Illogical Snabbering

[greensmoke]

I'm sitting here despondently not looking forward to this day. But in a few minutes I will have to push on anyway. I have all of my homework done, and even if it's not all done right, at least it seems acceptable to me. When I reach the end of my life, I'd like to say that sentence, but replace the word homework with the words "life's work

Comments

[aquashrimp]

My hypothesis is that Wagner lost popularity in the U.S. in the post-World War 2 era because Hitler was such a big fan of him. Would you say this statement is correct?

My oh my, what a long reply

[greensmoke]

Yes, there is some truth to that statement. He was unpopular in American for a little while after the post WWII era, but that also goes for almost all Germanic composers. In 1950 - 60, American concert audiences were getting their kicks from American composers (Bernstein counted Louisville as one of the greatest places to hear new American music during that time - now there is nothing in the way of new "classical" music premiered here except for a few things at my university). The upopularity of German music didn't last too long though. Say ten to twenty years or so pass by, and Wagner is again heading the opera programs at the Metropolitan in New York. Now they are doing at least one of his operas every year, and most people judge the state of opera by what the Metropolitan does. I think Chicago did Wagner's Ring Cycle last year. The Louisville opera did one of his operas a few years back (I think it was Tristan und Isolde). The problem with performing his operas now isn't that he was loved by Hitler and he sends a bad anti-

Re: My oh my, what a long reply

[greensmoke]

Oh yeah, I forgot. Hitler drove away a lot of composers who were direct descendents of the Wagner-line of music composition. Some of them were Jewish, but some were not. Many of those German composers that fled Germany never lost their popularity (or anti-popularity among people who just couldn't understand their music), such as Hindemith and Schoenberg. I don't say unpopular, but say anti-popular, because composers like the two I listed were very well known at the time but sometimes not comprehended. Hindemith sonatas are played by students at UofL fairly often. Schoenberg doesn't come up quite as often. A lot of people going through life thinking that all Schoenberg wrote were his atonal works, not realizing that his music starts out tonally in the Wagner/romantic line, becomes extremely atonal, and then moves back to a form of advanced tonality late in his life.