The greatest man since Christ’s time

>>24561347 (OP)
Back to /mu/

>>24561347 (OP)
His achievements are only comparable with those of Shakespeare, Dante and Homer. Not only did he create the Ring Cycle, already the greatest artwork in existence, but also such disparate and equally original masterpieces as Tristan, Meistersinger and Parsifal, not to mention his earlier works of Hollander, Tannhauser and Lohengrin. The Ring condenses the entirety of nature and existence into four dramas. Tristan is the greatest expression of eros in all art. Meistersinger has surpassed everything yet written in portraying the universal virtues of conservatism, culture and tradition, and is alike the greatest testament to their historical incarnation in German history. Parsifal ascends beyond the pagan, natural world of the Ring Cycle to give expression to the mystical and religious ideal of transcendence, and succeeds to such a degree that it can be called the greatest artistic embodiment of the Christian religion, surpassing even Dante. And this achievement was only possible through his perfection and unification of the arts of music, poetry and drama. It will be centuries before he is properly appreciated.

>>24561347 (OP)
And people continue to praise Nitzsche. Nietzsche! What ignorant fools.

This idiot? You do realize that he was the Katy Perry of romantic germany? The ideological Taylor Swift? He surrounded himself with retarded sycophants and paraded himself before the ignorant germans, advancing culture in the direction we experience it today. There is nothing praiseworthy in this man.

>he was the Katy Perry of romantic germany

>>24561347 (OP)
Yeshoua bar Josef wasn't that much of a great guy, that's not an incredible accomplishment

>>24561347 (OP)
op here wrong pic

>>24561347 (OP)
Richard Wagner is proof that manlets can make it.

>>24563108
>We pressed forward as closely as possible, and could now clearly recognise a voice which spoke with a decided Saxon accent. That must be he!—for we knew that Wagner had never shed the characteristics of his native dialect. A tall, slim lady—apparently Frau Cosima—emerges from the theatre and at once steps into the carriage, accompanied by a gentleman. Him we recognise as Josef Rubinstein, one of the master's intimate friends and the compiler of the 'Parsifal' vocal score. He exchanges a few words with the lady in the carriage. Suddenly a remarkably short man comes through the door with rapid steps, and approaches Rubinstein. 'Well, good-bye, my dear Rubinstein!' he says, 'Au revoir, and remember me to your father.' It is Richard Wagner!—the clear-cut features are unmistakable. A pair of spectacles rests on his prominent nose, and he is wearing a top hat. Over his shoulders is slung the light yellow coat to which, according to hearsay, he is so attached that he is deaf to his wife's most earnest entreaties to exchange it for a new one. Hardly have I had time to absorb the impression of this long-awaited moment before the carriage with its precious burden moves away and is lost in the darkness. I follow it with my eyes as in a dream. What an embodiment of tremendous vitality and titanic strength is being wafted away in an insignificant looking conveyance.

Serious question. I want to get into opera and experience The Ring Cycle for myself. I know you're meant to watch and experience opera with your senses but I can't speak German. Will I get filtered if I read picrel to Wagner's music?

>>24564502
Reading it in english is better than not reading it at all.

>>24564502
>Will I get filtered if I read picrel to Wagner's music?
That's the best way to be introduced to it, but that translation is atrocious.

Wagner I could scarcely tolerate... a form of musical drama that assigns meaning and accent far more often
to the orchestra than to the voices... a system of myths that was arbitrary and opposite to the true
and daily myths of the dream and of history.

>>24564548
Ironic using Joyce to criticise Wagner when Wagner's influence on Portrait, Ulysses and FW is enormous. Joyce was dealing with the anxiety of influence.

>Even the least part of Wagner - his music - is beyond Bellini. Spite of the outcry of these lovers of the past, the masons [Wagner and Ibsen] are building for Drama, an ampler and loftier home, where there shall be light for gloom, and wide porches for drawbridge and keep.
- Joyce, 1901

>There are indeed hardly more than a dozen original themes in world LITERATURE. Then there is an enormous number of combinations of these themes. Tristan und Isolde is an example of an original theme. Richard Wagner kept on modifying it, often unconsciously, in Lohengrin, in Tannhauser; and he thought he was treating something entirely new when he wrote Parsifal.
- Joyce, 1917

>>24564545
What translation would you recommend, anon?

>>24564640
There's really no good translations for Wagner, but Stewart Spencer's translation is the best that I have read.

>>24561400
Lol I read posts like this and then tried to watch the ring and it was a bunch of freaks dressed in faggy costumes jumping around like spazzes and singing in this annoying opera voice. And this was like the only translated version on youtube so unless all these wagner trannies speak German they must have seen the same shit. Baffling how anyone pufside of old ladies would enjoy this.

>>24561347 (OP)
Dostoevsky didn't like his music

>further proof

>>24564659
True, he. like many Russians, had rather old fashioned musical tastes, but he did also write this in 1873:

>Such phenomena as the spread of Schopenhauer's ideas and Wagner's music, full of profound challenges, show, at least, that German profundity and artistic creativity are still alive, still animated by the highest aspirations.

*plays one note/ for 5 minutes*
*holds the next one for 10 minutes*
*drags this out for an hour*
It's for slow people

>>24564655
There are no good filmings of the Ring Cycle, because they all date from the latter half of the 20th century, at which point the performing arts had already started declining, and all performing arts depend on a high quality of performance for their proper appreciation. I would encourage you to study music to at least be able to appreciate Wagner's multifaceted creations from that direction.

>>24564655
There are hundreds of ways to appreciate Wagner regardless of your background. Including piano transcriptions. No one with judgement is going to seek out that random video

>>24564706
>>24564756
I like his music but if you're posting on the literature board and comparing him to Shakespeare the important thing is the lyrics and performance of the lyrics and stage direction not the music

Influenced by SchoprnGod btw. Might literally never exist without SchopGod

>>24564706
>at which point the performing arts had already started declining
What are you on about, as if that was a critical point lol

>>24564706
The standard of performing arts now is unimaginably higher than in Wagner’s day. I have a better piano in my garage than Schumann had. The standard, and standardisation, of instruments, tuition, singing is all much better. The acoustics of concert halls are better, the lighting is better, the staging is better. The scores are better quality and the orchestras have more time and better facilities in which to rehearse. The singers know how to eat and exercise and look after their voices in a way they didn’t in the 19th century. The audience is more discerning because they’ve heard the pieces thousands of times and are sensitive to the slightest nuances.
You don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about

>>24564780
Genius individualises itself just as thoroughly in performance as it does in the plastic or literary arts. For someone who has never seen or heard a performance of genius, it is rather difficult to convince them of this fact, but suffice it to say that the creations of neither Shakespeare nor Beethoven exists outside of performance, and now compare how far short the typical performance of their works falls short of your idea of their them developed in study.

>>24564826
You don’t know what matters. You’re describing a hyperrefinement which is a sign of decadence

>>24564826
All quantitative matters you've described. Yet quantity fails to account for why ancient Athens, a city-state of 400 thousand, has achievements of immeasurably greater magnitude than anything resulting from a 21st century with billions of individuals with standardised education and universal rights. Anyone with a genuine educations in these fields, whether music or dance or drama, will quickly acquiesce to the idea that 'performance is not what it used to be'. Such a phrase is on the lips of all experts in these fields. There is not a single actor in the entire world today who could give a performance like Paul Scofield's King Lear, thankfully recorded on film, however marred by Peter Brook's creative vision. Equivalent examples exist in all the performing arts. This decline is not something esoteric, it is something that can be quite palpably be demonstrated to anyone, and partially accounts for the declining interest in the performing arts. Opera singers don't even sing in the same way they used to in early 20th century, let alone up to the same standards. Quality reigns supreme as the inimitable factor in deciding whether we live in times of efflorescence or decline, NOT quantity.

>>24564866
>>24564845
I’ll just say it again: the standard of playing and quality of performance in modern orchestras and singers is vastly higher than in Wagner’s day. The instruments are better quality, the rehearsals are better quality, the bars to entry are higher.
This is a simple fact, attested by every scholar of music over the last hundred years.
You don’t know what you are talking about.

>>24564920
>I’ll just say it again
It wasn't necessary. You were already responded to. There is no conductor today as great as Wilhelm Furtwangler or Erich Kleiber. Because genius cannot be 'standardised'. Standardisation has also killed improvisation and its irreplaceable role in musical education. No pianist performing Chopin today plays like Chopin, because they do not improvise, they're mechanical clocks without subtlety. There are real, empirically observable differences between 19th century performance and 20th century musicians' performance. That alone should send doubt into your arrogant belief in the artistic supremacy of modernity.