# Richard Wagner's legacy



## MusicFree (Jun 16, 2014)

how will he be remembered in 100 years


1. A sick and disgusting anti-semite, anti-human, misanthrope

2. a thief that stole from Meyerbeer, a man that was jealous of Meyerbeer genius that he started to attack his Jewishness to make himself feel better

3. or as the pioneering revolutionary musical genius

these aren't the only possible answers of course....but what are your ultimate thoughts of him


----------



## DiesIraeCX (Jul 21, 2014)

#3 

You're welcome. :tiphat:


----------



## DiesIraeCX (Jul 21, 2014)

Also, I found this a bit amusing, "_a man that was jealous of Meyerbeer genius that he started to attack his Jewishness *to make himself feel better.*_" because it seems that certain moralizers today want to make _themselves_ feel better by deriding/judging a man who is removed from us by TWO centuries. The man was a genius for all ages, that is what will be remembered for the ages.


----------



## Abraham Lincoln (Oct 3, 2015)

4. A really weird-looking German guy with an even weirder-looking hat


----------



## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

3, naturally. If he's viewed that way now, I'd wager it's a good bet it'll be much the same in another century. That's not to say 1 and 3 are mutually exclusive, of course, but 3 is much more important to our evaluation of Wagner's legacy, rather than Wagner as a person.


----------



## DiesIraeCX (Jul 21, 2014)

Abraham Lincoln said:


> 4. A really weird-looking German guy with an even weirder-looking hat


Are you kidding? This hat is the epitome of cool, plus he presaged the sideways cap look by a hundred plus years!


----------



## starthrower (Dec 11, 2010)

Do we need another 100 years? He's been dead for 130 years.


----------



## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Wagner will be remembered as the man that launched a thousand silly threads.


----------



## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

It will depend on the motives and objectives of those doing the "remembering," just as it does now. There is not now, nor will there be in 100 years, anyone who actually "remembers" him. We will have his works to experience, we will have an immense and still growing literature analyzing and interpreting those works, we will have cultural histories which tell us what others have thought of his works and done with and to them, we will have people who want to use his works to support their own biases and advance their own agendas, and we will - I'm afraid - still have people, even on classical music forums, who think that options one and two are on the same level of interest or importance, and as worthy of discussion, as option three.


----------



## Itullian (Aug 27, 2011)

2 is a real pip. :lol:


----------



## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Meyerbeer's genius?


----------



## Sloe (May 9, 2014)

Woodduck said:


> Meyerbeer's genius?


I really don´t get how so many complains over that Wagner criticised Meyerbeer but very few people seems to like Meyerbeer.


----------



## Weston (Jul 11, 2008)

From what I gather music is just a small part of what Wagner was trying to do, but we seem to forget that. He even hid the orchestra in the pit so they wouldn't be noticed. The operas are supposed to be about the total package, and that package isn't the weird "edgy" anachronisms we're forced to endure today. I hope that in 100 years he'll be remembered as a multimedia polymath.


----------



## Iean (Nov 17, 2015)

# 3...because his music is more important than his personality:angel:


----------



## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Weston said:


> From what I gather music is just small part of what Wagner was trying to do, but we seem to forget that. He even hid the orchestra in the pit so they wouldn't be noticed. The operas are supposed to be about the total package, and that package isn't the weird "edgy" anachronisms we're forced to endure today. I hope that in 100 years he'll be remembered as a multimedia polymath.


Great point. Wagner's thinking and practice had wide influence beyond music itself. His concept of the "total art work" led to opera being regarded as a more serious and thought-provoking form of theater than was customary, capable of tackling major philosophical and cultural questions. His opera house at Bayreuth was designed, from its covered pit and its acoustic properties to its amphitheater seating and unimpeded sight lines, to maximize the aesthetic impact of the work itself and eliminate the casual, social aspects of opera-going. Contrary to the usual practice up until that time, the audience sat in darkness, an innovation which was soon generally adopted. Wagner's insistence that all aspects of a production, from singing and acting to direction and setting, should contribute equally to a central dramatic concept, influenced not only opera but theatrical production in general, and it would be no exaggeration to call him a founder of the modern theater. He had a similarly great impact on the art of conducting. The complexity of his scores increased the importance of the conductor as interpreter, as did his own practice and writing on the subject. His essay "On Conducting" is still worth reading.

Wagner's larger cultural impact goes beyond music and the theater, but that's farther afield than I want to go.


----------



## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

KenOC said:


> Wagner will be remembered as the man that launched a thousand silly threads.


​


----------



## MusicFree (Jun 16, 2014)

didn't the Nazi Regime play Wagner's music at the death camps?


----------



## Dedalus (Jun 27, 2014)

MusicFree said:


> didn't the Nazi Regime play Wagner's music at the death camps?


And if they had played Beethoven instead would that make a difference?


----------



## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

MusicFree said:


> didn't the Nazi Regime play Wagner's music at the death camps?


This does not have any real basis n history

"The Nazi fascination with Wagner was largely inspired by Hitler, sometimes to the dismay of other high-ranking Nazi officials, including Joseph Goebbels. In 1933, for instance, Hitler ordered that each Nuremberg Rally open with a performance of the Meistersinger overture, and he even issued one thousand free tickets to Nazi functionaries. When Hitler entered the theater, however, he discovered that it was almost empty. The following year, those functionaries were ordered to attend, but they could be seen dozing off during the performance, so that in 1935, Hitler conceded and released the tickets to the public. 
In general, while Wagner's music was often performed during the Third Reich, his popularity actually declined in Germany in favor of Italian composers such as Verdi and Puccini. By the 1938-39 season, Wagner had only one opera in the list of fifteen most popular operas of the season, with the list headed by Italian composer Ruggero Leoncavallo's Pagliacci. Ironically, according to Albert Speer, The Berlin Philharmonic's last performance before their evacuation from Berlin at the end of World War II was of Brünnhilde's immolation scene at the end of Götterdämmerung.
As part of the regime's propaganda intentions of 'Nazifying' German culture, specific attempts were made to appropriate Wagner's music as 'Nazi' and pseudo-academic articles appeared such as Paul Bulow's ' Adolf Hitler and the Bayreuth Ideological Circle ' (Zeitschrift fur Musik, July 1933). Such articles were Nazi attempts to rewrite history to demonstrate that Hitler was integral to German culture.
There is evidence that music of Wagner was used at the Dachau concentration camp in 1933/4 to 'reeducate' political prisoners by exposure to 'national music'. However, there seems to be no documentation to support claims sometimes made that his music was played at Nazi death camps."

According to the New Yorker

"reports of Wagner being played in concentration camps are much scarcer than the anti-Wagner faction claims. Two survivors recall hearing strains of "Lohengrin" at Auschwitz, but the vast majority of eyewitnesses make no mention of Wagner: instead, they agree that light music, such as Strauss waltzes, Suppé overtures, operetta arias, marches, and the like, prevailed at camp concerts and blared from loudspeakers. The Auschwitz survivor Zofia Posmysz says that she still turns off the radio when she hears Johann Strauss."

For a comprehensive article:

http://quod.lib.umich.edu/m/mp/9460...ration-camps-1933-1945?rgn=main;view=fulltext


----------



## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

MusicFree said:


> how will he be remembered in 100 years
> 
> 1. A sick and disgusting anti-semite, anti-human, misanthrope
> 
> ...


#3 as the first composer who opened the door to modernism. Pure and simple.


----------



## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

Admitting that while there are passages I like, I really don't have the patience to sit through most Wagner operas ("Oh, no. _That_ leitmotiv _again_?"), and would rather hear Boris Godunov than any of them, I can't deny his influence, nor the real musical and theatrical innovations he pioneered. What his personal or political beliefs were are pretty immaterial because he had no way to influence their carrying out anyway. (T.S. Eliot was an anti-semite too, but that neither made him a hack nor a danger to people.)


----------



## Guest (Jan 1, 2016)

Wagner also wrote the manual on conducting.


----------



## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

MarkW said:


> Admitting that while there are passages I like, I really don't have the patience to sit through most Wagner operas ("Oh, no. _That_ leitmotiv _again_?"), and would rather hear Boris Godunov than any of them, I can't deny his influence, nor the real musical and theatrical innovations he pioneered. *What his personal or political beliefs were are pretty immaterial because he had no way to influence their carrying out anyway.* (T.S. Eliot was an anti-semite too, but that neither made him a hack nor a danger to people.)


His personal beliefs are not immaterial because he wrote them down explicitly so that others could read and follow his thoughts. These include essays on music, drama, the future of the arts, and, of course, his notorious essays on race. It's fairly naive to dismiss them - both good and bad - as immaterial.
For a list of his writings:

http://users.belgacom.net/wagnerlibrary/prose/

Again we must remember his legacy and beliefs were carried forward by his family, for good or ill.


----------



## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

ArtMusic said:


> #3 as the first composer who opened the door to modernism. Pure and simple.


I think Liszt was the first person to open the door to modernism with such works as the B minor sonata and Bagatelle without Tonality. Wagner in many cases followed and enlarged on ideas that Liszt had already pioneered.


----------



## quack (Oct 13, 2011)

#4 The guy who wrote the helicopter music, no not that helicopter music, the other helicopter music


----------



## Triplets (Sep 4, 2014)

He also guaranteed years of employment for obese sopranos who sing with horns sticking out of their head.


----------



## Guest (Jan 1, 2016)

MusicFree said:


> didn't the Nazi Regime play Wagner's music at the death camps?


And Charles Manson claimed inspiration from the Beatles' White Album, and scrawled "Helter Skelter" on the walls in blood. So are John, Paul, Ringo and George complicit in the Manson family murders? You see how this logic is so flawed?


----------



## MusicFree (Jun 16, 2014)

the thing with Wagner is that he came from a German society

Germany at the time was having an inferiority complex/identity crisis towards its European brothers despite Germany's many great accomplishments

which is why Wagner and German anti-semitism was unique among Europe, it was more of an "elimination" anti-semitism.. an anti-semitism that was different from britain, france etc.

and Wagner seemed like he professed those beliefs with The Ring Cycle and the destruction of the world...


----------



## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

MusicFree said:


> the thing with Wagner is that he came from a German society
> 
> Germany at the time was having an inferiority complex/identity crisis towards its European brothers despite Germany's many great accomplishments
> 
> ...


Wagner never advocated "eliminating" the Jews, and the _Ring _ cycle is neither about the destruction of the world nor about the Jews. You really need to get your facts straight.


----------



## MusicFree (Jun 16, 2014)

Woodduck said:


> Wagner never advocated "eliminating" the Jews, and the _Ring _ cycle is neither about the destruction of the world nor about the Jews. You really need to get your facts straight.


but i think Germany did have a unique antisemitism from Britain or France or any of European countries

this book argues a similar premise
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hitler's_Willing_Executioners


----------



## SiegendesLicht (Mar 4, 2012)

MusicFree said:


> the thing with Wagner is that he came from a German society
> 
> Germany at the time was having an inferiority complex/identity crisis towards its European brothers despite Germany's many great accomplishments
> 
> ...


Ah, the German-bashing.

By the way, I still never found those jackboots of mine...


----------



## SiegendesLicht (Mar 4, 2012)

MusicFree said:


> but i think Germany did have a unique antisemitism from Britain or France or any of European countries
> 
> this book argues a similar premise
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hitler's_Willing_Executioners


I have read from sources of good reputation that that book is largely crap, and it's author either does not know German enough to correctly translate German-language sources or willingly mistranslates them in order to support his bias.


----------



## Guest (Jan 1, 2016)

We do not know that Wagner would've been a Nazi. We do know that Woodduck and others have cited a fairly convincing case to the contrary, but we also know that the Nazis has their own dangerous methods of persuasion. 

We do know that Wagner was an anti-semite. We do know that Gesualdo was a murderer. We do know that Bruckner liked little virgin girls, and we do know that Stravinsky and Boulez liked to be mouthy.

Thank God we remember these nutjobs for their MUSIC, eh?


----------



## MusicFree (Jun 16, 2014)

do you guys think Wagner's anti-semitism has alot to do with the question of German Identity?


----------



## DiesIraeCX (Jul 21, 2014)

MusicFree said:


> do you guys think Wagner's anti-semitism has alot to do with the question of German Identity?


What does this even mean? Your question is truly perplexing.


----------



## MusicFree (Jun 16, 2014)

DiesIraeCX said:


> What does this even mean? Your question is truly perplexing.


like i mentioned that Germany has had an inferiority complex compared to say Britain and France so they project and create this "othering" and the "other" happened to be jewish people


----------



## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

nathanb said:


> We do not know that Wagner would've been a Nazi. We do know that Woodduck and others have cited a fairly convincing case to the contrary, but we also know that the Nazis has their own dangerous methods of persuasion.
> 
> We do know that Wagner was an anti-semite. We do know that Gesualdo was a murderer. *We do know that Bruckner liked little virgin girls*, and we do know that Stravinsky and Boulez liked to be mouthy.
> 
> Thank God we remember these nutjobs for their MUSIC, eh?


My impression is that his attraction, while certainly creepy, was not based on pedophilia, so the emphasis should be on virgin rather than little or girl there.


----------



## DiesIraeCX (Jul 21, 2014)

Do you think [insert anti-Semitic 19th century English artist here]'s anti-Semitism has a lot to do with the question of English identity?

Do you see why I find your question puzzling?


----------



## MusicFree (Jun 16, 2014)

DiesIraeCX said:


> Do you think [insert anti-Semitic 19th century English artist here]'s anti-Semitism has a lot to do with the question of English identity?
> 
> Do you see why I find your question puzzling?


so then why is the reason Wagner's antisemitism is so highly profiled if it was a common thing in 19th century European society


----------



## Guest (Jan 1, 2016)

Mahlerian said:


> My impression is that his attraction, while certainly creepy, was not based on pedophilia, so the emphasis should be on virgin rather than little or girl there.


I would agree with you; my apologies if I appeared flippant.


----------



## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

DavidA said:


> I think Liszt was the first person to open the door to modernism with such works as the B minor sonata and Bagatelle without Tonality. Wagner in many cases followed and enlarged on ideas that Liszt had already pioneered.


No one composer "opened the door to modernism" (whatever "modernism" is presumed to mean). Liszt would not have taken credit for Wagner's innovations. Remember that they were close friends and working with similar ideas about music - specifically harmony - which were very much in the air at the time. There's plenty of "Wagnerian" harmony in Weber's _Euryanthe_ (1823) and even in Chopin. Liszt's sonata was written in 1853 when Wagner had already composed _Der Fliegende Hollander, Tannhauser,_ and _Lohengrin_ and was working on the _Ring_. _Bagatelle sans Tonalite_ was composed in 1885, two years after Wagner's death, and is no more "atonal" than numerous passages in Wagner's operas.

It was Wagner who found ways to make extreme harmonic chromaticism support large musical spans, and it is his work, not Liszt's, which inspired Mahler's expansion of symphonic form, the operas of Strauss, and the innovations of Schoenberg. None of which, of course, diminishes the creative genius of Liszt or his importance in the evolution of music's vocabulary.


----------



## Mahlerian (Nov 27, 2012)

MusicFree said:


> so then why is the reason Wagner's antisemitism is so highly profiled if it was a common thing in 19th century European society


Because Wagner has been commonly linked with Hitler, and like Darwinism, anything that can be linked with Hitler, however tenuously, provokes controversy for that reason alone.


----------



## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

MusicFree said:


> but i think Germany did have a unique antisemitism from Britain or France or any of European countries
> 
> this book argues a similar premise
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hitler's_Willing_Executioners


The subject here is Wagner's legacy, not German versus French antisemitism.


----------



## SiegendesLicht (Mar 4, 2012)

MusicFree said:


> like i mentioned that Germany has had an inferiority complex compared to say Britain and France so they project and create this "othering" and the "other" happened to be jewish people


Did you get that from Goldhagen? If yes, that confirms my earlier opinion about his book.


----------



## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

MusicFree said:


> so then why is the reason Wagner's antisemitism is so highly profiled if it was a common thing in 19th century European society


Several reasons: 1.) Wagner, unlike most antisemites, wrote his thoughts down and published them; 2.) Hitler liked Wagner's operas and imagined that they represented the "Aryan soul"; 4.) Wagner's descendents were friendly with Hitler; and 4.) ever since the Nazi era, certain people either can't or won't think of Wagner without reference to these historical occurrences, and so we are constantly bombarded with the equation Wagner = Nazi, and with attempts to interpret Wagner's operas as racist.


----------



## superhorn (Mar 23, 2010)

Wagner was an egotistical, megalomaniacal, self-serving, conniving, insanely ambitious , nasty , ungrateful,
womanizing , serial adulterer , unscrupulous, luxury-loving guy who also happened to be one of the greatest geniuses who ever lived in any field .


----------



## DiesIraeCX (Jul 21, 2014)

superhorn said:


> Wagner was an *egotistical, megalomaniacal, self-serving, conniving, insanely ambitious , nasty , ungrateful, womanizing , serial adulterer , unscrupulous, luxury-loving* guy who also happened to be one of the greatest geniuses who ever lived in any field .


Whoa, whoa, whoa, hold up one minute, Wagner was _not_ ungrateful.


----------



## Guest (Jan 1, 2016)

MusicFree said:


> but i think Germany did have a unique antisemitism from Britain or France or any of European countries
> 
> this book argues a similar premise
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hitler's_Willing_Executioners


That requires looking at history as only comprising the last 140 years or so. Look at the entire history of Europe. Look at the anti-semitism that led to the Jewish pogroms in Russia under the czars. Look at how many Jews got slaughtered during the Crusades as the various European armies made their way across Europe to the Middle East. The fact of the matter is that you can't tell the history of Europe, from the advent of Christianity as the dominant religion under Constantine in the Roman empire, without telling of how Jews were persecuted. Germany was not unique - only the latest at that point, aided by the modern technology at their disposal.


----------



## superhorn (Mar 23, 2010)

He was certainly grateful to mad King Ludwig, but not to a lot of other people .


----------



## DiesIraeCX (Jul 21, 2014)

superhorn said:


> He was certainly grateful to mad King Ludwig, but not to a lot of other people .


I was just joking, I don't know enough of Wagner or his life to know whether or not he was any of those things written above.


----------



## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

superhorn said:


> Wagner was an egotistical, megalomaniacal, self-serving, conniving, insanely ambitious , nasty , ungrateful,
> womanizing , serial adulterer , unscrupulous, luxury-loving guy who also happened to be one of the greatest geniuses who ever lived in any field .


Egotistical can also mean aware of one's powers and one's importance and lacking in false humility. Megalomaniacal can also mean ambitious beyond the capacity or comprehension of others. Self-serving can also mean fanatically dedicated to one's work. Sexual affairs may indicate many things. Any number of traits we attribute to people, and behaviors we observe in them, can look quite different depending on our point of view.

The well-worn question, "How did such a bad person produce such great work?", is usually based on a very incomplete view of the person in question. A little more research to get beyond the popular caricature reveals a much more complex, contradictory, interesting, and even sympathetic Wagner than your string of vices portrays. But perhaps you're being a little facetious?


----------



## Dedalus (Jun 27, 2014)

Woodduck said:


> Egotistical can also mean aware of one's powers and one's importance and lacking in false humility. Megalomaniacal can also mean ambitious beyond the capacity or comprehension of others. Self-serving can also mean fanatically dedicated to one's work. Sexual affairs may indicate many things. Any number of traits we attribute to people, and behaviors we observe in them, can look quite different depending on our point of view.
> 
> The well-worn question, "How did such a bad person produce such great work?", is usually based on a very incomplete view of the person in question. A little more research to get beyond the popular caricature reveals a much more complex, contradictory, interesting, and even sympathetic Wagner than your string of vices portrays. But perhaps you're being a little facetious?


In turning those words around and giving them different connotations I think is something to think about, and I don't discount it out of hand. But part of me can't help but think you're being a Wagner apologist, when there's no reason to apologize for any of his behavior. I tend to think, from what I've read (less than you have I'm sure), he was a kind of a scumbag, but he created great music. But I think your point about Wagner being much more complex of a human being than anybody in our time could possibly know is a good one.


----------



## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Dedalus said:


> In turning those words around and giving them different connotations I think is something to think about, and I don't discount it out of hand. But part of me can't help but think you're being a Wagner apologist, when there's no reason to apologize for any of his behavior. I tend to think, from what I've read (less than you have I'm sure), he was a kind of a scumbag, but he created great music. But I think your point about Wagner being much more complex of a human being than anybody in our time could possibly know is a good one.


But I _am_ a Wagner apologist, and I refuse to apologize for it! :lol:

That Wagner didn't always treat other people well is beyond question. He was aware that he could be hard on others, and once said in a letter to Liszt that his only excuse was that he was harder on himself than anyone could possibly imagine. We could say that that's no excuse at all, but at the same time he was undoubtedly right that few people could even imagine what it was like to be Wagner, convinced as he was (megalomania?) of the importance of an artistic mission that only he had the genius (egotism?) to fulfill, and driven by an almost mad compulsion to accomplish a life's work which he had virtually plotted out in its entirety by his mid-forties. Constant physical ailments, poverty, exile, a bad marriage, and ridicule for his ideas, his works, and his personal habits - none of it could keep him down for long. It may be that only a great egotist could have accomplished what he did, or lived with the demons that drove him through constant difficulties all the way to the unprecedented achievement of building a theater and establishing a festival for the ideal production of his own revolutionary works. Wagner as a man may have been repellent and offensive to many, yet he was also enormously attractive - intelligent, emotional, witty, spontaneous, charismatic, sociable - and capable of inspiring loyalty and even reverence in those who worked with him and understood the importance of what he was doing.

I have no doubt that Wagner could not have achieved what he did if he had not been who he was. And if we're to say what his legacy is, it finally comes down to ten ground-breaking works of art that changed the whole culture of the Western world in ways that still echo today, and which people are still talking and writing about. Even in his lifetime, and even among people he used or offended, much was forgiven him for the sake of those works, and I for one can't lower my eyes to gaze for long at his personal flaws, which died with him, when it's the products of his unique genius that continue to live and inspire new understandings, endless fascination, and wonder.


----------



## Abraham Lincoln (Oct 3, 2015)

Was Wagner in a sort of gay relationship with Liszt or something?


----------



## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Abraham Lincoln said:


> Was Wagner in a sort of gay relationship with Liszt or something?


Not at all. Wagner was entirely hetero as far as we know. He did, though, have deep feelings for his fellow musician, benefactor, and eventual father-in-law, and tended to express himself in highly demonstrative ways, both personally and in writing. Liszt reported how, upon meeting again after a long separation, Wagner cried and hugged and kissed him for what seemed like an eternity.


----------



## MusicFree (Jun 16, 2014)

i wonder if Wagner's anti-semitism sprigns from the "invasion" of Judeo-Christianity on Europe...which led the "destruction" of the pagan religions that Wagner seemed to admire (Norse, Germanic Pagan mythology)


----------



## Clairvoyance Enough (Jul 25, 2014)

I've never given an in depth read to Wagner's life so this may sound ignorant, but did the man rape or kill anyone? As far as I know he didn't, right? Isn't Chinatown still considered a classic movie? I mean, I don't want to downplay racism or being a cheat, but we seem to find out worse things every other day about artists who are considered great for creations that aren't worth even one of Wagner's overtures.


----------



## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

MusicFree said:


> i wonder if Wagner's anti-semitism sprigns from the "invasion" of Judeo-Christianity on Europe...which led the "destruction" of the pagan religions that Wagner seemed to admire (Norse, Germanic Pagan mythology)


That's an interesting suggestion. But Wagner didn't have the same animus toward Christianity that he had toward Judaism, except to the extent that he disliked institutional, legalistic religion of any kind. He wasn't a proponent of paganism either; its only the _Ring_ that's inspired by Norse/Teutonic myths of pre-Christian times, the other operas drawing upon myths and legends dating from after Europe's Christianization.

Wagner's brand of antisemitism was initially constituted by ideas common in his day (and since) of Jews being aliens who couldn't understand European/Christian culture and who threatened to corrupt it or take possession of it by controlling its wealth. His own views tended to emphasize cultural, specifically musical, matters, motivated significantly by his personal experience as a struggling young artist in Paris confronted by the immense success of, and domination of Paris's operatic scene by, the Jewish Meyerbeer. It's worth noting that Mikhail Bakunin, the anarchist whose ideology the young Wagner shared and beside whom he participated in revolutionary activities in the 1840s, was also strongly antisemitic.


----------



## lauriesonic (Jan 2, 2016)

Richard Wagner regardless of political views was one of the best his music touches the sole ! his music flows like soie ! and those of you old anuff to rember the bbc documentary about judith gautier and wagners affair on she shamed shas lounge will inderstand my use of the word soie . he was a sensual man thus infflunced his work .


----------



## Triplets (Sep 4, 2014)

MusicFree said:


> but i think Germany did have a unique antisemitism from Britain or France or any of European countries
> 
> this book argues a similar premise
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hitler's_Willing_Executioners


Many Holocaust experts believe that French Anti semitism was much more virulent than German, and believe that the Holocaust could have under the right conditions arisen in France first. See Ron Rosenbaum's book titled 'Explaining Hitler'


----------



## Gaspard de la Nuit (Oct 20, 2014)

I'm going to keep this as concise as I can:

Wagner was not a despicable or disgraceful human being. He was prone to being spiteful, harboring malice and being an opportunistic user. But he was also an extreme sensitive, and he actually stands out among composers as desiring and trying to work towards a better world. People are baffled by this because they don't understand complexity; that's why they are they and Wagner is Wagner. It's not like it's what people want to hear, but the convergence of opposing characteristics is exactly what accounts for Wagner's ability to encompass so much, and so deeply. 

All the controversy around Wagner is actually stupid. Tons of violent, racist, or violently racist people are celebrated today, but NO.....WAGNER is the bad guy. Look at Winston Churchill, white supremacist extraordinaire who is probably responsible for the suffering of untold amounts of people. Look at Shakespeare, Mozart, Rossini, etc., who actually wrote racism into some of their dramatic work, unlike Wagner. Look at Gandhi, who beat his wife, supported a caste system, was prejudiced against africans and the list goes on and on. Even your Average Joe Politician today has more to answer for than Wagner, who spent a part of his life writing about how Jews were incompatible with the emerging German cultural identity, but later decided that it was Germans who were too stupid and that there wasn't anything wrong with Jews. 

It's not that I care if people bring up Wagner's racism. If it were never mentioned I'd be the first one to point that out. But why don't they talk about almost every other creative individuals' faults, many of whom had ones that exceeded Wagner's? I just looked up 'Richard Wagner' on google - look at the second entry: "Richard Wagner is best known for creating several complex operas, including Tristan and Isolde and Ring Cycle, as well as for his anti-semitic writings".

Are you serious? It's such a significant part of him that it merits being mentioned in the very first sentence of his biography? Is it the same for slave owners Thomas Jefferson, George Washington, etc? Or misogynist extraordinaire Pablo Picasso?

Whatever. I already think of virtually everything, even among 'intellectuals'/ academics as being massive group-think and borderline-propaganda. Think whatever you want to think, and I'll judge however I want to judge.


----------



## Dedalus (Jun 27, 2014)

I would condemn all those people for all things they did, each to the depending on how bad what they did was. Some of the people's flaws I didn't know about, like Rossini or Picasso, and some I think could be debated. But let me add a few to your list!

Mother Theresa, world renowned "saint" who kept people with curable afflictions in hospices because it was "better to die forgiven than to live on with the chance to fall into sin again". And who said, as Jesus does, that it's better to be poor than wealthy, and concentrated on keeping all her followers dirt poor while she raked in donations by the millions. And when she had a curable ailment did she let herself die, nooo she went to the best hospital and received the best care. She has the blood of thousands of people with curable ailments on her hands.

Bill Cosby! Here's another case where much of the art he was involved with, Cosby Show, Kids say the Darndest Things, his stand up, are all pretty good stuff, but the man is clearly despicable. But

With the exception of Mother Theresa who's crimes I think SHOULD be on at least the second google hit, a lot of the people you mentioned actually have their crimes brought up fairly often. I know Gandhi's are, Thomas Jefferson's ownership of slavery is common knowledge. I don't really know what George Washington did, and I'm not keen enough on history to comment on your opinion of Churchill, and nor do I know if Mozart really portrayed racism in his art (I know shakespeare did... product of the times), but if they did bad things, I'd criticize them to an amount proportionate to the deeds they did.

My point is ultimately that Wagner is not the only famous figure whose art is loved but who has a controversial biography that is always brought up. Everyone always brings up Gandhi's acceptance of cast system, Thomas Jefferson had slaves, and I've heard plenty of ire against Churchill even though I can't comment on that in particular because of my ignorance of it. Bill Cosby can't even enter a dinner conversation without a rape joke or at least the mention of his alleged crimes.

Basically I'm saying Wagner isn't special in this regard. He's just a human, a product of his times and replete with merits and flaws like the rest of us.


----------



## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

History is very often incompletely recorded. We shall never know the complete historical biographies of the majority of great composers. Wagner was one example were we know something but not all about the man. His artistic merits far exceeded any shortfalls in his personal biography as if that was a fair comparison to begin with anyway. Maybe Beethoven had other flaws, we just might never know.


----------



## Arsakes (Feb 20, 2012)

I don't know.

Every time I need a boost in morale I should listen to some of his overtures and marches!


----------



## Arsakes (Feb 20, 2012)

starthrower said:


> Do we need another 100 years? He's been dead for 130 years.


It depend on how much influence Social Just Warriors aka SJWs will have in 22th century!

I bet they're history by then! :lol:


----------



## Abraham Lincoln (Oct 3, 2015)

Well, Wagner did wind up killing two conductors (albeit indirectly).


----------



## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

I just cannot see the logic in trying to excuse the self-propagated racism of Wagner by casting unfavourable portraits of others. Makng allegations against other people doesn't excuse Wagner for his views. The person most to blame for Wagner's reputation as a racist is the man himself. No-one forced him to write what he did. He didn't make any excuses for his racism so why should we seek to make excuses for it?


----------



## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

I don't think historians are making "excuses" for Wagner's racism. It's important to realize with certainty that Wagner was not the only racist man of his times, nor before his times, nor after.


----------



## Gaspard de la Nuit (Oct 20, 2014)

DavidA said:


> I just cannot see the logic in trying to excuse the self-propagated racism of Wagner by casting unfavourable portraits of others. Makng allegations against other people doesn't excuse Wagner for his views. The person most to blame for Wagner's reputation as a racist is the man himself. No-one forced him to write what he did. He didn't make any excuses for his racism so why should we seek to make excuses for it?


No one is excusing Wagner's racism, only putting it in perspective, which reveals that the emphasis on it is hypocritical and shallow at best, and probably very manipulative and borderline-character assassination on the part of people who framed these ideas for the mainstream. And the 'allegations' concerning Churchill, Gandhi, Picasso, etc., are not just accusations, they are as good as facts. But conventional education usually places little importance on their unsavory sides, which go so far beyond Wagner's....so either include that Churchill is responsible for at least 1 million South Asians starving, that Thomas Jefferson was a fairly unapologetic slave-owner, and mention Picasso's serial mistreatment of women, or stop profiling Wagner as one of the history's most hideous monsters.


----------



## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

There are two major reasons why Wagner is still an object of active controversy and of popular disdain and hatred beyond that directed at other celebrated historical figures whose faults were equal to his, and even greater in their consequences. One is Hitler's fondness for the operas and his association with Bayreuth, and the other is the extraordinary magnitude of Wagner's artistic achievement, the study of which necessarily includes attention to the man himself. Nothing Wagner did or said would be of more than scholarly interest (if that) in the absence of these factors. 

To acknowledge this is not to "excuse" anyone or anything. It merely puts Wagner's personality and thinking into perspective. It would be absurd to call the continued pious nattering about his sexual appetites or his biases against Jews or Frenchmen or his currying favor with royalty his "legacy." It isn't those things that changed the culture of the Western world in ways still felt today.


----------



## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Gaspard de la Nuit said:


> I'm going to keep this as concise as I can:
> 
> Wagner was not a despicable or disgraceful human being. He was prone to being spiteful, harboring malice and being an opportunistic user. But he was also an extreme sensitive, and he actually stands out among composers as desiring and trying to work towards a better world. People are baffled by this because they don't understand complexity; that's why they are they and Wagner is Wagner. It's not like it's what people want to hear, but the convergence of opposing characteristics is exactly what accounts for Wagner's ability to encompass so much, and so deeply.
> 
> ...


After a couple of days on the boards this excellent post has received only two "likes," one of which is mine.

Gaspard speaks of "group-think." There's also such a thing as "group-unthink."

There are four excellent points in the first paragraph alone. That's four more than are found in the average internet entry on Wagner.

POSTSCRIPT: Thanks to DiesIraeCX for making it three. :tiphat: Now I'll bet there's even more intelligent life out there...


----------

