, no question. At least in my little listening room.


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## Allegro Con Brio (Jan 3, 2020)

I love the Ring, but it is my opinion that Bach reached emotional depths and heights in his passions that Wagner only scraped the surface of. I suppose I would be quite happy with either of these bodies of work on a desert island.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Allegro Con Brio said:


> it is my opinion that Bach reached emotional depths and heights in his passions that Wagner only scraped the surface of


You're entitled to your opinion, but in reality they're apples and oranges. They can't really be compared in terms of depth, since Bach doesn't really explore this sort of emotion:

"...(there is) henceforth no end to the yearning, longing, rapture, and misery of love: world, power, fame, honor, chivalry, loyalty, and friendship, scattered like an insubstantial dream; one thing alone left living: longing, longing unquenchable, desire forever renewing itself, craving and languishing; one sole redemption: death, surcease of being, the sleep that knows no waking!"


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## Neo Romanza (May 7, 2013)

Another apples vs. oranges poll.


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## DaddyGeorge (Mar 16, 2020)

Usually I'm not quite clear on similar types of questions, but in this case I answered without hesitation - Bach. Wagner's Ring is undoubtedly an amazing and revolutionary work and I love it. But Bach's Passions, it's extraterrestrial music in which I experience an absolutely unique atmosphere and special chilling feelings (even though I am not a believer).


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

As much as I love the Ring, I'd take the St Matthew's Passion over it. Throw in the St. John's, which is almost as good (and the two less known ones as rather meaningless bonus), and it's really no competition for me.


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## Guest002 (Feb 19, 2020)

I love the St. John Passion with, er, a passion... but I voted Wagner. The range of drama and emotion, myth and magic, glory and folly encompassed by the Ring story just won out over the rather more conventional drama of the Passions. But if I could vote tomorrow, I might vote the other way! Erbarme dich is hard to beat for sheer pathos.


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## consuono (Mar 27, 2020)

The Passions, no contest.



hammeredklavier said:


> You're entitled to your opinion, but in reality they're apples and oranges. They can't really be compared in terms of depth, since Bach doesn't really explore this sort of emotion:
> 
> "henceforth no end to the yearning, longing, rapture, and misery of love: world, power, fame, honor, chivalry, loyalty, and friendship, scattered like an insubstantial dream; one thing alone left living: longing, longing unquenchable, desire forever renewing itself, craving and languishing; one sole redemption: death, surcease of being, the sleep that knows no waking!"



That kind of overblown rhetoric reminds me of everything I dislike about the Romantic era.


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## BenG (Aug 28, 2018)

Neo Romanza said:


> Another apples vs. oranges poll.


It's more like 'take only one to a desert island' style


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## Neo Romanza (May 7, 2013)

BenG said:


> It's more like 'take only one to a desert island' style


I hope the desert island has electricity or an endless supply of batteries, because you're not listening to anything on an island with no electricity or batteries.


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## annaw (May 4, 2019)

Neo Romanza said:


> I hope the desert island has electricity or an endless supply of batteries, because you're not listening to anything on an island with no electricity or batteries.


You can only admire the cover image .


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## BenG (Aug 28, 2018)

Neo Romanza said:


> I hope the desert island has electricity or an endless supply of batteries, because you're not listening to anything on an island with no electricity or batteries.


No.... nor are you ever going to get stuck on a desert island ever - its a metaphor


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

There's no meaningful comparison here. Which have i listened to more often? The _Ring._ I'm just not into bewailing my sins and pleading for mercy, but if I were I'd certainly have Bach supply the music.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

BenG said:


> No.... nor are you ever going to get stuck on a desert island ever - its a metaphor


This pandemic can feel like being stuck on a desert island. Glad I have electricity and tons of CDs.


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## realdealblues (Mar 3, 2010)

I'm taking the question as which of these two things do I listen to most often in which case the answer is The Ring. 

I enjoy the Bach Passions maybe once a year but I indulge in The Ring every few months.


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## Allegro Con Brio (Jan 3, 2020)

hammeredklavier said:


> You're entitled to your opinion, but in reality they're apples and oranges. They can't really be compared in terms of depth, since Bach doesn't really explore this sort of emotion:
> 
> "...(there is) henceforth no end to the yearning, longing, rapture, and misery of love: world, power, fame, honor, chivalry, loyalty, and friendship, scattered like an insubstantial dream; one thing alone left living: longing, longing unquenchable, desire forever renewing itself, craving and languishing; one sole redemption: death, surcease of being, the sleep that knows no waking!"


For me, Wagner explores very specific emotions felt only by the characters in his dramas, while Bach gives us the entire universal spectrum of the human experience. Wagner, however, certainly stands at the pinnacle of Romantic expression, which I do not necessarily see as universal expression. I see Bach as one of the few composers who transcended the limits of his time in his artistic visions. But that's a philosophical debate that largely comes down to individual perception.


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## annaw (May 4, 2019)

Based on frequency I've certainly got to go with the _Ring_ as well...


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## howlingfantods (Jul 27, 2015)

the Ring is 15 hours and the Passions are 5 hours combined. the Ring is clearly and objectively the winner.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Allegro Con Brio said:


> For me, Wagner explores very specific emotions felt only by the characters in his dramas, while *Bach gives us the entire universal spectrum of the human experience.*


That is impossible. Bach's art, like all art, is limited in its scope, however deep and broad it is. There are many human experiences expressed in Wagner but not in Bach, who had no occasion to express them in the context of his artistic goals and within the musical style of his time.


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## annaw (May 4, 2019)

Allegro Con Brio said:


> For me, Wagner explores very specific emotions felt only by the characters in his dramas, while Bach gives us the entire universal spectrum of the human experience. Wagner, however, certainly stands at the pinnacle of Romantic expression, which I do not necessarily see as universal expression. I see Bach as one of the few composers who transcended the limits of his time in his artistic visions. But that's a philosophical debate that largely comes down to individual perception.


I guess it's personal as well. In my opinion Wagner's characters are some of the most human characters in opera and because of that, they actually explore human emotions in a very general and not in some specific context.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

consuono said:


> That kind of overblown rhetoric reminds me of everything I dislike about the Romantic era.


Chopin, a Romantic composer whom you love so much over Wagner, was inspired by Mickiewicz's poems. He often reminds me of Charles Mayer in terms of general output of works produced, and I love how some people including you (and Allegro) never talk about his "level of depth" =). As if doing it would be a sacrilege. To each his own. =)


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## Allegro Con Brio (Jan 3, 2020)

I suppose I just find Wagner’s emotional and aesthetic world to be less accessible for me than Bach’s.


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## annaw (May 4, 2019)

Allegro Con Brio said:


> I suppose I just find Wagner's emotional and aesthetic world to be less accessible for me than Bach's.


I think this is entirely understandable and can be the case with any kind of music, in fact, any kind of art.


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## Bulldog (Nov 21, 2013)

Wagner's best pieces from the Ring might be as alluring as from Bach's Passions, but I find Bach more consistently engaging.


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## amfortas (Jun 15, 2011)

I vote Wagner, but I need to know the Passions better.


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## MusicSybarite (Aug 17, 2017)

That was easy: *Wagner operas*, this life and the next ones.


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## Simplicissimus (Feb 3, 2020)

As musical experiences, they are both among my most valued. I don't want to bring religion into this discussion, but I can say in brief that the Passions are meaningful to me in a way that _Der Ring des Niebelungen simply cannot be._


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## NLAdriaan (Feb 6, 2019)

Even if you leave out religion or admiration, the storyline of the Passions is much more compassionate, realistic and intelligent than Wagner's egomaniac ring. This is also clearly reflected in the music, Bach's subtlety over Wagner's bombast. So I clearly prefer Bach's passions over Wagner's ring anytime.


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## Rogerx (Apr 27, 2018)

I voted for Bach: Passions, over a years time I spin them more often then Der Ring.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Bach Passions by a country mile. They are some of the greatest musical works written by a man. For me the Ring isn't even in the frame.


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## Jacck (Dec 24, 2017)

I'd go for the Ring. It is longer and thematically much more interesting than the Passions. The Passions are not my favorite music by Bach though. That would be his keyboard music. If the choice was Bach's keyboard music vs the Ring, I would vote for Bach.


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## Snazzy (Jun 8, 2020)

Neo Romanza said:


> I hope the desert island has electricity or an endless supply of batteries, because you're not listening to anything on an island with no electricity or batteries.


I dislike the concept of being on a deserted Island listening to noisy seabirds. I used to live on the Scottish coast and hated the raucous noise of seagulls every morning. I'm now in middle of the country side awakened to the soothing sound of the dawn chorus of the woodland birds. Sorry, didn't mean to digress.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

NLAdriaan said:


> Even if you leave out religion or admiration, the storyline of the Passions is much more compassionate, realistic and intelligent than Wagner's egomaniac ring.


Isn't it kind of ironic it's not the Ring, but the Passions that contain anti-semitic messages?


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## annaw (May 4, 2019)

hammeredklavier said:


> Isn't it kind of ironic it's not the Ring, but the Passions that contain anti-semitic messages?


Could this topic be somehow avoided ? Please!


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## NLAdriaan (Feb 6, 2019)

hammeredklavier said:


> Isn't it kind of ironic it's not the Ring, but the Passions that contain anti-semitic messages?


Congrats, you have just discovered something nobody knew already:lol:


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

hammeredklavier said:


> Isn't it kind of ironic it's not the Ring, but the Passions that contain anti-semitic messages?


Funny that as the gospel texts were written by Jews!


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

repeat post...............


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## Jacck (Dec 24, 2017)

DavidA said:


> Funny that as the gospel texts were written by Jews!


Jesus was a Jew too. He brought a revolution. Those who embraced it became Christians, those who did remained Judaist.


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## consuono (Mar 27, 2020)

hammeredklavier said:


> Isn't it kind of ironic it's not the Ring, but the Passions that contain anti-semitic messages?


I don't know if Hitler was ever in the Thomaskirche. I do know he was at Bayreuth.


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## BenG (Aug 28, 2018)

annaw said:


> Could this topic be somehow avoided ? Please!


Some topics are never avoided at talk classical.


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## ManateeFL (Mar 9, 2017)

consuono said:


> I don't know if Hitler was ever in the Thomaskirche. I do know he was at Bayreuth.


Not sure where Hitler visited or didn't visit has to do with the antisemitic content of the works.

Bach's Holy Dread

"That judgment applies to the Passions, and to the St. John most of all. Of the Evangelists, John is the most vindictive toward the Jews, and many Baroque settings of his Passion narrative preserve that animus. The libretto of Bach's St. John, by an unidentified author, is based in part on a text devised by the Hamburg poet Barthold Heinrich Brockes-a lurid treatment that was set by Handel and Telemann, among others. One aria speaks of "you scum of the world," of "dragon's brood" spitting venom in the Saviour's face. Brockes's libretto identifies the soldiers who scourge Jesus as Jews-a departure from the New Testament.

Bach's libretto is somewhat less severe. The "scum of the world" lines are excised, and the scourging of Jesus is ascribed not to Jewish soldiers but to Pilate. Were these enlightened choices on the part of Bach or his collaborator? There is no way of knowing, but Marissen speculates that Bach, following Lutheran convention, wished to shift emphasis from the perfidy of the Jews to the guilt of all participants in the Passion scene and, by extension, to present-day sinners.

Still, the Jews retain enemy status, their presence felt in a series of bustling, bristling choruses. Many of these pieces share an instrumental signature-sixteenth notes in the strings, oboes chirping above. Several exhibit upward-slithering chromatic lines. Bouts of counterpoint create a disputatious atmosphere. All this fits the stereotype of "Jewish uproar"-of a noisy, obstinate people. At the same time, the choruses are lively, propulsive, exciting to sing and hear. When the Jews tell Pilate, "We have a law, and by the law he ought to die," the music is oddly infectious, full of jaunty syncopations. This incongruous air of merriment conveys how crowds can take pleasure in hounding individuals. Moreover, the chorus in which the Jews protest the designation of Jesus as "King of the Jews" echoes a chorus of Roman soldiers sardonically crying the same phrase. Ultimately, Bach seems interested more in portraying the dynamics of righteous mobs than in stereotyping Jews. The choicest irony is that he uses his own celebrated art of fugue as a symbol of malicious scheming.....

Even if the Passions lack malice toward Jews, they treat them more as metaphors than as human beings."


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## Jacck (Dec 24, 2017)

consuono said:


> I don't know if Hitler was ever in the Thomaskirche. I do know he was at Bayreuth.


I think the reason Hitler admired Wagner was not because of supposed antisemitism, but because he both liked the music (even terrible human beings can have good taste in music) and liked the German mythology in those works.


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## annaw (May 4, 2019)

BenG said:


> Some topics are never avoided at talk classical.


Apparently not... at least I tried .


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## OperaChic (Aug 26, 2015)

Jacck said:


> I think the reason Hitler admired Wagner was not because of supposed antisemitism, but because he both liked the music (even terrible human beings can have good taste in music) and liked the German mythology in those works.


This is certainly closer to the mark. As I've posted before, but it obvioulsy bears repeating, it is often assumed that Hitler was attracted to Wagner's operas because of the plots, with their classic confict between the outsider and a rigid social order, their lonely heroes and dark villains, their Nordic myths and Germanic legends. However there is no record of any comment on how he interpreted the works, or whether he saw in them any ideological message, much less whether he envisaged himself as Lohengrin, Siegmund, Siegfried, Wotan or any other Wagnerian character.

It was the music that moved him. "When I hear Wagner, it seems to me like the rhythyms of the primeval world" he said, "and I could imagine that science will one day find measures of creation in the proportions of the physically perceptible vibrations of the Rhinegold music." Perhaps he was trying to say what Thomas Mann wrote in Doctor Faustus: that the elements of music are the first and simplest materials of the world, and make music one with the world. That the beginning of all things had its music. Through Wagner's works, Wagner probably came to experience a bliss that was as close to spirituality as he ever reached. Hitler's secretary, Christa Schroeder, recalled him saying that "Wagner's musical language sounded in his ear like a revelation of the divine." The vocabulary suggests that the feelings conjured by the operas may have filled the void left by the religious belief he lost or never really had. In one of his earliest speeches he made the revealing comment that, "In their way, Wagner's works were holy", that they offered "exultation and liberation from all the wretchedness and misery, as well as all the decadence that prevails" and that they "lift one up into the pure air."

If escape and purificaiton were part of the appeal, the operas also responded to that proclivity of Hitler's towards the overwhelming, the oceanic, the Romantic, the orgasmic that was evident in his public rallies, parades and spectacles. Like Wagner himself, Hitler believed that music fully realized itself only when it fused with other arts in visible form on stage. And, like Wagner, his interest extended virtually every aspect of operatic production, down to the fabric of costumes and design of the theater itself. He was fascinated by backstage operations, including the functioning of stage machinery, and was personally involved in some productions during the 1930s and 40s that reflected his tastes with smashing effects, gigantic choruses and parades, huge casts of extras and glitzy costumes. Hitler sat up ad anguished over every minor detail of the productions, from the effects of the moonlight in a particular scene to the colors. In any case, what Hitler imposed on the operas was his artistic tastes rather than any sort of ideology, with the result that the productions are memorable for their vulgarity rather than their politics. All the evidence points to the fact that for Hitler, Wagner was simply one of his favorite composers, not a political or ideological mentor.

In fact, Parsifal actually aroused grave misgivings in Hitler. Whatever he thought of the music, he could not have liked the story. His anti-clericalism and active detestation of priests and monks, to say nothing of such notions as penitence, redemption and compassion, made it intolerable. Since the plot could not be altered however, he wanted the opera at least to be performed in a way that secularized it. This was the reason he wanted an opera producer he idolized, Alfred Roller, to restage it at Bayreuth. And this elucidates Hans Frank's story that while riding through his train to the Rhineland in 1936, Hitler asked to have played for him a recording of Karl Muck's performance of the prelude to the opera. Aftewards, in a deeply contemplative mood, he purportedly remarked "Out of Parsifal I shall make for myself a religion, religious service in solemn form without theological disputation." He went on to say that it, presumably both the opera and his new religion, was to be "stripped of all its sacred aspects." Once the war began, permission to stage the opera, except in Vienna, was rarely given. The religious symbolism in the opera continued to nag at Hitler even during the war. Returning briefly to Berlin from the Russian front in November 1941, he raised the subject during a meeting with Goebbels. "After the war, [Hitler] declared he would see to it that relgion was banished from Parsifal, or that Parsifal was banished from the stage." Hitler recalled that the Vienna opera archive held sketches of Roller's 1914 production and he comended these as models for producers. Not waiting for the final vitory, Goebbels passed on the word to his ministerial officials with instructions to have photographs of the Roller sketches circulated to every opera house. Managers were informed that any future staging of the work was to follow the Roller model and was no longer to be done in the Byzantine sacred style that was common up until then.


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## annaw (May 4, 2019)

My opinion is that seeing anti-semitic traces in Wagner's operas is an entirely personal matter. I don't see them, and I'm happy I don't, but someone else does. It's most likely that I won't change the other person's mind but I can recommend doing more thorough research on the subject to see whether these views seem to be legitimate or not. I went through a phase where I considered not listening to any Wagner at all but I overcame it through analysing the operas and later his writings. Some people will arrive to a different conclusion. I haven't yet encountered a single writing by Wagner where he would have expressed any intention to create anti-semitic stereotypes or something similar and he wrote down arguably even too many of his thoughts! Neither have I read anything by Cosima, who seemed to idolise her husband so much that she (with some exaggeration) put down every word that came out of Wagner's mouth. Thus, I haven't found facts to prove or disprove neither of the sides.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Jacck said:


> Jesus was a Jew too. He brought a revolution. Those who embraced it became Christians, those who did remained Judaist.


It would surprise you to know no doubt that one can be both a Jew and a Christian. Notable examples include St Peter and St Paul and the entire early Christians.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

ManateeFL said:


> Not sure where Hitler visited or didn't visit has to do with the antisemitic content of the works.
> 
> Bach's Holy Dread
> 
> ...


This sort of reasoning of course comes from the deathly type of religiosity that was found in Western Christendom. It is foreign to the nature of the gospels which are Jewish and are passionate. We shouldn't be surprised at this as this type of passion is found in many Mediterranean countries. We see Paul at Ephesus when the idol craftsmen are offended by his preaching shouting for two hours non-stop, "Great is Diana of the Ephesians." We see it again where Paul is seized in the temple and barely escapes with his life and where he is nearly lynched by a heathen mob. To those of us who have travelled to these places such things do not sound terribly strange but of course they do in the water-down Anglicanism-type Christianity where God is an English gentleman. Actually when you read the gospel accounts with the eyes of a first century Jew rather than a 21st century Westerner Bach had it completely right.


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## Enthusiast (Mar 5, 2016)

I couldn't think how to vote so I looked at the results so far and voted for the Bach because he was (unfairly) losing. If Wagner had been (unfairly) losing I would have voted for him.


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## wkasimer (Jun 5, 2017)

DavidA said:


> It would surprise you to know no doubt that one can be both a Jew and a Christian.


Not that I wish to engage in theological discussion, but this is simply not true.


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## JAS (Mar 6, 2013)

wkasimer said:


> Not that I wish to engage in theological discussion, but this is simply not true.


Unless one is mixing ethnicity and religion.


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## NLAdriaan (Feb 6, 2019)

What really tires me is the Wagner laundromat that keeps spinning here at TC. If it smells like a duck, if it quacks like a duck, if it walks like a duck and if it looks like a duck, it probably is a duck. You can't whitewash Wagner as if he didn't have anything to do with the ultra nationalist German movements that gave birth to the national socialists. He created a pilgrimage and a soundtrack for them and his heirs were exploiting Bayreuth as a safe house for them. The love affair between repressive extreme right wingers and Wagner's music goes on until this day. Of course not anyone who loves Wagner, will have extreme nationalist, hateful political views. And nobody is saying that. But the sometimes aggressive denial that keeps flowing through these threads, attacking, insulting and ridiculing everyone who mentions the obvious, is at least significant. Wagner will forever be associated with ultra nationalism, live with it. Whoever chooses to deny that, is only falsifying history.


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## Xisten267 (Sep 2, 2018)

I don't like secco recitatives and this is a key factor for me prefering the Ring operas over the passions.


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## Couchie (Dec 9, 2010)

NLAdriaan said:


> What really tires me is the Wagner laundromat that keeps spinning here at TC. If it smells like a duck, if it quacks like a duck, if it walks like a duck and if it looks like a duck, it probably is a duck. You can't whitewash Wagner as if he didn't have anything to do with the ultra nationalist German movements that gave birth to the national socialists. He created a pilgrimage and a soundtrack for them and his heirs were exploiting Bayreuth as a safe house for them. The love affair between repressive extreme right wingers and Wagner's music goes on until this day. Of course not anyone who loves Wagner, will have extreme nationalist, hateful political views. And nobody is saying that. But the sometimes aggressive denial that keeps flowing through these threads, attacking, insulting and ridiculing everyone who mentions the obvious, is at least significant. Wagner will forever be associated with ultra nationalism, live with it. Whoever chooses to deny that, is only falsifying history.


While Wagner can be identified with National Socialism, he can also *not* be identified with National Socialism. He is much more than that. To keep bringing up Nazis whenever Wagner is mentioned is just stupid. No, we don't need to swallow that poison pill every time we think or listen to Wagner, thank you, keep it to yourself.


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## BenG (Aug 28, 2018)

Couchie said:


> While Wagner can be identified with National Socialism, he can also *not* be identified with National Socialism. He is much more than that.


Thank you. I don't know why anyone would even want to look at Wagner's life that one dimensionally


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## Dimace (Oct 19, 2018)

The comparison between Bach and Wagner, in ANY field, is unlucky. Despite this, I have chosen the Ring. Not because I consider it more important work than Bach's but simply because I like it more. In any case, we are speaking for two colossal works of the highest possible calibre. (One guy, with big wallet, went to a friend who is selling cars. ''What is better for me'' he asked him. ''An electric Tesla or the RAM?'' (The RAM is a diesel MONSTER 6 lt. truck for farmers or for the off road lovers…)


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

wkasimer said:


> Not that I wish to engage in theological discussion, but this is simply not true.


The fact that all the early Christians we're Jews seems to have escaped you! Why on earth do you think Jesus said that the disciples were to go and preach the gospel beginning at Jerusalem. Because Jews couldn't become Christians? I can assure you I know Jews who are Christians.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

JAS said:


> Unless one is mixing ethnicity and religion.


With the Christian religion there is no ethnicity. There is no ethnic boundaries


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## consuono (Mar 27, 2020)

wkasimer said:


> Not that I wish to engage in theological discussion, but this is simply not true.


If one can be an atheist and a Jew at the same time, or a Buddhist or a Jew at the same time, then it simply has to be true.


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## consuono (Mar 27, 2020)

Jacck said:


> I think the reason Hitler admired Wagner was not because of supposed antisemitism, but because he both liked the music (even terrible human beings can have good taste in music) and liked the German mythology in those works.


I never heard where Hitler was that much into German mythology. That was Himmler's little bailiwick.


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## wkasimer (Jun 5, 2017)

consuono said:


> If one can be an atheist and a Jew at the same time, or a Buddhist or a Jew at the same time, then it simply has to be true.


You're mixing religion with ethnicity. I know plenty of Jews who are atheists.


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## wkasimer (Jun 5, 2017)

DavidA said:


> The fact that all the early Christians we're Jews seems to have escaped you!


Hardly. But the early Christians have been dead for a very long time.



> Why on earth do you think Jesus said that the disciples were to go and preach the gospel beginning at Jerusalem. Because Jews couldn't become Christians?


Of course they can. But once they become Christian, they're no longer Jewish.



> I can assure you I know Jews who are Christians.


And I can assure you that no rabbinic authority would consider them Jewish in the religious sense.

I'm done here.


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## consuono (Mar 27, 2020)

wkasimer said:


> You're mixing religion with ethnicity. I know plenty of Jews who are atheists.


No, it would appear you're saying that religion defines ethnicity. If one can be an atheist and a Jew, I don't see how one can't be a Christian and a Jew. Just as there are Protestant Irish.


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## Dimace (Oct 19, 2018)

Rienzi shows as that Wagner was against any kind of totalitarianism. He was a very liberal spirit and he was chased for this reason. It is coincidence that Hitler and him was loving the German (and the Greek) mythology and ancient history, or they both had the same musical taste. Hitler took advance from many great composers to support his brutal regime. Beethoven was even greater victim of this practice.


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## wkasimer (Jun 5, 2017)

consuono said:


> No, it would appear you're saying that religion defines ethnicity. If one can be an atheist and a Jew, I don't see how one can't be a Christian and a Jew. Just as there are Protestant Irish.


I'm done with this discussion. Feel free to write whatever nonsense you wish.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

wkasimer said:


> I'm done with this discussion. Feel free to write whatever nonsense you wish.


 Opting out of a discussion does not make you right. I think you are confusing religion and ethnicity.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Dimace said:


> Rienzi shows as that Wagner was against any kind of totalitarianism*. He was a very liberal spirit and* he was chased for this reason. It is coincidence that Hitler and him was loving the German (and the Greek) mythology and ancient history, or they both had the same musical taste. Hitler took advance from many great composers to support his brutal regime. Beethoven was even greater victim of this practice.


Very liberal with other people's money. And their wives! :lol:


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## Itullian (Aug 27, 2011)

DavidA said:


> Opting out of a discussion does not make you right. I think you are confusing religion and ethnicity.


Jews are a people as well as a religion.
Thus you can be an atheist and still be a Jew.
Not so with other religions


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

NLAdriaan said:


> *What really tires me* is the Wagner laundromat that keeps spinning here at TC. If it smells like a duck, if it quacks like a duck, if it walks like a duck and if it looks like a duck, it probably is a duck. You can't whitewash Wagner as if he didn't have anything to do with the ultra nationalist German movements that gave birth to the national socialists. He created a pilgrimage and a soundtrack for them and his heirs were exploiting Bayreuth as a safe house for them. The love affair between repressive extreme right wingers and Wagner's music goes on until this day. Of course not anyone who loves Wagner, will have extreme nationalist, hateful political views. And nobody is saying that. But the sometimes aggressive denial that keeps flowing through these threads, attacking, insulting and ridiculing everyone who mentions the obvious, is at least significant. Wagner will forever be associated with ultra nationalism, live with it. Whoever chooses to deny that, is only falsifying history.


What really tires ME is your dishonest slams against people who defend Wagner from people like you who relish his "association" with Nazism. You enter every thread about Wagner you can find, just for the purpose of maintaining that "association," while carefully avoiding facts.



> You can't whitewash Wagner as if he didn't have anything to do with the ultra nationalist German movements that gave birth to the national socialists.


No one has ever said that Wagner had nothing to do with nationalist _ideas and sentiments_. It was an era when nation-states were solidifying. Many people had nationalist sentiments, including, conspicuously, Verdi. As for "ultra nationalist German movements," Wagner was not a participant in any such movements. And as for the national socialists - i.e. Nazis - they espoused ideologies of biological race and German superiority and domination which Wagner never did.



> He created a pilgrimage and a soundtrack for them


He did no such thing.



> The love affair between repressive extreme right wingers and Wagner's music goes on until this day.


Could you give us the names of these people and tell us how their "love" is expressed?

Oh. Didn't think you could.



> But the sometimes aggressive denial that keeps flowing through these threads, attacking, insulting and ridiculing everyone who mentions the obvious, is at least significant.


The attacks and ridicule come from you, every time a thread containing the name "Wagner" lures you in. You have a compulsion to put down people here merely for trying to cut through the Nazi cliches and look at Wagner objectively.



> Wagner will forever be associated with ultra nationalism, live with it. Whoever chooses to deny that, is only falsifying history.


Wagner will be "associated" with whatever people choose to associate him with, and history is what people say and write. Your prophecy is self-fulfilling, and you are doing your perverse and shameless best to ensure its fulfillment.


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## consuono (Mar 27, 2020)

Itullian said:


> Jews are a people as well as a religion.
> Thus you can be an atheist and still be a Jew.
> Not so with other religions


Then it stands to reason that one can be a Jew and a Christian as well. What stands in the way of that idea is rabbinical hatred of Christianity which can't be completely passed off as a reaction to medieval Christian antisemitism.

By the way I don't blame Wagner for the Nazis at all.


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## Bulldog (Nov 21, 2013)

consuono said:


> Then it stands to reason that one can be a Jew and a Christian as well.


Nonsense. A Jewish person may convert to Christianity, but he/she would no longer be Jewish.


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## wkasimer (Jun 5, 2017)

consuono said:


> Then it stands to reason that one can be a Jew and a Christian as well. What stands in the way of that idea is rabbinical hatred of Christianity which can't be completely passed off as a reaction to medieval Christian antisemitism.


Be very thankful that I've left this discussion.


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## Luchesi (Mar 15, 2013)

Jacck said:


> Jesus was a Jew too. He brought a revolution. Those who embraced it became Christians, those who did remained Judaist.


can you explain what you mean?


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## consuono (Mar 27, 2020)

Bulldog said:


> Nonsense. A Jewish person may convert to Christianity, but he/she would no longer be Jewish.


So explain then how an atheist or Buddhist can still be a Jew while Christianity is the only disqualifying factor.


wkasimer said:


> Be very thankful that I've left this discussion


Give it a shot.


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## Sonata (Aug 7, 2010)

Bulldog said:


> Nonsense. A Jewish person may convert to Christianity, but he/she would no longer be Jewish.


They would still have Jewish ethnicity. I mean presuming they were ethnically Jewish and not simply religiously Jewish to start with


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## Bulldog (Nov 21, 2013)

consuono said:


> So explain then how an atheist or Buddhist can still be a Jew while Christianity is the only disqualifying factor.
> Give it a shot.


I never said Christianity is the only factor; someone else must have told you that.

By the way, I am a Jewish atheist. I'm Jewish because my mom was Jewish and I have not converted to a different religion.


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## fluteman (Dec 7, 2015)

JAS said:


> Unless one is mixing ethnicity and religion.


Ugh. I wasn't going to comment on this utterly irrelevant tangent, but Jewishness is not simply an ethnicity. It is a nationality that dates back to a time when nationality and religion were a single unified concept. The break with Christians came because Christians embraced the concept of religion apart from (earthly) nationhood in response to the increasing oppression of their Roman rulers and the destruction of any semblance of an autonomous Jewish state. Jewish ideology never abandoned the concept of their entitlement to an autonomous nation on earth. In fact, a large section of the Old Testament is devoted to very practical instructions, including laws and a system of government, for running a nation.

As to the main topic, for me Bach's passions and Wagner's Ring occupy opposing (or nearly opposing) ends of a vast ideological spectrum running from the ultimate primacy of the individual to the ultimate subservience of the individual to a greater principle, whether or not one calls that greater principle "God". And for me, regardless of philosophical or religious beliefs, Bach's music makes the more compelling case.


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## Itullian (Aug 27, 2011)

Most Jews are in fact secular, but they're still Jews.


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## Luchesi (Mar 15, 2013)

Atheists can believe that the fluctuations reached the top of the energy sombrero and then collapsed to inflate and condense out this universe. 'Good as any of the scientific scenarios (with the supporting math).

Buddhists don't concern themselves with the mechanisms of creation. They've gone along with the consensus down through history. And now it's the story from science.


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## fluteman (Dec 7, 2015)

Itullian said:


> Most Jews are in fact secular, but they're still Jews.


I said, not _simply_, or not _only_, an ethnicity. Obviously, ethnicity, or cultural identity, is a very significant part of it. (In fact, the creators of the modern state of Israel wanted it populated as much as possible with "secular" rather than religious Jews, to use your terminology.) But using "Christian" in the traditional sense of the word, one can't be a secular Christian. That, to me, is the fundamental difference.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

fluteman said:


> As to the main topic, for me Bach's passions and Wagner's Ring occupy opposing (or nearly opposing) ends of a vast ideological spectrum running from the ultimate primacy of the individual to the ultimate subservience of the individual to a greater principle, whether or not one calls that greater principle "God". And for me, regardless of philosophical or religious beliefs, Bach's music makes the more compelling case.


I wonder how music can make a "case" for an ideology, and whether Wagner's music in the _Ring_ actually tries to do that. A setting of the passion may indeed be intended to make a case for Christianity, since everything in a Christian service is so intended. But is the _Ring_ some sort of secular equivalent of religious dogma?

I must question your concept of a "greater principle" and where you think such a principle is to be looked for. Are there no principles on exhibit in the _Ring,_ principles that transcend the random whims of random individuals? If the work isn't equivalent to a religious sermon - and I don't think it is - has it nonetheless nothing to say of value about human life? Are the curse of power and the struggle of the impulses of love and compassion to survive in, and ultimately redeem, a corrupt world not principles of significant universality? Is obedience to imagined gods based on a "greater principle" than the commitment to human reason? To what "greater principle" should that commitment be "subservient"? Does the music of Bach somehow tell us?

Your post is altogether troublesome.


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## consuono (Mar 27, 2020)

Bulldog said:


> I never said Christianity is the only factor; someone else must have told you that.
> 
> By the way, I am a Jewish atheist. I'm Jewish because my mom was Jewish and I have not converted to a different religion.


So what other factors are there? If "Jew" denotes ethnicity, then a Jew remains a Jew whether Christian, Buddhist or atheist. If "Jew" is dependent upon religion, then the only Jews can be those who observe Judaism, excluding Christians, Buddhists and atheists.


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

It is an interesting comparison. I think that Bach's music has the dark and the light, the mystery, the beauty, the depths. The difference is that it leaves one with a sense of a higher order and of resolution. An ultimate feeling of unity. This is just an attempt at a basic description, of course the music says much more to us one can never fully explain. 

Wagner's music also has dark and light, mystery, beauty and depth, but leaves one with a sense of questioning. A feeling of things being confused, conflicted. Uncertainty, not fully resolved, questions remaining. Again this is just a basic description.

I choose Bach because I prefer the feeling I get from his music, and all around I think that he was the greater, more well rounded and sophisticated composer. However, I see Wagner also as a highly gifted composer with a unique compositional voice presenting a valid expression of experience within the human condition. I don't see his music as being quite as balanced and uplifting in the way Bach's music is but I don't like when people blame Wagner for evils in society like the Nazis. I think that is going way too far and I have never come across a well reasoned argument for that.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Anyone object to dropping the fruitless debate about who gets to call himself a Jew? This is something that even Jews argue about. It isn't going to be resolved here, and the conversation belongs in the religion subforum, if anywhere.

How about Bach and Wagner? What are the meaningful bases of comparison, if any? And anyone who brings up Luther's antisemitism should be dropped into a well with a millstone tied around his neck.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

tdc said:


> It is an interesting comparison. I think that Bach's music has the dark and the light, the mystery, the beauty, the depths. The difference is that it leaves one with a sense of a higher order and of resolution. An ultimate feeling of unity. This is just an attempt at a basic description, of course the music says much more to us one can never fully explain.
> 
> Wagner's music also has dark and light, mystery, beauty and depth, but leaves one with a sense of questioning. A feeling of things being confused, conflicted. Uncertainty, not fully resolved, questions remaining. Again this is just a basic description.
> 
> I choose Bach because I prefer the feeling I get from his music, and all around I think that he was the greater, more well rounded and sophisticated composer. However, I see Wagner also as a highly gifted composer with a unique compositional voice presenting a valid expression of experience within the human condition. I don't see his music as being quite as balanced and uplifting in the way Bach's music is but I don't like when people blame Wagner for evils in society like the Nazis. I think that is going way too far and I have never come across a well reasoned argument for that.


These strike me as good observations, and I'm in considerable agreement with them. May I try to expand on them a little? I think Bach and Wagner do express different perspectives on the nature of human life, and that these perspectives were not just personal differences but were characteristic of Western civilization in their respective time periods. Bach was probably a bit anachronistic spiritually, in that the 17th and 18th centuries were a time of questioning of traditional verities, while Bach, both personally and in his role as a functionary in the Lutheran church, was primarily committed to upholding the very religious orthodoxies concurrently undergoing the reassessments which would push society to political democracy and the Romantic movement. Wagner, of course, began as an active political revolutionary extolling the freedom of the individual from both rigid social roles and received thought; he was a Romantic through and through, and his religious notions, to the extent that he held them, were both personal and influenced by the work of philosophers who adhered to no orthodoxy.

I hear in Bach's music an overriding depiction of order, with the expression of specific feelings generally subordinated to it. That he could achieve a great variety and intensity of feeling within that frame is testament to his unique genius, his perception of the potentialities of his musical language and his imagination in exploiting them. The Romantic Wagner wasn't primarily concerned with an overriding order, but with finding meaning - a form of order - in feelings themselves. His genius was like Bach's in his exceptional ability to perceive expressive possibilities in the elements of melody, harmony, rhythm and conterpoint, but was different from Bach's in that, in the process of carrying the expression of feeling to extremes of specificity and intensity, he found an inherent order in subjective experience which could serve as the basis of a different conception of musical form. Bach sought order in aesthetic form, and expoited it with such thoroughness that a world of emotion could find its place within the frame. Wagner, though he studied and strove to master traditional musical structures, began not with formal ideas but with ideas of feeling which generated forms; he searched out the dynamic shapes and trajectories of emotion, and found that feeling is not chaotic but has its own forms and destinies which, given an arena to play out within the structure of drama, leave us with a sense of aesthetic satisfaction, but not the same sense of perfection afforded by Bach.

Bach's art is fundamentally idealistic and metaphysical; Wagner's is realistic and existential.

For the Christian Bach, the universe was a perfect creation despite all appearances, and salvation came through faith that that perfection would prevail (I don't know his views on the insoluble Problem of Evil). For the Romantic freethinker Wagner, there was no perfection, but there might be deliverance from the predicament of existence through authenticity of feeling and action. I don't think that music alone can express these ideas, but it can express some of the feelings that such fundamental ideas give us. In both composers, music is allied with texts, and, in the _St. Matthew Passion_ and _The Ring of the Nibelung_, to stories which take us through dramas of the soul significant to their composers. Bach's drama leaves us with a preordained resolution, which we expect; Wagner's leaves us with questions. Which of them we most identify with will in large part correspond to how we personally view man's situation and destiny.

I have the profoundest reverence for both Bach and Wagner as artistic geniuses, different in kind but both at a level occupied by only a select few. I find Bach's depiction of transcendental order magnificent and his emotional expression powerfully moving, sometimes - as in the great choruses of the B Minor Mass - beyond what any other music affords me. Order is the highest aspiration of the human mind, and finding it expressed at the level of complexity, energy and beauty Bach achieves is an experience of psychic integration which can give me, if only for a moment, the ecstatic illusion of a perfect reality. In Wagner I look for something else, and that something else is something more like life itself, which is not perfect but is full of unsatisfied longings and unresolved questions. The feeling I have at the end of a Wagner opera is not one of reassurance but one of catharsis. Bach establishes a transcendent reality from the start, while Wagner achieves transcendence, when he does, through the tragic struggle. I can love Bach's vision of transcendence, achieved by an extraordinary complexity of musical thought, despite his Lutheran ideological baggage, whch I reject. I love Wagner's art because, contrary to popular conceptions of it, it assumes no ideological framework but delves directly into human experiences not often explored by music, and if it leaves me with a larger vision of life it does so the hard way.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

Take Mendelssohn, the guy who revived St. Matthew's Passion, for example: "He was brought up without religion until the age of seven, when he was baptised as a Reformed Christian.". But Wagner still considered him a Jew in "Das Judenthum in der Musik".


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## NLAdriaan (Feb 6, 2019)

Couchie said:


> To keep bringing up Nazis whenever Wagner is mentioned is just stupid.


This everlasting association may be quite inconvenient for some listeners. But for plenty of people it is the reason why. The blind admiration of Wagner as a supreme being, unlike any other composer, all too often declared in these threads, requires some nuance, some coloring. The aggressive, insulting personal responses only confirm this.

Calling me stupid:lol:? Only ignorance is truly stupid.

Just go on, pretend it isn't there, pretend you don't know, happy living :tiphat:


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

wkasimer said:


> Hardly. But the early Christians have been dead for a very long time.
> 
> Of course they can. But once they become Christian, they're no longer Jewish.
> 
> ...


Of course the early Christians were Jewish. When Paul and Silas were brought before the magistrates in Philippi, the charge was, "These men being JEWS are throwing a city into an uproar by advocating customs which are unlawful for us Romans to practice." They did not cease being Jews by becoming Christians. If you read the new Testament Paul remained a Jew all his life. He went to the temple to observe a particularly Jewish practice and was arrested there. The fact that there is a messianic Jewish moment today who are Christian seems to have escaped you. It doesn't matter what rabbinic authority recognises them they consider themselves Jews and Christians.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Bulldog said:


> I never said Christianity is the only factor; someone else must have told you that.
> 
> By the way, I am a Jewish atheist. I'm Jewish because my mom was Jewish and I have not converted to a different religion.


Exactly! And being an atheist does not stop you being a Jew albeit a non-religious Jew. My late father-in-law was in the same position. He was actually a supporter of all things Jewish even though he was not religious himself


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## annaw (May 4, 2019)

NLAdriaan said:


> This everlasting association may be quite inconvenient for some listeners. But for plenty of people it is the reason why. The blind admiration of Wagner as a supreme being, unlike any other composer, all too often declared in these threads, requires some nuance, some coloring. The aggressive, insulting personal responses only confirm this.
> 
> Calling me stupid:lol:? Only ignorance is truly stupid.
> 
> Just go on, pretend it isn't there, pretend you don't know, happy living :tiphat:


This everlasting association is not inconvenient for me as a listener but for me as a human-being who finds it difficult to keep out of the discussion :lol:. It was a very small part of Wagner's thoughts but it seems, at least to me, to be exaggerated because of the fact that somehow Hitler managed to start liking exactly Wagner in his childhood among all possible composers he could have alternatively chose. He of course realised, when he became a political figure, that emphasising Wagner's anti-semitic writings would be a nice propaganda move and thus it was also convenient to him.

No one seems to be pretending anything though... I very sincerely believe that there is nothing anti-semitic in Wagner's operas, until proved otherwise (preferably by Wagner's own writings).


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

NLAdriaan said:


> This everlasting association may be quite inconvenient for some listeners. But for plenty of people it is the reason why. The blind admiration of Wagner as a supreme being, unlike any other composer, all too often declared in these threads, requires some nuance, some coloring. The aggressive, insulting personal responses only confirm this.
> 
> Calling me stupid:lol:? Only ignorance is truly stupid.
> 
> Just go on, pretend it isn't there, pretend you don't know, happy living :tiphat:


Your "everlasting association" is not "inconvenient." It is simply full of misconceptions which you have no interest in acknowledging because that would undermine your agenda.

There is no "blind admiration of Wagner as a supreme being." There is, though, a blinding hatred, which you exhibit, for truth and those who try to discover it despite the "associations" you love to perpetuate. Your performances here, designed solely to misrepresent and mock people more compassionate, honest and sincere than yourself, are despicable.

Couchie is absolutely right about you.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

annaw said:


> This everlasting association is not inconvenient for me as a listener but for me as a human-being who finds it difficult to keep out of the discussion :lol:. It was a very small part of Wagner's thoughts but it seems, at least to me, to be exaggerated because of the fact that somehow Hitler managed to start liking exactly Wagner in his childhood among all possible composers he could have alternatively chose. He of course realised, when he became a political figure, that emphasising Wagner's anti-semitic writings would be a nice propaganda move and thus it was also convenient to him.
> 
> No one seems to be pretending anything though... I very sincerely believe that there is nothing anti-semitic in Wagner's operas, until proved otherwise (preferably by Wagner's own writings).


You are too kind to NLAdriaan. He has been trolling Wagner lovers for a very long time now, and his intentions are clearly not honorable but hostile in a way I frankly find incomprehensible.

Hitler actually _didn't_ "emphasize Wagner's antisemitic writings." There was only one essay by Wagner, "Das Judentum in der Musik," and Hitler never talked about it and may actually never have read it. There is apparently no record of his having mentioned Wagner's antisemitism at all. It was the operas he loved, and there is no indication that he saw anything antisemitic in them.

The notion that Hitler's racist ideas derived from Wagner is baseless, and in fact Wagner did not hold the ideas of race and German domination which were the basis of Nazi ideology. People like NLAdriaan, who are eager to perpetuate "associations" and make certain that everyone keeps them in mind forever, have no interest in these facts or any others. Don't show trolls a respect they don't deserve.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

DavidA said:


> Exactly! And being an atheist does not stop you being a Jew albeit a non-religious Jew. My late father-in-law was in the same position. He was actually a supporter of all things Jewish even though he was not religious himself


Take this conversation to the religion forum, please.


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## annaw (May 4, 2019)

Woodduck said:


> You are too kind to NLAdriaan. He has been trolling Wagner lovers for a very long time now, and his intentions are clearly not honorable but hostile in a way I frankly find incomprehensible.
> 
> *Hitler actually didn't "emphasize Wagner's antisemitic writings."* There was only one essay by Wagner, "Das Judetum in der Musik," and Hitler never talked about it and may actually never have read it. There is apparently no record of his having mentioned Wagner's antisemitism at all. It was the operas he loved, and there is no indication that he saw anything antisemitic in them.
> 
> The notion that Hitler's racist ideas derived from Wagner is baseless, and in fact Wagner did not hold the ideas of race and German domination which were the basis of Nazi ideology. People like NLAdriaan, who are eager to perpetuate "associations" and make certain that everone keep them in mind forever, have no interest in these facts or any others. Don't show trolls a respect they don't deserve.


That's even better then! I was sure he did but I feel enlightened now. I was a very good representation myself of the main problem which is that it's often assumed that Hitler was fond of Wagner because of his anti-semitic essay... turns out that maybe he just liked the operas themselves.

Antisemitism during the 19th century had spread all over the Europe and not only in Germany but it was nothing near as radical as what was created in the 20th century. Wagner was also not alone with his antisemitic views, even among composers. It feels quite unjust to accuse Wagner straightforwardly in the same crimes as the Nazis. It also didn't seem to be nearly as prominent topic of Wagner's thoughts as is sometimes thought. I've read for example some of his letters to Roeckel - he wrote tons of stuff about Schopenhauer but I don't recall a single mention of anything anti-semitic. It didn't seem to be something he was constantly thinking about.


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## wkasimer (Jun 5, 2017)

Woodduck said:


> Anyone object to dropping the fruitless debate about who gets to call himself a Jew? This is something that even Jews argue about. It isn't going to be resolved here, and the conversation belongs in the religion subforum, if anywhere.


Eventually, the participants will tire of talking to themselves.


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## BenG (Aug 28, 2018)

hammeredklavier said:


> Isn't it kind of ironic it's not the Ring, but the Passions that contain anti-semitic messages?


You did not realise what you started


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## VitellioScarpia (Aug 27, 2017)

wkasimer said:


> Eventually, the participants will tire of talking to themselves.


It reminds me of the joke about why the Camerata Fiorentina invented opera: so they could all talk at the same time!


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## Luchesi (Mar 15, 2013)

Why is Mendelssohn regarded as sentimental and second-rank? Because his reputation was wrecked by Wagner, who had his own ambitions for German culture, writes Tom Service.


https://www.theguardian.com/music/2009/may/05/felix-mendelssohn-richard-wagner-classical-music


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## fluteman (Dec 7, 2015)

Woodduck said:


> I wonder how music can make a "case" for an ideology, and whether Wagner's music in the _Ring_ actually tries to do that. A setting of the passion may indeed be intended to make a case for Christianity, since everything in a Christian service is so intended. But is the _Ring_ some sort of secular equivalent of religious dogma?
> 
> I must question your concept of a "greater principle" and where you think such a principle is to be looked for. Are there no principles on exhibit in the _Ring,_ principles that transcend the random whims of random individuals? If the work isn't equivalent to a religious sermon - and I don't think it is - has it nonetheless nothing to say of value about human life? Are the curse of power and the struggle of the impulses of love and compassion to survive in, and ultimately redeem, a corrupt world not principles of significant universality? Is obedience to imagined gods based on a "greater principle" than the commitment to human reason? To what "greater principle" should that commitment be "subservient"? Does the music of Bach somehow tell us?
> 
> Your post is altogether troublesome.


I am very sorry if you misunderstood my post, and I can see why, I should have been clearer. I meant that, for me, Bach's passions make a better case solely on subjective artistic and aesthetic grounds and utterly apart from any religious or ideological considerations, but rather purely as music. I do think that Wagner lived in a very different world than Bach, and the themes of the Ring are quite different than those of the passions, and the music quite rightly is entirely different and appropriate to the themes addressed, in fact spectacularly successful, in both instances. Just, for me, Bach is even more successful at this than Wagner, or anyone else in the history of western music, for that matter.

I did NOT mean that the work of Wagner, or of other post-enlightenment artists and philosophers, reflected less important principles than their pre-enlightenment predecessors.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

wkasimer said:


> Eventually, the participants will tire of talking to themselves.


O wad some Pow'r the giftie gie us
To see oursels as ithers see us!
It wad frae mony a blunder free us,
An' foolish notion:
What airs in dress an' gait wad lea'e us,
An' ev'n devotion!

(Burns)


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

^^^Ah. Thank you for the correction and clarification. I like you again. :angel:


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## Itullian (Aug 27, 2011)

They are both great.
The end :tiphat:


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## fluteman (Dec 7, 2015)

Woodduck said:


> ^^^Ah. Thank you for the correction and clarification. I like you again. :angel:


Whew! What a relief!  It will take time for the shame of my badly-written post to subside, but I'm used to it.


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## consuono (Mar 27, 2020)

BenG said:


> You did not realise what you started


Oh yeah he/she did.


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## premont (May 7, 2015)

realdealblues said:


> I'm taking the question as which of these two things do I listen to most often in which case the answer is The Ring.
> 
> I enjoy the Bach Passions maybe once a year but I indulge in *The Ring* every few months.


Kind of circular argument.


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## hammeredklavier (Feb 18, 2018)

BenG said:


> You did not realise what you started


Yeah. I should have "arranged for this to be on standby":


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## premont (May 7, 2015)

This is one of the most furtile and superfluous threads I have seen since long in TC.


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## fluteman (Dec 7, 2015)

premont said:


> This is one of the most furtile and superfluous threads I have seen since long in TC.


Futile? Or fertile? Or, somehow, a combination of both? Or just a G#d durn dumb errand? Ouch. I'll get some bachlash for that one.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Nothing's futile and superfluous about comparing and contrasting two of the greatest composers - their works, sensibilities, styles and eras. What IS futile and superfluous are the many posts that decline to explore the potential of such a comparison in favor of a pointless debate over who is or isn't a Jew. 

Why people can't resist going completely off topic, debating unanswerable questions, defending their religious beliefs, and derailing threads is something I'll never understand. But it's quite common around here. Life would be so much more pleasant if people with no real interest in a subject and nothing to say about it would just go do something else somewhere else.


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## Ethereality (Apr 6, 2019)

The mechanisms of different polling techniques are interesting:

- If we ask people to make a Top 30 greatest works list and award the top-most works the most points, what this shows is that a work is great because some people love it to a strong degree. And because more people like it, it's a popularity contest.

- If we make a simple poll between 2 works, this technique instead allows everyone to vote on a work, but they're giving their favorite of the 2 the same weight as anyone else does. Even if someone loves a work more than any other, they have the same weight. And this too is also a popularity contest.

This poll we have above doesn't consider how _much_ people like the works.

We had a Prokofiev vs Shostakovich poll a few months back. Shostakovich ended up in our Top 8 on the Forum Survey of favorite composers, however, in the poll itself, Prokofiev beat Shostakovich by a lot. This is because most people voting weren't those individuals who are "in love" with Shostakovich, giving him tremendous points in the survey.

- Lastly, we can do it like Science's Tier voting. Everyone gets to vote, and they can give certain works more points. The benefit of doing this is it has a better chance of forcing people to listen to works for the first time, all the works within the Tier you are judging. This makes it much less of a popularity contest, and much more of a chance for unpopular works to become recognized by voters.

I hope there's a better way in the future to rank works with as little popularity bias as possible. To give a fair shot to hearing all works. The only problem is, so many people grow up listening to the most popular composers that they _hear_ music this way, and assume this is what great music sounds like.

But what if the real standard of excellence also includes much less popular composers? Combinations of sounds that sound _strange_ to people, simply because they have not grown around it, simply because, they are not popular names. Names that show up much more often with experienced listeners than they do beginning listeners are, for example: Bruckner, Schumann, Janacek, Reger. But is this reliable info? I suppose if there is any objectivity to music, it might be reliable.


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## fluteman (Dec 7, 2015)

Woodduck said:


> Nothing's futile and superfluous about comparing and contrasting two of the greatest composers - their works, sensibilities, styles and eras. What IS futile and superfluous are the many posts that decline to explore the potential of such a comparison in favor of a pointless debate over who is or isn't a Jew.
> 
> Why people can't resist going completely off topic, debating unanswerable questions, defending their religious beliefs, and derailing threads is something I'll never understand. But it's quite common around here. Life would be so much more pleasant if people with no real interest in a subject and nothing to say about it would just go do something else somewhere else.


The irony is, in this thread it came up not due to Wagner and the Jews, but rather Bach and the Jews. Of course Bach was Lutheran, and Martin Luther was known for having a decidedly hostile attitude towards Jews. (So much so that the Lutheran Church in the US seems to have felt it necessary to formally disown Luther's views on the subject.)

The music critic Alex Ross wrote an interesting piece that touches on the topic in the New Yorker not long ago, discussing a number of books that explore the more general subject of Bach's religious views.

But in the end, on matters like this I recall Ben Jonson's famous couplet about Shakespeare, and specifically his portrait at the beginning of the first folio:

Reader, look,
Not at his picture, but his book.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

fluteman said:


> The irony is, in this thread it came up not due to Wagner and the Jews, but rather Bach and the Jews. Of course Bach was Lutheran, and Martin Luther was known for having a decidedly hostile attitude towards Jews. (So much so that the Lutheran Church in the US seems to have felt it necessary to formally disown Luther's views on the subject.)
> 
> The music critic Alex Ross wrote an interesting piece that touches on the topic in the New Yorker not long ago, discussing a number of books that explore the more general subject of Bach's religious views.
> 
> ...


It is a curious fact that there is a Jewish "connection" to both composers, and one relating to antisemitism at that, but obviously in different ways and with different degrees of pausibility. Unfortunately there are enough people for whom the meaning of antisemitism is entirely _too_ obvious, precluding any nuanced conversation and making any pursuit of the matter an unproductive and annoying diversion. It's so much more profitable to focus on artists' achievements than on their prejudices, and so damned frustrating that threads are routinely strangled to death by people whose sensibilities prefer the tabloids to the front page.


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## annaw (May 4, 2019)

I think there are fascinating things about both Bach's and Wagner's music which are much more prominent and could (and maybe should) be discussed before even touching the topic of anti-semitism, which as I explained some time ago, can not as far as I know be neither proved nor disproved and should thus be considered just a question of different opinions. These are my views, at least.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

annaw said:


> I think there are fascinating things about both Bach's and Wagner's music which are much more prominent and could (and maybe should) be discussed before even touching the topic of anti-semitism, which as I explained some time ago, can not as far as I know be neither proved nor disproved and should thus be considered just a question of different opinions. These are my views, at least.


Luther's the views were of course regrettable and extreme even for the day. He was used to expressing himself in violent language and by the time he arrived at the pamphlet in question he was a sick man and plagued by many illnesses. However it must be pointed out that unlike Wagner and Hitler his anti-Semitism was not based on ethnic grounds but on the grounds that the Jews would not convert to Christianity. He expected with the sweeping away of the catholic faith in Germany that the Jews would now be free to convert to Protestantism but of course they didn't much to his displeasure. Hence his furious reaction. It is very difficult in our society where freedom of religion is a given right to understand these sort of views but they were the given norm of the day. Of course these views were taken up and applied ethnically by those who wanted a pure German race including Wagner and Hitler. What is the only reaction to Luther's violent tract? As an admirer of much of his work one can only wish he had never written it. Terrible! A case where 'big men make long shadows'


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

premont said:


> This is one of the most furtile and superfluous threads I have seen since long in TC.


Every thread on TC is futile. They are just people expressing opinions. So why do you bother?


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## KRoad (Jun 1, 2012)

Was Wagner circumcised?


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

wkasimer said:


> Not that I wish to engage in theological discussion, but this is simply not true.


So I guess you haven't heard of the "Messianic Jews?" One of their congregations runs a wilderness camp twenty miles from my house.


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## wkasimer (Jun 5, 2017)

EdwardBast said:


> So I guess you haven't heard of the "Messianic Jews?"


Please ask any rabbi of an actual Jewish congregation (or any knowledgeable Jew) whether these "Messianic Jews" are Jewish, and let us know the response.

Until then....


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

wkasimer said:


> Please ask any rabbi of an actual Jewish congregation (or any knowledgeable Jew) whether these "Messianic Jews" are Jewish, and let us know the response.
> 
> Until then....


It may have escaped your attention that there are more Jews in the world than Rabbis and those who attend synagogues. Just go to Israel and find out!


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## Resurrexit (Apr 1, 2014)

DavidA said:


> Luther's the views were of course regrettable and extreme even for the day. He was used to expressing himself in violent language and by the time he arrived at the pamphlet in question he was a sick man and plagued by many illnesses. However it must be pointed out that unlike Wagner and Hitler his anti-Semitism was not based on ethnic grounds but on the grounds that the Jews would not convert to Christianity. He expected with the sweeping away of the catholic faith in Germany that the Jews would now be free to convert to Protestantism but of course they didn't much to his displeasure. Hence his furious reaction. It is very difficult in our society where freedom of religion is a given right to understand these sort of views but they were the given norm of the day. *Of course these views were taken up and applied ethnically by those who wanted a pure German race including Wagner and Hitler*. What is the only reaction to Luther's violent tract? As an admirer of much of his work one can only wish he had never written it. Terrible! A case where 'big men make long shadows'


That is simply untrue. Wagner never expressed any desire for a "pure" German race, and his views cannot be lumped together with Hitler's so carelessly. Uninformed and baseless statements like this being thrown around without consideration are exactly what makes these discussions unproductive.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

DavidA said:


> Luther's the views were of course regrettable and extreme even for the day. He was used to expressing himself in violent language and by the time he arrived at the pamphlet in question he was a sick man and plagued by many illnesses. However it must be pointed out that *unlike Wagner and Hitler his anti-Semitism was not based on ethnic grounds but on the grounds that the Jews would not convert to Christianity.* He expected with the sweeping away of the catholic faith in Germany that the Jews would now be free to convert to Protestantism but of course they didn't much to his displeasure. Hence his furious reaction. *It is very difficult in our society where freedom of religion is a given right to understand these sort of views but they were the given norm of the day. Of course these views were taken up and applied ethnically by those who wanted a pure German race including Wagner and Hitler. What is the only reaction to Luther's violent tract? As an admirer of much of his work one can only wish he had never written it.* Terrible! A case where 'big men make long shadows'


You are extraordinarily solicitous toward Luther's antisemitism, which he expressed in literally murderous language, while you continue your years-long campaign to send Wagner straight to hell for having written an essay attempting to explain why he thought Jews could not assimilate to European culture, and under what conditions he thought they might eventually do so. Is it too much to ask (rhetorical question, I suppose) that you not perpetuate false portrayals of Wagner's thinking (see the sentences in bold above)?

One might think that you've been talking about this subject long enough to have picked up on the fact that Wagner's and Hitler's ideas about Jews were not the same. The sentence "these views were taken up and applied ethnically by those who wanted a pure German race including Wagner and Hitler" is wrong in every respect. As Resurrexit points out, Wagner never expressed any desire for a "pure" German race. But even beyond this, he told Gobineau that he didn't believe in such a thing as a "German race." And still less did he think, as Hitler did, that a "German race" should dominate people of other races or cultures.

At this point there is no excuse for perpetuating these lies. If you can't wrap your mind around the facts in this matter, at least be good enough to keep your fancies to yourself and quit undermining discussions of Wagner on this forum.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Resurrexit said:


> That is simply untrue. Wagner never expressed any desire for a "pure" German race, and his views cannot be lumped together with Hitler's so carelessly. Uninformed and *baseless statements* like this being thrown around without consideration are exactly what makes these discussions unproductive.


The problem is statements like: "it is certain that the noblest white race is monogamic at its first appearance in saga and history, but marches toward its downfall through polygamy with the races which it conquers," might give the wrong impression then! It is, though, as you say, pointless discussing it, as you will doubtless deny every piece off evidence offered.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

wkasimer said:


> Please ask any rabbi of an actual Jewish congregation (or any knowledgeable Jew) whether these "Messianic Jews" are Jewish, and let us know the response.
> 
> Until then....


The true Englishman argument. A classic.

Seriously though, I think they have the same criteria by lineage and practice as other Jews, with one eccentric addition. But maybe the next time I drive down Trout Farm Road I'll stop in for some tea and theology.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

DavidA said:


> The problem is statements like: "it is certain that the noblest white race is monogamic at its first appearance in saga and history, but marches toward its downfall through polygamy with the races which it conquers," might give the wrong impression then! It is, though, as you say, pointless discussing it, as you will doubtless deny every piece off evidence offered.


At the very end of his life, Wagner's conversations with Gobineau (author of "Essay on the Inequality of the Human Races") had him toying with ideas of race which he hadn't entertained previously. It's hard to say where this line of thinking would have taken him; the sentence you quote is from an essay he didn't live to finish. Anyone who's read much of Wagner's prose writings and recorded statements, or simply looked at the events of his life, ought to know that we can't expect from him consistent, coherent, rational, or definitive philosophical or political positions. At this final stage of his life his thinking seems all the more fanciful; turning the idea of race over in his mind, he postulates that the races could be "harmonized" through some sort of mystical Christianity. Certainly not an idea that would have appealed to the miltant leader of the Third Reich!

Meanwhile, we have Martin Luther, the founder of Protestant Christianity, urging that synagogues, Jewish schools and homes be burned to the ground, that rabbis be forbidden to preach, that legal protections be stripped from Jews, and that their wealth be confiscated. They are, he wrote, "a base, whoring people, that is, no people of God, and their boast of lineage, circumcision, and law must be accounted as filth." He also suggested that they all be hunted down and drowned with millstones tied around their necks.

It makes accusations that Meyerbeer and Mendelssohn couldn't write really profound music because European culture was alien to their natures look rather innocuous. Given that Wagner's sole published essay on what he called "Jewishness in Music," which did not advocate any civic action against Jews but suggested the alternatives of assimilation or, interestingly, the founding of a Jewish state, was never widely read and wouldn't have made sense even to many who read it, I think it's safe to say that Wagner's personal antisemitic prejudices had far less impact on the world than the vicious ravings of Luther and other "Christians" who persecuted Jews horribly throughout history.

Now, can we put this stuff to rest?


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

EdwardBast said:


> The true Englishman argument. A classic.
> 
> Seriously though, I think they have the same criteria by lineage and practice as other Jews, with one eccentric addition. But maybe the next time I drive down Trout Farm Road I'll stop in for some tea and theology.


Eccentric? Ah so Christianity is now eccentric?


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## wkasimer (Jun 5, 2017)

EdwardBast said:


> Seriously though, I think they have the same criteria by lineage and practice as other Jews, with one eccentric addition.


That "eccentric addition" is considered disqualifying by the wider Jewish community.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

wkasimer said:


> That "eccentric addition" is considered disqualifying by the wider Jewish community.


As it was in the days of the first Christians in Acts of the Apostles if you recall! Actually as most of the 'wider jewish community' is secular I don't think they bother too much.


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## Resurrexit (Apr 1, 2014)

Woodduck said:


> At the very end of his life, Wagner's conversations with Gobineau (author of "Essay on the Inequality of the Human Races") had him toying with ideas of race which he hadn't entertained previously. It's hard to say where this line of thinking would have taken him; the sentence you quote is from an essay he didn't live to finish. Anyone who's read much of Wagner's prose writings and recorded statements, or simply looked at the events of his life, ought to know that we can't expect from him consistent, coherent, rational, or definitive philosophical or political positions. At this final stage of his life his thinking seems all the more fanciful; turning the idea of race over in his mind, he postulates that the races could be "harmonized" through some sort of mystical Christianity. *Certainly not an idea that would have appealed to the miltant leader of the Third Reich!*


No, Wagner's ideas in his late essays certainly wouldn't have appealed to Hitler. They largely express a Darwinian perspective and contain a strong religious dimension in their anthropological discussion. I know this having spent some time reading these essays in an attempt to try to gain some sort of critical understanding of them and to see if they do actually contain a "pernicious racist ideology", as claimed by some on the subject. The writing is very convoluted, often unclear and esoteric, and taking random quotes out of context as DavidA does is simply unhelpful at gaining any sort of understanding of what Wagner is trying to argue.

The fundamental disagreement between Wagner and Gobineau is that Wagner believed the races could be "regenerated", something Gobineau denied. Wagner stresses the unity of the human race, and adds to it the view that in Jesus Christ one achieves the transformation of humankind from its natural state (with differentation of races) to a true moral one where differentation of races is overcome. Any "racism" Wagner shows has been changed and indeed mollifed by his appeals to Darwin and to his Christian outlook.

To highlight the fundamental importance of Christ's sacrifice for Wagner and the lack of his interest in a "pure" German race, consider a couple entries from Cosima's diary. Wagner says in an entry in 1881 that "In Germany everything is in the the process of dying out...one thing is certain: races are done for, and all that can now make an impact is -- as I have ventured to express it -- the blood of Christ." Then in 1882 we read "[Wagner] reproaches Gobineau for leaving out of account one thing which was given to mankind -- a saviour, who suffered for them and allowed himself to be crucified." For Wagner the sacrifice of Christ and the power of his "blood" for the renewal of humankind were fundamental. So again, lumping his ideas with Hitler's is unhelpful, unless one is simply trying to strengthen those common misunderstandings and "associations".


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## DaddyGeorge (Mar 16, 2020)

I don't want to go into complicated reflections in English, because I don't know what my translation sounds like, but I don't think we can expect people like Luther, Bach or Wagner to emerge from the thought paradigm of their era. It's very easy (and ridiculous) to boast about the ideals of humanism and criticize thought backwardness almost 140 years after Wagner's death. It is reprehensible, but even in the 19th century, there were stuffed natives in many European museums. Absolutely incomprehensible, seen through today's lens. Although we are ashamed and reluctant to admit it today, anti-Semitism and racism have been a matter of course in (not only) European history. So let's not want composers to think in a way that was simply not possible in their time ...


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Resurrexit said:


> No, Wagner's ideas in his late essays certainly wouldn't have appealed to Hitler. They largely express a Darwinian perspective and contain a strong religious dimension in their anthropological discussion. I know this having spent some time reading these essays in an attempt to try to gain some sort of critical understanding of them and to see if they do actually contain a "pernicious racist ideology", as claimed by some on the subject. The writing is very convoluted, often unclear and esoteric, and taking random quotes out of context as DavidA does is simply unhelpful at gaining any sort of understanding of what Wagner is trying to argue.
> 
> The fundamental disagreement between Wagner and Gobineau is that Wagner believed the races could be "regenerated", something Gobineau denied. Wagner stresses the unity of the human race, and adds to it the view that in Jesus Christ one achieves the transformation of humankind from its natural state (with differentation of races) to a true moral one where differentation of races is overcome. Any "racism" Wagner shows has been changed and indeed mollifed by his appeals to Darwin and to his Christian outlook.
> 
> To highlight the fundamental importance of Christ's sacrifice for Wagner and the lack of his interest in a "pure" German race, consider a couple entries from Cosima's diary. Wagner says in an entry in 1881 that "In Germany everything is in the the process of dying out...one thing is certain: races are done for, and all that can now make an impact is -- as I have ventured to express it -- the blood of Christ." Then in 1882 we read "[Wagner] reproaches Gobineau for leaving out of account one thing which was given to mankind -- a saviour, who suffered for them and allowed himself to be crucified." For Wagner the sacrifice of Christ and the power of his "blood" for the renewal of humankind were fundamental. So again, lumping his ideas with Hitler's is unhelpful, unless one is simply trying to strengthen those common misunderstandings and "associations".


As I said, it is pointless trying to argue with you about anything because you will make Wagner's convoluted script say what you want it to say. Interesting that you accuse someone of taking random quotes then do exactly the same thing . Comeon, these things have been argued at length. I have books full of them.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Resurrexit said:


> No, Wagner's ideas in his late essays certainly wouldn't have appealed to Hitler. They largely express a Darwinian perspective and contain a strong religious dimension in their anthropological discussion. I know this having spent some time reading these essays in an attempt to try to gain some sort of critical understanding of them and to see if they do actually contain a "pernicious racist ideology", as claimed by some on the subject. The writing is very convoluted, often unclear and esoteric, and taking random quotes out of context as DavidA does is simply unhelpful at gaining any sort of understanding of what Wagner is trying to argue.
> 
> The fundamental disagreement between Wagner and Gobineau is that Wagner believed the races could be "regenerated", something Gobineau denied. Wagner stresses the unity of the human race, and adds to it the view that in Jesus Christ one achieves the transformation of humankind from its natural state (with differentation of races) to a true moral one where differentation of races is overcome. Any "racism" Wagner shows has been changed and indeed mollifed by his appeals to Darwin and to his Christian outlook.
> 
> To highlight the fundamental importance of Christ's sacrifice for Wagner and the lack of his interest in a "pure" German race, consider a couple entries from Cosima's diary. Wagner says in an entry in 1881 that "In Germany everything is in the the process of dying out...one thing is certain: races are done for, and all that can now make an impact is -- as I have ventured to express it -- the blood of Christ." Then in 1882 we read "[Wagner] reproaches Gobineau for leaving out of account one thing which was given to mankind -- a saviour, who suffered for them and allowed himself to be crucified." For Wagner the sacrifice of Christ and the power of his "blood" for the renewal of humankind were fundamental. So again, lumping his ideas with Hitler's is unhelpful, unless one is simply trying to strengthen those common misunderstandings and "associations".


Thanks much for expanding on my rudimentary points. I fear that now we can expect DavidA to swoop down and condemn Wagner's Christianity as bogus, whereupon some brave soul will counter that other people's religion is always bogus, and off we'll go again, leaving Wagner and Bach alone together comparing notes...


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

DavidA said:


> As I said, it is pointless trying to argue with you about anything because you will make Wagner's convoluted script say what you want it to say. Interesting that you accuse someone of taking random quotes then do exactly the same thing . Comeon, these things have been argued at length. I have books full of them.


Resurrexit gave you several _non_random quotes which provide a context you were no doubt unaware of. Just thank him and be off.


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## janxharris (May 24, 2010)

As Jesus said, 'Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.'


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

janxharris said:


> As Jesus said, 'Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.'


And what was the context pray?


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## janxharris (May 24, 2010)

DavidA said:


> And what was the context pray?


Your point is?

-------------------


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

janxharris said:


> Your point is?
> 
> -------------------


I wondered if you knew what the scripture if you quoted is all about?


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

DavidA said:


> I wondered if you knew what the scripture if you quoted is all about?


It's all about self righteous arbiters of morality of the sort that always come out of the woodwork in discussions of Wagner, who's an easy target for those who get their kicks out of stoning people already dead and unable to fight back.

That should answer your question. Now stop pulling the thread repeatedly back to religion.


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## Guest (Jun 19, 2020)

DavidA said:


> Every thread on TC is futile. They are just people expressing opinions. So why do you bother?


So, almost 15000 posts over 8 years later, you've still got nothing useful out of your membership of TC?

Why do _you _bother?

Thread duty - I'd take the Bach. His music is much more likely to convert me to some useful philosophy than Wagner. Fact.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

MacLeod said:


> *So, almost 15000 posts over 8 years later, you've still got nothing useful out of your membership of TC?*
> 
> Why do _you _bother?
> 
> Thread duty - I'd take the Bach. His music is much more likely to convert me to some useful philosophy than Wagner. Fact.


Sorry my dear sir that you didn't see the irony in my post. But I did think people might. Apologies if you took it literally! :lol:

But Bach over Wagner appears a good choice to me!


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## janxharris (May 24, 2010)

DavidA said:


> I wondered if you knew what the scripture if you quoted is all about?


I don't _fully_ understand most scripture.

Wagner was anti-semitic to a degree, but scripture makes it clear that 'all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God'.

May I ask what you are trying to establish with regard to Wagner?


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## Guest (Jun 19, 2020)

janxharris said:


> As Jesus said, 'Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.'


Interesting quote, which obviously has a substantial context if one wishes to look into it, but is perfectly acceptable as a common idiomatic expression, meaning "To act self-righteously in accusing another person, believing oneself to be blameless."


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

MacLeod said:


> Interesting quote, which obviously has a substantial context if one wishes to look into it, but is perfectly acceptable as a common idiomatic expression, meaning "To act self-righteously in accusing another person, believing oneself to be blameless."


I think we discussed TC being futile?


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

This thread asked members "which one will you go for" between two pieces of music. Instead much of the thread concerns religion or politics sometimes with no reference whatsoever to the topic at hand. There is a place on TC for political and religious discussions - Politics and Religion in Classical Music. If you wish to discuss politics or religion _in relation to music_, please go to that forum. Please refrain from _any_ religious or political comments in this thread.


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## aioriacont (Jul 23, 2018)

both are amazing, but the Bach freak in me gets even more awed and inspired by his two almighty Passions.


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## Superflumina (Jun 19, 2020)

I'm inclined to say the Passions, there's a bit of filler in Das Ring I feel.


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