I am very enthusiastic about this lecture; it may be the single best thing ever written—with necessary musical illustrations—on how Wagner creates his musical effects. The title is really just an acknowledgement of how powerful his music can be; the meat of the talk is the “how” of that power. But since he posed the question, I will give my thoughts—and his conclusion—later in this post.
While
I think I was able to explain what Wagner made me feel—deeply
empathic, compassionate, ecstatic—and some of the techniques he
uses to that end in these posts, I felt that my effort was lacking in
bringing the subject truly alive. This lecture really fills in where my blog
posts left off, and Spice absolutely hits the nail on the head of what
is so different about Wagner; his musical excerpts are crucial for
this talk. You can read the article and hit his links to the
musical examples, but I recommend you listen to the podcast at the link above for
a more seamless experience.
In
the past, I have read a lot of dreary articles trying to explain
Wagner’s musical language. Here’s an example of the type of
discussion that seems really unhelpful in understanding why—and
how—Wagner is so different from virtually any other composer:
As
Alfred Lorenz and his followers have shown, there is considerable
evidence that Wagner built his formal units, or periods, from ternary
structures—‘bridge’ or ‘arch’ forms (ABA) and ‘bar’
forms (AAB)— but this was never a mechanical process, and other
writers have suggested that motivic variation and the use of a
refrain or ritornello principle may be no less important.1
Perhaps
this stuff is interesting to musicologists but it’s gobbledygook to
me, and far from the heart of what makes his music tick. Wagner
also hated this sort of stuff, telling a visitor who had complimented
a musicologist favorable to Wagner, “A single bow stroke is worth
more than all this useless twaddle.”2 He didn’t want the listener—or anyone—to intellectualized his
works; he wanted people to be “knowers through
feeling.”3 Wagner
said that “the people I like best [as listeners] are those who
don’t even know that we write music on five lines.”4 In other words, people like me! (I mean, I kinda know that, but not
really. If you had asked me how many lines music was written on, I know if I would have guessed somewhere between 4-6.)
But
I think even Wagner would like Spice’s lecture, particularly
because it, more than most articles, might draw someone into
listening to that bow stroke.
Spice emphasizes—and I totally agree—that Wagner’s use of
musical time is the key: “Wagner’s
music has an effect on our sense of time that is the reverse of the
effect most music in the classical canon has on us. Where most
classical music expands our sense of temporal duration, Wagner’s
contracts it. Most music, though short, seems long; Wagner, though
long, seems short.”
I
am tempted to quote more from the lecture, but I don’t know where
to start or end. There is so much that I found fascinating. Let me
say this, if you are a Wagner fan, do listen to it. If you are
planning to go to a Wagner opera, do listen to it. And if you are merely interested in knowledge, do listen to it.
Moving to the title of the Spice lecture—“Is Wagner bad for us?”—I don’t
think this would be much of a question were it not for the Holocaust.
The
biggest ding – apart from his anti-Semitism – on Wagner’s reputation is that Hitler was a fan and
claimed Wagner’s music to be an inspiration. But, then again, so
did Theodor Herzl, the “father” of Zionism, who claimed he was
inspired by Wagner’s music to envision and write his seminal tract,
The Jewish State.5 Rather a perfect irony, isn’t it? Lots of others were also
inspired by Wagner—Baudelaire, Thomas Mann, Nietzsche, Debussy,
Bernard Shaw, Mahler, Albert Schweitzer, Proust, Schoenberg, Richard
Strauss, Hugo Wolf, Anton Bruckner, just to name a few.6 Me too, obviously! I am devoting a huge portion of this year to
writing about the man and his music. The
music is awesome; it can be really, really inspiring.
Dina Porat, in an opinion piece in the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, wrote
that “Hitler
was not influenced by Wagner's anti-Semitism. He had a generous
helping of his own apocalyptic and comprehensive anti-Semitism, and
needed no help from Wagner. Indeed, those who read accounts of
Hitler's views and words – which he dictated rather than
wrote – will not find even one instance in which he linked Wagner
to anti-Semitism and racism.” But then she goes on to argue
that Wagner should be boycotted, nonetheless, in Israel solely
because of the fact of
“the inspiration he gave Hitler. The argument that the composer's
music elevates every soul is nullified in the face of this.”
I
doubt if anyone is actually making the argument that his music
“elevates every soul,” but his music has elevated many souls,
including many great Jewish musicians, such as Mahler, Barenboim,
Bernstein, who were all greatly inspired by his music. The Israeli ban
is currently just for Wagner—music written by actual Nazi members,
like Carl Orff, is not banned—and just for the concert hall. He
is not banned on radio, which reaches a much greater audience. He is
not banned in the movies, where his music is often used. Therefore, it's function is primarily symbolic.
Of course Hitler, a struggling artist, was inspired by the story of one of the greatest artists Germany ever knew. Wagner’s personal story, like his music, is also awe-inspiring. As Michael Tanner succinctly puts it, “He succeeded in making real what his contemporaries regarded as ludicrous pipe dreams.”7 This, along with his music, is the stuff that was so inspiring to the young dreamer Adolf.
Of course Hitler, a struggling artist, was inspired by the story of one of the greatest artists Germany ever knew. Wagner’s personal story, like his music, is also awe-inspiring. As Michael Tanner succinctly puts it, “He succeeded in making real what his contemporaries regarded as ludicrous pipe dreams.”7 This, along with his music, is the stuff that was so inspiring to the young dreamer Adolf.
To me, it just seems stupid to deny people who want to hear or to play it the right to do so. The people who are hurt are all Jews—the musicians who want to play him and the audience who wants to hear him in the concert all—giving Hitler a kind of posthumous victory. To paraphrase that abortion bumper sticker: if you don't want to hear it, don't listen.
In any case, Hitler had many artistic enthusiasms, not just Wagner. For instance,
Hitler loved Walt Disney. In 1938 he bought a copy from Roy Disney of
Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. He considered it one of the best films ever
made. Soon thereafter, in the period of annexation of Austria and
the invasion of Czechoslovakia, as well as Kristallnacht,
(1938-1939), Hitler allegedly took time off from his war and Jewish-persecution
planning to draw these:
Whether those drawings are real or not—it's an open question—his fondness for Disney is undisputed. According to Goebbels—who gave Hitler various
Disney products over the years—on the presentation of mouse
ears as a gift, Hitler
“clapped his hands in glee, and immediately ran to his room to
change into the mouse ears and Donald Duck footy pajamas.” 9 Hitler was known to often whistle “Who’s afraid of the big, bad wolf” (his nickname being Wolf), from the 1932 Disney cartoon Three Little Pigs.10
As he was invading various nations, whistling the tune, was he
thinking “I’m going to huff and puff and blow your house down”? Sure, why not? Ironically, the original Disney version contained a
stereotypical portrayal of the wolf disguised as a Jewish peddler at
the last house. I wonder if Hitler actually thought that was
funny? Because of complaints from some in the Jewish community, the (clueless) Disney redid the original version and changed the wolf to a “Fuller
Brush Man.”
Unsurprisingly, the complaints
continued. Bowing to the pressure, he finally dropped—in blatant form—the Jewish
schtick in the last version made in the 1940s.11
 |
| Hitler's work??8 |
 |
| The Jewish Fuller Brush man/ wolf - see here at 6:05 |
 |
| I think this version still has vestiges of the stereotype, but it certainly isn't so blatant. See video here |
Sorry
to go on in some length on this, but I think it is interesting apart
from my central topic. I mean, is Disney bad for us? Obviously, I don’t believe that Hitler was driven
by Disney to his acts, even if Disney—unlike Wagner—did have
clear anti-Semitic stereotypes in his work. I think the whole
blame-game is ridiculous, actually. But if you are going to blame some music, I’m going to blame the damn soundtrack of The Three Little
Pigs.
Returning to the central discussion, because
of Hitler’s enthusiasm for Wagner’s music, many people feel that
Wagner’s music must be sort of fascistic or militaristic and,
generally, all similar to “The
Ride of the Valkyries.” This famous quip—see it here—from Woody
Allen captures that sentiment:
“I
can't listen to that much Wagner, ya know? I start to get the urge to
conquer Poland.”
Of
course, it is not the case at all that Wagner's music is generally militaristic, much less fascistic. I think Bryan Magee hits it on
the head: “I sometimes think there are two Wagners in the culture,
almost unrecognizably different from one another: the Wagner
possessed by those who know his work, and the Wagner imagined by
those who know him only by name and reputation.”12 “The Ride of the Valkyries,” the tune he is most known for, is
rather singular. It was written—Wagner called it “my
vaudeville”—to break-up what had come before and what was to soon
to come in Die Walküre. Originally, he tried to ban its separate performance, as it
was wrenched out of context, but he later relented.
In any case, it is certainly not a very good representation of
Wagner’s music on the whole, even if one feels that this piece is in some
way fascistic, which I think is a rather absurd claim. The fact is that only
someone ignorant of Wagner’s music and text could seriously make a
claim that Wagner’s operas are fascistic when they actually are, in
fact, close to the exact opposite, which is particularly true about “The Ring,” which is a condemnation of the quest for power.
I
do think that Wagner’s music is incredibly powerful. His subject
matter—setting it primarily in the world of myth—is the human
condition. As with any great work of art, there are and can be
limitless interpretations through the prism of our individuality. Great art works pretty much like a sort-of Rorschach test; if you see something dark and ugly and twisted, it's all about you and not about the work. Ultimately, I concur with Spice’s conclusion on the question he posed:
In the question ‘Is Wagner bad for us?’ there’s a hint of tiresome passivity, as though we had no choice in the matter. There are substances and there is substance abuse. It’s surely up to us to manage Wagner’s charisma, up to us to maintain the ‘and’ in our relationship with him. But whether it’s really possible to keep Wagner at a distance without losing something essential in our experience of his work is unclear to me.
End Notes
1 Millington, ed, The Wagner Compendium, 253
2 Spencer, Wagner Remembered, 240
3 Wagner, Opera and Drama, 109
4 Op. cit, Spencer, 240
9 For the quote, go here. I can't find a reference to the actual place in the diaries that this quote comes from, so it's a shaky reference—though oft-quoted. However, here is another one that isn't shaky:
“In
Joseph Goebbels' 1937 diary entry for December 22, he writes
excitedly of his giving the Fuhrer ‘18 Mickey Mouse films’ for
his Christmas present. He also notes that the Fuhrer ‘is very
excited about it. He is completely happy about this treasure.’ ”
12 Magee, The Tristan Chord, 74
No comments:
Post a Comment