Posted on 06/06/2013 6:36:19 AM PDT by Borges
Perhaps no other composer in history sought to combine such obviously incompatible elements in his works. The qualities that make Richard Wagner’s supporters so enthusiastic are often the same ones that repel his opponents, such as his tendency toward extremes in every aspect of composition. Although he stretched the limits of harmony and operatic form to the breaking point, the realization of his musical concepts always remained exceedingly economical. Paradoxically, this very economy defines the incomparable dimension of his structures. Perhaps he found it necessary to make especially frugal use of certain individual elements in order to make the effect of the Gesamtkunstwerk—the total work of art—even greater and more unexpected.
A good example of Wagner’s economy can be found at the beginning of the first act of Die Walküre, in which a wild storm rages. Even Beethoven made use of all the orchestral instruments in the storm in his Sixth Symphony, and given the instrumentation available to Wagner, one could assume that his storm would take on even grander proportions.
Instead, however, he allows only the strings to unfurl the full force of the storm; the result is a far more direct, naked, and compact sound than a full Wagnerian orchestra with brass and timpani would have produced. It is the precision of Wagner’s directions in the dynamic structuring of his scores that brings out the emotionality of the music. Wagner was the first composer to very consciously calculate and demand the speed of dynamic developments. When he wants to achieve a climax, he generally applies one of two techniques: either he lets a crescendo grow gradually and organically, or he lets the same musical material swell two or three times in order to let it explode the third or fourth time.
(Excerpt) Read more at nybooks.com ...
Classical Ping
I live in South Florida.
We have storms that are Beethoven-ish, and some that are DEFINITELY Wagnerian!
We get THOSE too! LOL!
The only thing we don’t get are Blizzards, which are are Tchaikovskian.
Wagner was a anti-semite and a douche. His music on the other hand is some of the most intense and beautiful music ever. His prelude to Parsifal, Tristan and Isolde, Lohengren not to mention the whole ring cycle is some of the most amazing music ever made. Ya he was a jerk and unfortunately Hitler took his music as propaganda but Wagner will always be a musical legend.
Ping
Don’t judge Wagner totally through today’s lens. Back in his day almost everyone was anti-Semitic. Almost everyone was racist as well, including your ancestors, but I expect you don’t call your great-great grandparents jerks. They were products of their times.
Now if Wagner, or your ancestors, beat their slaves or participated in pogroms of Jews in Europe, then they start to look like jerks, monsters, or worse.
I feel strongly about these because Wagner’s sentiments, about Jews, are no worse than the sentiments I hear on MSNBC about evangelical Christians, of which I am one.
Just because it is 2013 it does not mean that bigotry has been eradicated from the world. Bigotry of one type has been replaced by another. People today are just as hateful, and ignorant, as people of Wagner’s time. Sorry to disappoint the United Nations and most liberals with my opinion.
You hit it exactly, but I would add the Tannhauser overture to the list.
The storm in Der Fliegende Hollände is awesome.
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