# What can you tell about a composer from the music he/she writes.



## PITBULL (May 4, 2015)

People often remark on a composers ability to express their nationhood or the essense of a particular place. What else can you hear in a composers music. Masculinity, Femininity, sexuality etc.


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## sharik (Jan 23, 2013)

PITBULL said:


> Can you tell if a composer is gay from the music he/she writes


well, only Sophia Gubaidullina can qualify as 'she' among classical composers.


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## DiesIraeCX (Jul 21, 2014)

No, I can't tell if a composer is gay from the music. I can't discern masculinity or femininity. I can detect aggressiveness and sensuality. Sometimes, people connect those attributes to male and female, respectively. I _don't_ agree with that.

I find a lot of Schubert and Debussy to be sensual. I find _some_ Beethoven and Bartok to be aggressive. The _Coriolan _overture, first movements of the Fifth and Ninth; some of the Bartok string quartets, for example.


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

I've never been able to, but that doesn't mean you can't. Obviously, texts/ plots of opera sometimes help like with Schubert or Benjamin Britten. In the general sense you can tell more about the composer's personality by listening to their music than if they stood up and talked about themselves. But it's more subtle and much more significant than girl/ boy or gay/ straight. And many people's personalities are more subtle and complex than those labels.


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

PITBULL said:


> People often remark on a composers ability to express their nationhood or the essense of a particular place. What else can you hear in a composers music. Masculinity, Femininity, sexuality etc.


Concentrated listening to classical music for a decade or so; that will develop the ability to detect _limpwristed_ music (it's the way diminished 7ths are used). Differentiating between female or male limpwristedness is much more difficult - and you can't go by the listed name. Some given names are unisexual, and there is of course the nom de plume thingy.

To sum up, I dunno.


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

Can you tell what Mozart ate for lunch the day he completed Le Nozze Di Figaro?


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## Dim7 (Apr 24, 2009)

Ukko said:


> Concentrated listening to classical music for a decade or so; that will develop the ability to detect _limpwristed_ music (it's the way diminished 7ths are used).


Now I'm offended.


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## clara s (Jan 6, 2014)

No, I can not sense his preferences.

Music itself, can not talk to me, for the creator's various orientations.

These can be kept as his secrets.

Of course, other information, like composer's life, letters, photographs, writings etc
can "speak" better.Then I could search more in the music and trace points which
could reveal his untold mysteries.

well, some times we do not need to know much about Franz or Frideric or Samuel or...


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

PITBULL said:


> People often remark on a composers ability to express their nationhood or the essense of a particular place. What else can you hear in a composers music. Masculinity, Femininity, sexuality etc.


Certainly I can tell that a composer is gay. Think of Wham, Petshop boys, Queen . . . obviously queer. And Rolling Stones, Status Quo, . . . obviously straight.

In classical music it's not so easy. Basically all opera composers were gay. All composers of The Art of Fugue were straight.

Could a straight man be so emotionally over the top camp as Tchaik in the final movement of the 6th? Or so bad taste as the Bernstein Mass?

Oh, and Horowitz made every composer he touched queer. Cherkassky too.

Does anyone think the Egyptian Concerto is pedophile music?


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## GreenMamba (Oct 14, 2012)

PITBULL, if you think you can spot the difference, then just say so. Explain how and why.

I would look at the music by various gay composers - Tchaikovsky, Cowell, Tippett, Menotti, Wuorinen - and see whether there are "gay traits" in their music. I don't hear them.


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## Fugue Meister (Jul 5, 2014)

Wait Tchaikovsky was gay?


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

Can you tell? No, I don't think anybody can. 
People can't usually tell whether music was written by a man or by a woman, either.


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## isorhythm (Jan 2, 2015)

If we're talking about this question seriously, maybe there are some hints sometimes.

For example there's evidence in letters written by Schubert's friends that he was gay. Schubert was also preoccupied, in his songs, with themes of frustrated love. Maybe this was related to the impossibility of fully realizing his desires in the time and place where he was living? I don't know. It's all very speculative.


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## joen_cph (Jan 17, 2010)

The diversified oeuvres of Copland, Britten, Tippett, Poulenc and Maxwell Davies should effectively dismiss any such stereotyping claims - not that homosexual themes or gender-related discussions can appear in their works, of course.


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## Polyphemus (Nov 2, 2011)

So are Tchaikovsky's 4th & 5th symphonies gay music ? 

Mozart's Piano Concerti certainly are gay, but that is gay as in happy. Uncle Joe Haydn wrote plenty of gay music in the same vein. 

Does anyone really care about the sexual preferences of the composers as long as the music is good.


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## isorhythm (Jan 2, 2015)

Polyphemus said:


> Uncle Joe Haydn wrote plenty of gay music in the same vein.


Also never married, FWIW.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

If you can tell that Appalachian Spring was written by a gay composer, you have better musical insight than I will ever have.


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

Polyphemus said:


> [...]
> Does anyone really care about the sexual preferences of the composers as long as the music is good.


I'm pretty sure that the fundies _care_, even if they can't tell by listening to the music. Threat of unconscious contamination?


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## Ukko (Jun 4, 2010)

isorhythm said:


> Also never married, FWIW.


His reportedly shrewish wife would be surprised by this data.


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

isorhythm said:


> Also never married, FWIW.


from Wiki - 'Haydn's job title under Count Morzin was Kapellmeister, that is, music director. He led the count's small orchestra and wrote his first symphonies for this ensemble. In 1760, with the security of a Kapellmeister position, Haydn married. His wife was the former Maria Anna Theresia Keller (1730-1800),[20] the sister of Therese (b. 1733), with whom Haydn had previously been in love. Haydn and his wife had a completely unhappy marriage,[21] from which the laws of the time permitted them no escape. They produced no children. Both took lovers.'

Not that it matters!


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## isorhythm (Jan 2, 2015)

Yikes. Where did I get that idea??


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## Polyphemus (Nov 2, 2011)

hpowders said:


> If you can tell that Appalachian Spring was written by a gay composer, you have better musical insight than I will ever have.


Welcome back hpowders.


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## Polyphemus (Nov 2, 2011)

isorhythm said:


> Also never married, FWIW.


Nicely taken out of context.


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## isorhythm (Jan 2, 2015)

Polyphemus said:


> Nicely taken out of context.


More importantly, as it turns out, wrong.

But yes I know you were saying his music was gay as in happy. Nor was I seriously suggesting I think Haydn was gay, even when I mistakenly believed he never married.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Not only can't you tell if the composer was male, female, gay, straight, or Bruce Jenner, but 100 out of 100 non-classical music listeners could listen to Debussy's La Mer and not one would be able to say it was about the sea.


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## Celloman (Sep 30, 2006)

I don't think you can determine a composer's orientation just by listening to his/her music. We already know Tchaikovsky was homosexual, so only in retrospect we may look for signs of this in his symphonies or ballets. It's impossible to draw conclusions about his character without some prior knowledge.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Celloman said:


> I don't think you can determine a composer's orientation just by listening to his/her music.


And for that matter, why would we want to?


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## Albert7 (Nov 16, 2014)

Unfortunately unlike the Tristan chord, we don't have any gay chords.

However, to be serious, Susan McClary was able to use musical analysis to determine that Schubert was gay. http://www.nytimes.com/1992/02/04/arts/critic-s-notebook-was-schubert-gay-if-he-was-so-what-debate-turns-testy.html

Apparently the second movement of The Unfinished Symphony was pretty gay (in that sense... not the other definition) according to her. I haven't been able to locate the original paper (maybe here?)

http://books.google.com/books/about/Queering_the_Pitch.html?id=ENVkcgAACAAJ

yet but apparently feminist music critics are able to detect "gayness" in musical structures.

Awaiting final results on Berg, Schoenberg, or Webern from a feminist critic.

Note: My opinion is that Schubert was a straight guy, plain and simple, but that's just my gut feeling on the whole issue.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Has anyone heard Michael Finnissy's Shameful Vice, or his other gay music? I'd like to but I've never seen a concert or a recording. 

Some of Britten and Tippet's music is clearly gay - I find Billy Budd homoerotic. There was a film based on this called Beau Travail.


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## Celloman (Sep 30, 2006)

Albert7 said:


> However, to be serious, Susan McClary was able to use musical analysis to determine that Schubert was gay.


According to the article, she doesn't use musical analysis at all. She is trying to force the music to fit her own agenda (however well-intentioned) and this simply doesn't work. One should look at Schubert's biographers, friends, critics, letters, and similar sources in order to understand him better, _then_ examine the music to see if it adds up to the personality of the man.

Biography informs the music, not the other way around. Ms. McClary has gotten it completely backward.


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## GreenMamba (Oct 14, 2012)

Mandryka said:


> Has anyone heard Michael Finnissy's Shameful Vice, or his other gay music? I'd like to but I've never seen a concert or a recording.
> 
> Some of Britten and Tippet's music is clearly gay - I find Billy Budd homoerotic. There was a film based on this called Beau Travail.


It's not hard to find gay music based on libretto or program. But does the music itself sound gay? I don't hear it at all.

A bit of Shameful Vice:


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## MoonlightSonata (Mar 29, 2014)

Albert7 said:


> Unfortunately unlike the Tristan chord, we don't have any gay chords.
> 
> However, to be serious, Susan McClary was able to use musical analysis to determine that Schubert was gay. http://www.nytimes.com/1992/02/04/arts/critic-s-notebook-was-schubert-gay-if-he-was-so-what-debate-turns-testy.html
> 
> ...


Susan McClary, I think, decided that Schubert was homosexual and twisted the music to fit that opinion.
Regarding the supposed ability of feminist music critics to detect "gayness" - just no. A feminist is anyone who believes in the equality of the sexes (note also, not just women's rights), and I don't see how this has any bearing on being able to detect sexuality in music. If the supposed ability exists, surely a blatantly sexist critic could also have it.
Awaiting results? Lol, you're just awaiting their opinion. I doubt they do any sort of scientific test.

Anyway, finding "gay structures" in someone's music doesn't prove anything. What if I was straight, but heavily influenced by Schubert?

Edit: Though, admittedly, if a composer writes a work called "I Am Gay" which features a group of singers singing of the joy of homosexuality, with quotations from composers like Britten and Tippett, then it's a safe bet they are.


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## mmsbls (Mar 6, 2011)

Albert7 said:


> However, to be serious, Susan McClary was able to use musical analysis to determine that Schubert was gay. http://www.nytimes.com/1992/02/04/arts/critic-s-notebook-was-schubert-gay-if-he-was-so-what-debate-turns-testy.html


I think things are vastly more complex. McClary states in the article, _Constructions of Subjectivity in Schubert's Music_, "I do not believe that one can discern a composer's sexual orientation (or gender or ethnicity) merely by listening to the music." In the article there seems to be a suggestion that Schubert's themes and development were not as "manly" as Beethoven's Eroica. She speaks of melodies being timid and holding onto a fragile world. Schubert does not use the more standard narrative in the second movement the 8th Symphony where "the self strives to define identity through a consolidation of ego boundaries."


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

mmsbls said:


> I think things are vastly more complex. McClary states in the article, _Constructions of Subjectivity in Schubert's Music_, "I do not believe that one can discern a composer's sexual orientation (or gender or ethnicity) merely by listening to the music." In the article there seems to be a suggestion that Schubert's themes and development were not as "manly" as Beethoven's Eroica. She speaks of melodies being timid and holding onto a fragile world. Schubert does not use the more standard narrative in the second movement the 8th Symphony where "the self strives to define identity through a consolidation of ego boundaries."


This sort of thing is typical of McClary. She invokes and reinforces gay stereotypes in her "analyses," while hypocritically accusing other scholars of the same fault. In one particularly poorly researched and argued screed, "Sexual Politics in Classical Music," she says about the principal theme of Tchaikovsky 4/i:

"In contrast to the more typical heroic opening themes, this "appoggiatura-laden, limping theme is hypersensitive, vulnerable, indecisive." (Feminine Endings, p. 71)

After this characterization, she has the gall to wag her finger at biographer David Brown, who finds signs of "morbidity" and "self-loathing" in the same movement, writing that "it is critical that inferences such as these be carefully grounded so that pernicious stereotypes of homosexuals (excessively emotional, hysterical, self-loathing, etc.) are not unwittingly drawn upon and reinscribed." (FE, 77-78)

Then she indicts Tchaikovsky as a misogynist (another stereotype, the woman-hating gay) explaining that "her purpose in examining Carmen and Tchaikovsky's Symphony no. 4 is not to indict them for their monstrous feminine images or deadly narrative strategies, though those dimensions of both pieces (and countless others) are horrifying." She suggests that this misogyny is linked to his disastrous sham marriage, apparently oblivious to the fact that the movement was completed before Tchaikovsky was even aware of his future wife's existence. But then McClary is never shy about distorting facts and suppressing information contrary to her positions.


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## elgar's ghost (Aug 8, 2010)

I never take any notice of McClary. The woman's an attention-seeking obsessive.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

I believe Susan McClary also found the spirit of rape in Beethoven's 9th. Apparently the Brotherhood of Man doesn't include the Sisterhood of Woman.

Or was she shamed into retracting that particular accusation?


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

Woodduck said:


> I believe Susan McClary also found the spirit of rape in Beethoven's 9th. Apparently the Brotherhood of Man doesn't include the Sisterhood of Woman.
> 
> Or was she shamed into retracting that particular accusation?


That was an earlier version of an essay, I believe published in an obscure venue(?), revised and then published without the bit about the beginning of the recap in Beethoven 9/i embodying the murderous rage of a rapist. Yes, I believe she realized she had gone around the bend with that one, although it is not much stupider than numerous other things she has written.


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## Albert7 (Nov 16, 2014)

Here is the latest on Tchaikovsky apparently.

http://www.the-tls.co.uk/tls/public/article1549938.ece

and also this article.

http://slippedisc.com/2015/05/can-you-tell-the-sex-of-a-conductor-by-listening/

Can you tell the gender of a conductor just by listening to his/her recording?


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## joen_cph (Jan 17, 2010)

> The diversified oeuvres of Copland, Britten, Tippett, Poulenc and Maxwell Davies should effectively dismiss any such stereotyping claims - not that homosexual themes or gender-related discussions *can appear* in their works, of course.


A messy, earlier post of mine; I meant of course:

The diversified oeuvres of Copland, Britten, Tippett, Poulenc and Maxwell Davies should effectively dis-miss any such stereotyping claims - not that homosexual themes or gender-related discussions *can´t appear* in their works, of course.


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## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

OP:

Simple. That the composer in question has more musical talent than I have.


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## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

Can you even tell anything about the mood of a composer from what he writes - in the way, say, that people sometimes talk about Shakespeare's tragic plays being connected with a depression in his life after the loss of his son?

No, I don't think so: composers are professionals, often working to a commission. It would be rather hard cheese if they had to feel deathly every time they wrote a requiem mass...


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## Celloman (Sep 30, 2006)

Sometimes, it's hard to believe that the composer who wrote _Tristan und Isolde_ was an egotistical, anti-Semitic wife snatcher. There's Wagner the composer and then there's the Wagner that everybody knew. They're one and the same person, but you don't get a clue about his personality from the music he wrote.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

Celloman said:


> Sometimes, it's hard to believe that the composer who wrote _Tristan und Isolde_ was an egotistical, anti-Semitic wife snatcher. There's Wagner the composer and then there's the Wagner that everybody knew. They're one and the same person, but you don't get a clue about his personality from the music he wrote.


You mean _you_ don't get a clue about his personality. It sounds like ego-maniacal, anti-Semitic, wife snatching music to me. The ego-maniacal part, at least, is obvious; you have to listen hard for the rest.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

GreenMamba said:


> It's not hard to find gay music based on libretto or program. But does the music itself sound gay? I don't hear it at all.
> 
> A bit of Shameful Vice:


Is Shameful Vice based on a programme? 
Thanks for finding this, what do you think of the music? The end seemed not uninteresting. Sudden escape from the saccharine.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

Here's my definition of gay style:

Gay style incarnates a victory of style over content, aesthetics over morality, of irony over tragedy. Gay style functions by excluding from view everything that humans find difficult with which to come to terms, offering instead a sanitized view of the world, in which all answers are given in advance and precludes any questions.

In short, gay style is a mixture of kitsch and camp.


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## sharik (Jan 23, 2013)

EdwardBast said:


> It sounds like ego-maniacal, anti-Semitic, wife snatching music to me.


only because Tristan indeed snatches the wife of king Marke.



EdwardBast said:


> The ego-maniacal part, at least, is obvious; you have to listen hard for the rest.


yeah, especially when Tristan and Isolde give up themselves for the sake of one another.


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## Dim7 (Apr 24, 2009)

Mandryka said:


> Gay style incarnates a victory of style over content, aesthetics over morality, of irony over tragedy.


I think my posting style is gay in that case.


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

sharik said:


> only because Tristan indeed snatches the wife of king Marke.


 Glad you got that.



sharik said:


> yeah, especially when Tristan and Isolde give up themselves for the sake of one another.


It wasn't a character I was thinking of.


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## tdc (Jan 17, 2011)

Mandryka said:


> And Rolling Stones, Status Quo, . . . obviously straight.


I take it you didn't hear about the Mick Jagger and David Bowie fling. So there is at least some bixeuality in The Stones, if not outright gayness.


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## Guest (May 6, 2015)

Dim7 said:


> I think my posting style is gay in that case.


I like music that sounds like it's still in the closet.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

tdc said:


> I take it you didn't hear about the Mick Jagger and David Bowie fling. So there is at least some bixeuality in The Stones, if not outright gayness.


Yes, I know that Mick was into having sex with men for a while. I have a friend who hooked up with him in a party in Leonard Bernstein's New York flat.

Bernstein's music seems very gay to me.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

sharik said:


> only because Tristan indeed snatches the wife of king Marke.
> 
> .


Really? I thought King Marke gave him his wife.


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## sharik (Jan 23, 2013)

Mandryka said:


> I thought King Marke gave him his wife.


no, he didn't.

the opera clearly states T & I had to meet furtively.

it was only later, when everyone was already dead, Marke reveals to give up his wife.


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## sharik (Jan 23, 2013)

EdwardBast said:


> It wasn't a character I was thinking of.


well, the music too shows self-sacrifice.


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## Mandryka (Feb 22, 2013)

sharik said:


> no, he didn't.
> 
> the opera clearly states T & I had to meet furtively.
> 
> it was only later, when everyone was already dead, Marke reveals to give up his wife.


Yes, you are right I think -- I think Isolde is dead when he reveals his intentions in Act 3. Tristam certainly is. For some reason I got it mixed up and thought he revealed his intention to let Tristan marry Isolde in Act 2.

Any ideas about why Wagner puts this in the poem? It does seem a bit strange to me.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Celloman said:


> Sometimes, it's hard to believe that the composer who wrote _Tristan und Isolde_ was an egotistical, anti-Semitic wife snatcher. There's Wagner the composer and then there's the Wagner that everybody knew. They're one and the same person, but you don't get a clue about his personality from the music he wrote.


This is always said about Wagner. How could such a (horrible) person compose such sublime music?

The huge assumption here is that we actually _know_ the personality of the man. My reading tells me that he had enough facets to his personality, and was intense enough in most of them, to make up about five ordinary people. A similar question is asked about Shakespeare, with some concluding that the man as we know him could not have written such plays. The key is: "as we know him."

These guys are too big for us. We need to stay humble and just listen. There's nothing in the work that wasn't part of the man.


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## Marschallin Blair (Jan 23, 2014)

Woodduck said:


> This is always said about Wagner. How could such a (horrible) person compose such sublime music?
> 
> The huge assumption here is that we actually _know_ the personality of the man. My reading tells me that he had enough facets to his personality, and was intense enough in most of them, to make up about five ordinary people. A similar question is asked about Shakespeare, with some concluding that the man as we know him could not have written such plays. The key is: "as we know him."
> 
> These guys are too big for us. We need to stay humble and just listen. There's nothing in the work that wasn't part of the man.


Great men are allowed great faults- especially great artists.

Its not as if Wagner was running around saying to forgive your enemies while I damn mine.


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## Becca (Feb 5, 2015)

Marschallin Blair said:


> Great men are allowed great faults- especially great artists.


I rather think that we don't want to go there!


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## Marschallin Blair (Jan 23, 2014)

Becca said:


> I rather think that we don't want to go there!


Why on earth not?- its not as if Lord Acton would object to anything I've said. _;D_


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Mandryka said:


> Yes, you are right I think -- I think Isolde is dead when he reveals his intentions in Act 3. Tristam certainly is. For some reason I got it mixed up and thought he revealed his intention to let Tristan marry Isolde in Act 2.
> 
> Any ideas about why Wagner puts this in the poem? It does seem a bit strange to me.


The story is that the wounded Tristan, taken home to Kareol by his henchman Kurwenal, lives on in hope that Isolde will come to him. Isolde, Marke's wife, remains in Cornwall with her handmaiden Brangaene. Apparently at some point Brangaene explains to the king about the love potion, Marke forgives Isolde, and they all sail to Kareol to allow the lovers to be together at last. Too late, however; Tristan is dead. The only unexplained part is why Brangaene didn't exlain the whole thing to the king sooner. Of course then we wouldn't have had an opera.


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## SiegendesLicht (Mar 4, 2012)

Celloman said:


> Sometimes, it's hard to believe that the composer who wrote _Tristan und Isolde_ was an egotistical, anti-Semitic wife snatcher. There's Wagner the composer and then there's the Wagner that everybody knew. They're one and the same person, *but you don't get a clue about his personality from the music he wrote*.


Of course you can get a clue. In Tristan und Isolde you can hear Wagner the romantic, the man who stood in awe of the power of love, sexuality and womanhood. In the Ring you can hear Wagner the nationalist, the self-proclaimed "most German of men" who built his mythical world in the valley of the Rhine and brought the old gods of the Teutons back to life. In Parsifal you can hear Wagner the free spirit who in the course of his life explored various belief systems - Buddhism, Christianity, the Northern Tradition etc., but never remained bound to any single one. You can hear the philosophies the man was interested in and even the books he read.


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## Dim7 (Apr 24, 2009)

SiegendesLicht's post not appearing. A glitch?

edit: not anymore.


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## Celloman (Sep 30, 2006)

SiegendesLicht said:


> Of course you can get a clue. In Tristan und Isolde you can hear Wagner the romantic, the man who stood in awe of the power of love, sexuality and womanhood. In the Ring you can hear Wagner the nationalist, the self-proclaimed "most German of men" who built his mythical world in the valley of the Rhine and brought the old gods of the Teutons back to life. In Parsifal you can hear Wagner the free spirit who in the course of his life explored various belief systems - Buddhism, Christianity, the Northern Tradition etc., but never remained bound to any single one. You can hear the philosophies the man was interested in and even the books he read.


But you only "heard" those elements _after_ you knew the important facts about Wagner. You didn't learn about his nationalism or religious beliefs simply by listening. I'm not talking about his libretti - strictly music. There is nothing in the music itself that would tell me what kind of person Wagner was in real life.


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## ArtMusic (Jan 5, 2013)

A composer's composition tells so, so much, especially the great composers of the past. Who they wrote the pieces for, why the wrote the pieces and the historical circumstance, let alone the revisions. It is incorrect for modern folks today to assume that Mozart wrote Don Giovanni without anything in mind other than some "Romanticized" impulse.


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

Celloman said:


> But you only "heard" those elements _after_ you knew the important facts about Wagner. You didn't learn about his nationalism or religious beliefs simply by listening. I'm not talking about his libretti - strictly music. There is nothing in the music itself that would tell me what kind of person Wagner was in real life.


Well, you can tell if a composer is Complex and deep or more sanguine generally.....you can get an idea of things that are more subtle than there are words for, which applies to most of an individual's personality. music tells you more about their personality than any of the comparatively mundane things someone says or does, to which circumstance figures into more than anything else.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Originally Posted by Celloman:

Sometimes, it's hard to believe that the composer who wrote Tristan und Isolde was an egotistical, anti-Semitic wife snatcher. There's Wagner the composer and then there's the Wagner that everybody knew. They're one and the same person, but you don't get a clue about his personality from the music he wrote.

Originally Posted by SiegendesLicht:

Of course you can get a clue. In Tristan und Isolde you can hear Wagner the romantic, the man who stood in awe of the power of love, sexuality and womanhood. In the Ring you can hear Wagner the nationalist, the self-proclaimed "most German of men" who built his mythical world in the valley of the Rhine and brought the old gods of the Teutons back to life. In Parsifal you can hear Wagner the free spirit who in the course of his life explored various belief systems - Buddhism, Christianity, the Northern Tradition etc., but never remained bound to any single one. You can hear the philosophies the man was interested in and even the books he read.

Originally Posted by Celloman:

But you only "heard" those elements after you knew the important facts about Wagner. You didn't learn about his nationalism or religious beliefs simply by listening. I'm not talking about his libretti - strictly music. There is nothing in the music itself that would tell me what kind of person Wagner was in real life.

Originally posted by Gaspard de la Nuit:

Well, you can tell if a composer is Complex and deep or more sanguine generally.....you can get an idea of things that are more subtle than there are words for, which applies to most of an individual's personality. music tells you more about their personality than any of the comparatively mundane things someone says or does, to which circumstance figures into more than anything else.

Wagner's music has conspicuous qualities which offer strong clues to his personality. It is predominantly serious in tone - intensely so. It is often extremely powerful physically, intentionally striving for impressiveness and physical excitement. It revels in sensuousness, of both orchestral sonorities and rich harmony. Its harmonic language grew increasingly complex and sought ever greater subtlety in his late work, but it nonetheless remained rooted in common tonality, relying on the expectations of tonal harmony in order to impart maximum intensity to even its most extreme departures from it. Wagner's music, his harmony in particular, is preoccupied with processes of transition - with unstable, evolving, interpenetrating states of feeling - and his loosening, recasting, and abandonment of traditional formal structures and melodic periods aims at making the depiction of such fluid states possible. The music strives to represent and induce states of emotional extremity, and to explore them in great detail and nuance, necessitating a radical expansion of musical time to accommodate these psychological explorations. His operas are consequently long and, while physically often static, emotionally packed. States of stress and suffering predominate - emotions of loss, grief, despair, anxiety, longing, suspense, and frustration - yet these are ultimately contrasted with, striving toward, illuminated by, and resolved into, hope, transformation, ecstasy, and bliss; and every resource of harmony and orchestral color is called up to depict these emotional states in all their subtle ramifications.

I don't propose that we can psychoanalyze a composer in any definite way by identifying such qualities in his music - such qualities, of course, being but variably objective, and not entirely immune to dispute. But all such qualities, objective or subjective, point to attributes of the person from whom they've come. A style as complex and revolutionary as Wagner's, having the above qualities (and others, certainly), suggests, at least, a person of great intellect and complexity of thought and feeling - a profoundly serious person, a person of ideas, a freethinking and unconventional person, a person of an extreme sensitivity and intensity both emotional and intellectual. His musical language suggests a highly sensual nature, a tendency to volatility and extremes of emotion, a high capacity for suffering and an acute consciousness of it as a condition of life, and at the same time a profound belief in, and desire for, surcease of that suffering and the attainment of some higher state of being. The dramatic substance of his operas carries out quite faithfully these characteristics and themes found in the man and his music.

In framing these notions I could well be drawing on my knowledge of the composer, based on sources beyond his music, but I offer them as plausible inferences from distinct feelings I derive from the music after a lifetime of listening to it and, to a considerable degree, identifying with it. There's no need to take this any further to make the point that there's a lot we can deduce about an artist - provisionally, of course - if we know his work intimately and feel in sympathy with it.


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## Ishi (May 11, 2015)

We all know Franz Liszt was a 'commercial' star in his time.......one can even see the glamour and sparkle in his music.....but somehow....I can't help feeling a little uneasy even in his happiest pieces......there's always an air of melancholy......like he wishes he weren't this famous or wanted to run far far away....same goes with Rachmaninov....but in Rachmaninov's music, there isn't much glamour.....he himself said that he couldn't catch the new music styles that were developing at that time.....I admire that his music has a certain individuality......but if one listens to his pieces, there's melancholy in the air.......like he never really recovered from the horrible reception of his first symphony, which wasn't well conducted by Glazunov (No offense to Glazunov fans!)


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