Wagner as Pianist
kevemaher
I gave my SO an electronic keyboard today because she wanted to re-
learn how to play piano.
It immediately occurred to me that I've never come across the story of
how RW learned the piano, nor how accomplished he was as a pianist.
Does anybody know?
Mike Scott Rohan
It's fairly well documented. As his stepfather Geyer and his mother
were both well educated and musically oriented, all the members of the
family were taught the basics at a very early age, both within the
family and by outside tutors, to whom Richard was sent when he showed
promise. Throughout the rest of his life he remained a more than
competent pianist, as indeed he had to be for his conducting work.
Some more churlish audience members used to sneer about the wrong
notes he hit when he was playing through his own scores, but that was
normal enough under such demanding circumstances; his scores were and
are difficult even in the most considerate piano renditions, and
Berlioz, for example, wasn't up to playing them -- the most he could
do with the Tannhauser overture was strum some chords on his guitar.
Otherwise Wagner could play well enough for mildly virtuoso
exhbitions, accompanying singers etc. He also sang, a lot less well...
Cheers,
Mike
kjbk Wallin
quite competent as a pianist, though he was certainly not one to brag
about it. In a letter to Steinway, for instance, he asserts that he
doesn’t even have ‘the slightest competence in piano playing.’ But
then, Wagner would habitually claim that he couldn’t compose either.
In Mein Leben, Wagner tells of a concert he organized in Magdeburg,
with Wilhelmine Schröder-Devrient as the guest star. Apparently,
nobody really believed that Wagner, who was then nothing more than an
ambitious young music director, had managed to persuade the famous
singer to perform on such a provincial and unglamorous scene, so
hardly anybody showed up. But the gracious lady seems to have taken
this in good spirit, and sang, among other things, Beethoven’s
“Adelaïde”—for which Wagner provided the piano accompaniment (“to my
own surprise,” as he notes – ‘[sie] sang unter andrem Beethovens
Adelaïde, welche ich ihr zu meinem eignen Erstaunen auf dem Klavier
begleitete, hinreißend schön.’) It is hard to believe he would have
done that if he didn’t feel he could indeed do it quite well.
There’s another anecdote – though I can’t recall the exact details of
it – from much later in Wagner’s life that I also find interesting in
this context. This was in a private setting (perhaps in Bayreuth or in
Italy), and Wagner played some piece on the piano to a small group of
his intimate friends and family. Liszt was also present, and said
something to the effect that he could play that piece much better,
which apparently annoyed Wagner greatly . I believe this is often
taken as yet another sign of Wagner’s vanity and general irascibility,
but in my view it is rather Liszt it reflects badly on. Of course
Liszt could play it ‘better’ – but that was hardly the point, and I
very much doubt that it was this that Wagner was upset about. Rather,
it’s a strangely callous thing to say in such an intimate setting, and
at such an intimate moment – right after a piece of great music had
been played to the end. Must have broken the spell – like when a cell
phone goes off during a poetry recital, say. (Though it is of course
true that hanging out with Liszt, Bülow, and Tausig would cause most
people to be a bit diffident about sitting down at the piano.)
I wanted to ask, however: “He also sang, a lot less well...” – on what
do you base that? Certainly, Wagner was not a professionally trained
singer, and he never performed on a stage, or anything like that. But
then he did frequently sing roles from his own operas in smaller,
private settings. For instance, didn’t he once sing Siegmund during a
performance of the first act of Walküre, with the part of Sieglinde
being performed by one of his ‘real’ sopranos? Would he really subject
his guests to this if he was nothing more than a mildly competent
amateur? Do we know of anyone who commented on Wagner’s singing? Could
it perhaps be, for instance, that he really did sing rather horribly,
but nobody had the heart – or the guts – to tell him?
kjbk Wallin
previous post, took place in the fall of 1854. Liszt was paying a
visit to Wagner in Zurich, together with the Princess Wittgenstein. On
Liszt’s 45th birthday, October 22, the Princess had organized some
festivities in the hotel Baur, to which, according to Glasenapp,
almost the entire artistic and intellectual elite of that city had
been invited (“fast das ganze künstlerische und gelehrte Zürich”). In
honor of Liszt, the newly composed work was performed for the first
time, with Liszt at the piano, Wagner singing both Siegmund and
Hunding, and Emilie Heim as Sieglinde. Glasenapp:
„Dann öffnete sich der Flügel; zum ersten Male seit ihrer Komposition
sollte der vollständige erste Akt der ›Walküre‹ vor einer größeren
Versammlung zum Vortrag gebracht werden. Während Liszt in
bewundernswerter Weise die Begleitung hierzu spielte, sang Wagner
selbst die Partien des Siegmund und des Hunding, Frau Heim die
Sieglinde. Noch heute wissen einige damals anwesende Zeitgenossen mit
wahrem Enthusiasmus von der dramatischen Entfaltung Wagners hierbei zu
sprechen, und Frau Heim, als der allerersten Sieglinde, fehlte es
nicht an schmeichelhaften Bezeigungen.“
According to Glasenapp, then, Wagner seems to have done quite well.
Gregor-Dellin retells this episode as well, and adds:
“Sogar die Neue Zürcher Zeitung nahm rühmend davon Kenntnis.“ (‚Even
the New Zuricher Newspaper took notice of the event, and praised it.’)
(In fact, Gregor-Dellin didn’t really ‘add’ this last piece of
information, as it is contained in one of Glasenapp’s footnotes. In
general, it must be said that although newer biographers never get
tired of mocking Glasenapp for his allegedly slavish devotion to
Wagner, as well as for his leanings towards völkisch Germanism and
anti-Semitism, they all tend to rely on him much more than they are
willing to admit. In fact, I would almost go so far as to suggest that
there are in reality only two biographies of Wagner available, the one
by Glasenapp and the one by Newman.)
Eliza Wille was present at the performance, and writes about it in her
highly recommendable recollections of Wagner:
„Eine schöne, junge Schweizerin, die Gattin des Kapellmeisters Heim,
die eine herrliche Stimme hatte, und die Wagner auszeichnete, obgleich
sie keine vollendete Kunstbildung besaß, sang die schwierigen Partien
vom Blatt mit liebenswürdigster Fügsamkeit. Eine glänzende
Gesellschaft war, mir däucht, auf Liszts Einladung in dem Saal des
Hotel Baur zusammengekommen. Liszt war hocherfreut über Wagners Erfolg
und die Größe seiner Nibelungen: völlig neidlos streckte er dem
bewunderten Meister beide Hände entgegen. Es macht mir noch heute
Freude, wenn ich an die Herzlichkeit und Wärme ihres Zusammenseins
denke.“
It is a bit perplexing, not to mention exasperating, that she should
comment only on the performance of Miss Heim. But presumably, Frau
Wille must have thought that Wagner did a pretty good job too.
Anyway, all of this is of course not to invalidate Mike’s point that
Wagner sang a lot less well than he played the piano. I think it can
be agreed upon that Wagner was no Heldentenor. Still, my feeling is
that fairly competent in that area too. But perhaps someone else has
some further input on this.
Bert Coules
> The private performance of Act I of Walk�re, referred to in my
> previous post, took place in the fall of 1854...
> ...with Liszt at the piano, Wagner singing both Siegmund and
> Hunding, and Emilie Heim as Sieglinde.
Where's that time machine when you really need it? As for Wagner's singing,
I've always imagined that he was superb at dramatic interpretation, solid
for the most part on the notes (maybe with judicious transposition and/or
Sprechtstimme - Siegmund *and* Hunding?) but lacking in tonal beauty (or
maybe in tone at all): if you've ever heard an operatic repetiteur at work,
that's very much in line with what I mean.
Bert
Mike Scott Rohan
> The private performance of Act I of Walküre, referred to in my
> previous post, took place in the fall of 1854. Liszt was paying a
>
> Anyway, all of this is of course not to invalidate Mike’s point that
> Wagner sang a lot less well than he played the piano. I think it can
> be agreed upon that Wagner was no Heldentenor. Still, my feeling is
> that fairly competent in that area too. But perhaps someone else has
> some further input on this.
For now I have to reply from memory, as before, rather than spend ages
among my references -- but as far as I know Wagner had a strong but
untrained baritone, into which he would transpose ad lib almost any
role, Sieglinde for example, with somewhat hideous results -- at least
during one of his singthroughs. Singing demonstration excerpts at
rehearsals, though, he did impress people with his dramatic
expressiveness.
Producers do tend to imagine they can sing all the parts, often with
bloodcurdling effect. I think it may have been John Cox who was
wailing his falsetto way through some phrase of Violetta's at Covent
Garden rehearsals when an unwary visitor cocked his hand to his ear in
ecstasy and crooned "Ah, the immortal tones of Maria Callas!"
Cheers,
Mike
kjbk Wallin
singing by two of his contemporaries.
The first is Angelo Neumann, who waxes quite lyrical when describing
Wagner’s instructions during some rehearsals of Tannhäuser and
Lohengrin in Vienna:
"Ich habe bei diesen Proben den unauslöslichen Eindruck empfangen,
Richard Wagner sei nicht nur der größte Dramatiker aller Zeiten
gewesen, sondern gewiß auch der größte Bühneregisseur und
Menschendarsteller." ('During these rehearsals I received the
indelible impression that Wagner wasn’t only the greatest dramatist
that ever lived, but also the greatest director and actor.')
That, needless to say, is rather hyperbolic; the kind of language that
has an off-putting effect on so many people, and which has led to the
castigation of the ‘Wagnerian’ as some sort of fanatical devotee
devoid of all critical capability. But granting that Neumann may well
be given to embroider a little, his account is still fascinating. It
at least makes clear – though this is of course well known to all of
you – that Wagner had a very definite idea of how his dramas were to
be produced on stage. A little later, he refers to Wagner’s singing:
"Schon sein überirdischer Gesichtsausdruck, als er das
'Nun sei bedankt, mein lieber Schwan'
Vortrug, bleibt mir tief im Gedächtnis eingeprägt. Mit welcher
Innigkeit er vollends den Lohengrin s a n g, läßt sich unmöglich
beschreiben."
('His supernatural facial expression as he performed the ------ is
still printed firmly into my memory. And with what intensity he then s
a n g Lohengrin cannot possibly be described.')
And:
"etwas Überirdisches lag in seinen Zügen, wenn er mit unnachahmlicher
Anmut und verklärtem Ausdruck Elsa zum Fenster führte, es mit dem
linken Arm leicht aufstieß und der in seinem rechten Arm hangenden
[sic] Elsa das ‚Atmest du nicht mit mir die süßen Düfte’ sang. Sein
scharf geschnittenes, geistvolles und charakteristisches Antlitz wurde
geradezu ideal schön in diesem Augenblick."
('There was somehting supernatural in his mien as, with inimitable
grace and a transfigured expression, he led Elsa to the window, opened
it with his left arm, and sang to Elsa, who hung on his right arm:
------ His sharply drawn, spiritual facial features became downright
ideally beautiful in this moment.’)
Again, this all sounds embarrassingly exaggerated, and I’m almost
hesitant to quote it. Neumann was a professional, however – first a
baritone, then a stage director or impresario (I’m still somewhat
unclear on what his proper title should be) – so I do think his
testimony carries some weight. But it is of course striking that he
emphasizes Wagner’s qualities as an actor far more than his qualities
as a singer. In fact, one senses that he perhaps avoided passing any
definite judgment on that, and that if he did, this was probably
because he couldn’t in all earnestness say that Wagner was also ‘the
greatest singer of all time,’ or anything along those lines.
Presumably, it was the performance in its entirety that blew Neumann
away, rather than the singing in itself.
The second testimony is from Wendelin Weißheimer’s "Erlebnisse mit
Richard Wagner, Franz Liszt, und anderen Zeitgenossen." Weißheimer too
was a professional musician (composer and conductor), and though
Glasenapp treated him harshly for allegedly painting an unfavorable
picture of Wagner, this was only because Glasenapp’s own standards
were so extreme. Not by any stretch of the imagination was Weißheimer
a ‘Wagner hater;’ his book is in fact overflowing with praise, though
I guess not always as unconditionally as Glasenapp would have wanted.
In any case, Weißheimer remembers an occasion when Wagner went through
the first act of Siegfried with Ludwig Schnorr von Carolsfeld. Schnorr
was Siegfried, Wagner Mime:
"wenn er dann den Mime sang, bildeten beide ein reizendes Duett; denn
Wagner excellierte wahrhaft in dieser Rolle: er bückte sich, verdrehte
sich und entwickelte ein so himmelschreiendes Falsett, daß Stein und
Bein erweichen mochten. Dabei wußte er ein Gesicht zu machen, als sähe
man deutlich den häßlichen Zwerg mit seinen triefenden Augen vor
sich."
('when he sang Mime, they formed a delightful duet; for Wagner truly
excelled in this role: he bent over, he twisted and developed such a
screaming falsetto that stone and bone could go soft. And while
singing, he made a face that made you think you saw the ugly dwarf in
front of you, with his dripping eyes.')
Less talk here of Wagner’s ideal beauty! Clearly, this seems to me to
validate Mike’s and Bert’s comments; Wagner was skilled, certainly,
but hardly because of the ethereal beauty of his voice.
(The last quote, by the way, has probably been adduced in support of
the view that Wagner was somehow abused by his stepfather, who was a
Mime, and that he consequently identified with the role, which led
into some spiral of self-hatred etc, etc. But the less said about that
the better.)
Mike Scott Rohan
> (The last quote, by the way, has probably been adduced in support of
> the view that Wagner was somehow abused by his stepfather, who was a
> Mime, and that he consequently identified with the role, which led
> into some spiral of self-hatred etc, etc. But the less said about that
> the better.)
Mime? Christ, don't they know anything about the origins of the RIng
characters? If the argument for knowing something of the background
needed any further justification, this is it. Mime, name and
character, are taken directly from the originals and can hardly be
linked to purported abuse by Geyer or anyone else. "The less said,"
you say, but the more said about this kind of ignorant crap
"deduction", the better. Wagner did, rather ironically, identify with
the role, but that's because he was aware of his own slightly ill-
formed aspect.
Cheers,
Mike
kjbk Wallin
Well, I guess I was paraphrasing what I believe is Joachim K***’s
argument in his massive biography of Wagner. I haven’t read it,
though. But nor do I feel any obligation to do so, as that man has
demonstrated his utter incompetence in several earlier works. In this
case, however, I don’t know the specifics of his argument, so perhaps
my paraphrase wasn’t very accurate.
And I don’t know where the idea that Geyer purportedly abused Wagner
comes from. As Newman points out somewhere, it is rather remarkable
how affectionately Wagner always referred to Geyer, whether or not he
thought he was his biological father. He clearly loved him dearly.
I guess I wrote “the less said the better” because it just seems so
bootless to try to dispel these notions, as some people clearly want
to believe in them. As you all know, the idea that Wagner feared that
Geyer might have been his father, and might have been of Jewish
descent has been put forward again and again. And as far as I know,
there is not a scrap of evidence for that alleged fear (as opposed to
suspicion, that is; what is at stake here is not whether Wagner
*believed* that Geyer was his father, or *believed* he was Jewish, or
if Geyer in fact *was* Jewish; what is at stake is whether Wagner
*feared* this.)
I will say, though, that I’m much angered by the tameness of most
reviews I have seen of this man’s work in academic journals. They have
mostly been critical; but all too often only mildly so, whereas I feel
his books are so atrociously pernicious and nasty and deeply revolting
that anything less than total anathema is inadequate. Wagner scholars
should be as reluctant ever to refer to him as historians are to refer
to David Irving. The man is a charlatan, an immoral mountebank.
Richard J. Evans, surely one of the best respected authorities on the
Third Reich dismissed K’s masturbatory fantasy about Hitler with the
phrase ‘none of this is remotely convincing’ (quote from memory). But
Wagner scholars will rather go, ‘ah, there are quite a few problems
here, but K must of course be congratulated on having supplied so many
footnotes, etc.’ These people are way too timid.
Also, you raise an interesting question with your comment:
“Wagner did, rather ironically, identify with the role, but that's
because he was aware of his own slightly ill-formed aspect.”
I wonder if you’re not going a bit too far in this. It does seem like
the accepted view today, and I’m aware of some of Wagner’s remarks,
recorded in Cosima’s diaries, to the effect that he felt sympathy for
Alberich, and perhaps something like that about Mime too. Also, I do
have the feeling that Wagner never thought he was an Adonis, and I
think I remember there being some mildly self-deprecating comments
about his looks in Mein Leben. So there is probably some truth to the
claim. Yet then there is Adorno and Weiner (?) who go on to claim that
Wagner’s instruction about how ‘there must be nothing approaching
caricature’ in the characterization of Mime stems from his fear that
he had really provided a self-portrait in that figure. And that seems
to me wildly speculative, and not at all convincing. (Though I take it
that’s not really what you were saying.)
One question that is related to this is: how short or ‘ill-formed’ was
Wagner *perceived* to be? I believe we know his exact height, from his
Swiss(?) passport or something; and that he was certainly not as short
as Gutman had made him out to be. Still, he was clearly relatively
short. But I have the feeling that today, no writer ever fails to
mention this fact, often turning him into a ‘dwarf’ or a ‘gnome’ or
something of that sort, whereas in most contemporary accounts it is
hardly ever mentioned at all. I don’t think, for instance, that either
Weissheimer or Neumann (who was himself quite tall) ever say that
‘man, when I first saw him I was struck by his minuscule stature.’ Or
contemporary caricatures: there is of course the one where Wagner is
walking ahead of Cosima and Hans v. Bülow, and where he is indeed
diminutive. But I’ve seen many others where Wagner appears to be of
normal height. To be clear: I’m not saying that Wagner was tall. But
I’m wondering whether he was really so short that this was something
that struck anyone who laid eyes on him, and that then became a fixed
aspect of his public image the way it is today.
Adorno’s comment in “Versuch über Wagner” has probably exercised
considerable influence in this regard:
Die Angst Wagners vor der Karikatur, die doch um des Kontrastes zum
seriösen Unterweltsgott Alberich willen dramaturgisch sich empfohlen
hätte*, weist ebenso wie die Unterdrückung** dieser Regieanweisung
darauf hin, daß Wagner in der Figurine des Mime seiner selbst mit
Schrecken inneward. Seine eigene physische Erscheinung,
unverhältnismäßig klein, mit zu großem Kopf und vorspringendem Kinn,
hat das Abnorme gestreift und ist erst durch den Ruhm vorm Lachen
geschützt gewesen.
Consider that last sentence:
“His own physical appearance, unproportionally small, with too large a
head and a jutting chin, was close to abnormal, and only escaped
laughter because of Wagner’s fame.”
Really? What Adorno is saying, then, is that if Wagner had not become
a famous composer, people would literally have burst out laughing at
the mere sight of him, had they encountered him on the street. I walk
the streets of New York City every day, and I see thousands of people,
some of them highly peculiar, but that *never* happens to me. Perhaps
I can feel pity or even disgust, but laughter? But sure, I guess
Wagner did have an unusually large head; but again, how often was that
commented on? Did any contemporary witness – and Wagner had plenty of
enemies, after all – say that Wagner looked like a freak? How about
Hanslick, or James Davison, the English critic of the Musical World
who clearly didn’t take to Wagner’s music? Or Praeger? And again, if
Wagner was really so tormented by this, why did he never talk about
it? Or did he?
(At one point in Neumann’s “Recollections of Wagner,” the composer
puts his arm around Neumann – which would be hard to do if Wagner was
really so much shorter than him. As I intimated in my previous post,
Neumann is perhaps not always entirely reliable. But still.)
* Adorno’s – to my mind dishonest – slant is clearly in evidence here.
He says that it would have been dramatically appropriate to have Mime
be a caricature, as a contrast to the much more sinister Alberich. And
the fact that Wagner didn’t go with what was really demanded by the
drama shows his personal anxiety. What rubbish. Can Adorno really have
had such a shabby understanding of the Ring? Or did he just twist the
facts so that he could smack Wagner around? The drama does surely
*not* demand that Mime be a caricature. The suggestion is ludicrous.
** A second instance of Adorno’s dishonesty. ‘Unterdrückung’? That
smacks of censorship: Wagner *wanted* Mime to be a caricature, but
felt that in the end, he must ‘suppress’ that instruction for fear
that people would recognize him in Mime. Wagner didn’t ‘suppress’
anything.
The allegedly ‘suppressed’ Regieanweisung is given by Adorno in
English, quoted from Newman:
»Mime, the Nibelung, alone. He is small and bent, somewhat deformed
and hobbling. His head is abnormally large, his face is a dark ashen
colour and wrinkled, his eyes small and piercing, with red rims, his
grey beard long and scrubby, his head bald and covered with a red
cap ... There must be nothing approaching caricature in all this: his
aspect, when he is quiet, must be simply eerie: it is only in moments
of extreme excitement that he becomes exteriorily ludicrous, but never
too uncouth. His voice is husky and harsh; but this again ought of
itself never to provoke the listener to laughter.«
Anyway, I’m beginning to ramble here, and this has become inordinately
long. But perhaps you get my point.
Mike Scott Rohan
> Well, I guess I was paraphrasing what I believe is Joachim K***’s
> argument in his massive biography of Wagner. I haven’t read it,
> though. But nor do I feel any obligation to do so, as that man has
> demonstrated his utter incompetence in several earlier works. In this
> case, however, I don’t know the specifics of his argument, so perhaps
> my paraphrase wasn’t very accurate.
>
> And I don’t know where the idea that Geyer purportedly abused Wagner
> comes from. As Newman points out somewhere, it is rather remarkable
> how affectionately Wagner always referred to Geyer, whether or not he
> thought he was his biological father. He clearly loved him dearly.
>
> I guess I wrote “the less said the better” because it just seems so
> bootless to try to dispel these notions, as some people clearly want
> to believe in them. As you all know, the idea that Wagner feared that
> Geyer might have been his father, and might have been of Jewish
> descent has been put forward again and again. And as far as I know,
> there is not a scrap of evidence for that alleged fear (as opposed to
> suspicion, that is; what is at stake here is not whether Wagner
> *believed* that Geyer was his father, or *believed* he was Jewish, or
> if Geyer in fact *was* Jewish; what is at stake is whether Wagner
> *feared* this.)
Everything Wagner said about Geyer was amiable and grateful. He would
not have speculated very deeply, in public at least, about him being
his father, because that would reflect on his mother --something that
mattered a great deal more then than now. Indeed, since his mother was
almost certainly illegitimate herself, an aristocratic by-blow, he
would have been extra careful about this. And he would have known
perfectly well that Geyer wasn't Jewish. For one thing, the family had
a historic coat of arms, which no German Jewish family would have
done; and Geyer's ancestry was well known to him and has been quite
exhaustively confirmed since, many generations back. The name
"Christian" recurs among them, which no Jew would have carried, and
their social position, had they been Jews, would not have gone
unremarked. There's nothing "at stake', therefore, and no suspicions.
The interpretation of that instruction about "caricature" is a
wonderful example of intellectual dishonesty -- wilfully removing the
remark from its context, stage performance, and twisting the meaning
so they can give it a personal application. In context, as your quote
below makes clear, the meaning is pretty obvious -- Wagner did not
want Mime to be too comical and cute, as he so easily becomes
(especially in stagings by Adorno-influenced interpreters like
Chereau) lest that distort the view of Siegfried's character (as,
again, it does). But as I remember, Wagner did wryly remark on his own
aspect, quite relaxedly.
>
> One question that is related to this is: how short or ‘ill-formed’ was
> Wagner *perceived* to be? I believe we know his exact height, from his
> Swiss(?) passport or something; and that he was certainly not as short
> as Gutman had made him out to be. Still, he was clearly relatively
> short. But I have the feeling that today, no writer ever fails to
> mention this fact, often turning him into a ‘dwarf’ or a ‘gnome’ or
> something of that sort, whereas in most contemporary accounts it is
> hardly ever mentioned at all.
{snip}
>
> Consider that last sentence:
>
> “His own physical appearance, unproportionally small, with too large a
> head and a jutting chin, was close to abnormal, and only escaped
> laughter because of Wagner’s fame.”
This is indeed ridiculous, and again a very typical bit of truth-
twisting. Did anything about Wagner escape criticism because of his
fame? Quite the contrary, it attracted much closer and nastier
attention because of his notoriety. His womanizing, for example; he
was far less unpleasant in this than many of his contemporaries, yet
he comes in for more flack. He never, for example, forcibly moved his
latest mistress in with his hapless wife -- no, that was kindly old
Papa Verdi. In fact Wagner's appearance was seized on by caricaturists
all the time, as you remark; but even they couldn't entirely conceal
that, for all his slightly missshapen aspect, he radiated powerful
character and intelligence. Perhaps the nastiest one is of him taking
his bow from the royal box at the premiere of Mastersingers, which
sets out to make him look satanically smug -- and distinctly Jewish;
but it's all the less of a likeness for that. Wagner's appearance was
slightly unusual, but it was an age for that -- possibly due to poor
nutrition; consider the variety of faces one sees in American Civil
War photographs, or, indeed, of Wagner and his contemporaries. And in
a time of dwindling average heights -- increasing city environments
one factor -- he was small, but not extraordinarily so; not as tiny as
Grieg, for example, who was an entirely robust Norwegian Scot of tough
ancestry. And Wagner, when younger, was extraordinarily strong and
energetic; his favourite recreation was walking in the mountains,
often for days, bounding up paths that left his softer friends gasping
by the wayside. So I don't think he had that much trouble with self-
image...
Cheers,
Mike
Derrick Everett
> On Dec 29 2009, 6:46 pm, kjbk Wallin <kjbk4...@gmail.com> wrote:
>> Well, I guess I was paraphrasing what I believe is Joachim K***’s
>> argument in his massive biography of Wagner. I haven’t read it, though.
>> But nor do I feel any obligation to do so, as that man has demonstrated
>> his utter incompetence in several earlier works.
His claim to fame is that he brought Nietzsche out of the closet, which
according to JK explains almost everything that needs to be explained,
not only about Nietzsche but about German history. (The fact that Wagner
spent an inordinate amount of time in *his* closet is another matter,
since it has been well documented by the lady who made the cushions,
amongst others).
<snip - skipping over well-trodden ground>
>>
>> I will say, though, that I’m much angered by the tameness of most
>> reviews I have seen of this man’s work in academic journals. They have
>> mostly been critical; but all too often only mildly so, whereas I feel
>> his books are so atrociously pernicious and nasty and deeply revolting
>> that anything less than total anathema is inadequate.
You are not alone in this response to Mr Charcoal.
>> Wagner scholars
>> should be as reluctant ever to refer to him as historians are to refer
>> to David Irving. The man is a charlatan, an immoral mountebank. Richard
>> J. Evans, surely one of the best respected authorities on the Third
>> Reich dismissed K’s masturbatory fantasy about Hitler with the phrase
>> ‘none of this is remotely convincing’ (quote from memory). But Wagner
>> scholars will rather go, ‘ah, there are quite a few problems here, but
>> K must of course be congratulated on having supplied so many footnotes,
>> etc.’ These people are way too timid.
If you check the references given in K's copious footnotes you will find
that a high proportion of the pages referenced do not exist, or are blank
or contain only illustrations, while many of those that do exist contain
texts that do not even remotely support the conclusions that K purports
to draw from them.
--
Derrick Everett
====== Writing from 59°54'N 10°37'E =======
http://www.monsalvat.no/index.htm
http://www.monsalvat.no/wagnerfaq.htm
kjbk Wallin
>
> Everything Wagner said about Geyer was amiable and grateful. He would
> not have speculated very deeply, in public at least, about him being
> his father, because that would reflect on his mother --something that
> mattered a great deal more then than now. Indeed, since his mother was
> almost certainly illegitimate herself, an aristocratic by-blow, he
> would have been extra careful about this. And he would have known
> perfectly well that Geyer wasn't Jewish. For one thing, the family had
> a historic coat of arms, which no German Jewish family would have
> done; and Geyer's ancestry was well known to him and has been quite
> exhaustively confirmed since, many generations back. The name
> "Christian" recurs among them, which no Jew would have carried, and
> their social position, had they been Jews, would not have gone
> unremarked. There's nothing "at stake', therefore, and no suspicions.
>
I hope it was clear that I myself do not subscribe to these views; I
was merely referencing an old myth that has proven to be of remarkable
resilience, refusing to die out. Still, I must thank Mike for the
above comments. Though I already knew the facts, your argument brought
home to me that we can indeed *know* that Wagner must have known quite
well of Geyer’s ancestry. I’ve never researched this matter very
deeply; and with so much nonsense being bandied about, it’s often hard
to keep hold of even the most elementary facts.
“Again and again we find evidence of the deep affection of Wagner for
Geyer, and of his devotion to his memory: it is one of the most moving
traits in Wagner’s character.” (Ernest Newman, Wagner as Man and
Artist, p. 338)
I suspect the idea that Wagner might have *feared* that Geyer was
Jewish was conceived once it was clear that Geyer was in fact not
Jewish. It was the only way to keep the myth alive. Interestingly (or
rather: distressingly) we find yet another permutation of this thought
in a recent essay by Weiner, in that collection of essays and ‘hate
mail’ entitled ‘Wagner for the New Millennium’ (retarded title, btw).
Instead of pleading for the veracity of the myth yet again, Weiner
argues that any attempt to disqualify it is evidence of a distressing
preoccupation with Wagner’s racial purity. When German writer Dieter
David Scholz dismisses the idea in an article, this is taken by Weiner
as indicating that Scholz is repugned by the very idea that Wagner
might have been Jewish. It’s a really insidious argument, and Weiner
goes quite, quite far in his accusations and insinuations. I think
most people couldn’t care less about what type of blood might have
coursed through Wagner’s veins; neither Scholz, nor anyone else whose
scholarship on Wagner merits to be taken seriously, is trying to ‘keep
Wagner pure,’ as it were. His only concern is to debunk the myth that
Wagner had some sort of paranoid fear of his heritage, and to imply
that doing this smacks of anti-Semitism is waaay out of control.
I think I raised the question about Wagner’s *perceived* stature
partly because of an article I once read on ‘the Wagner library’ on
the internet. It’s an English translation of an alleged interview with
Wagner from 1874 (or ‘73). Looking at it again, however, it strikes me
as so strange that it probably cannot be taken seriously. The
interviewer comes to Bayreuth and asks a ‘laborer’ where Wagner might
be:
"There he stands," he replied, pointing to a group of carpenters. All
of them were in their shirt-sleeves.
One was a tall man, with black hair, swarthy complexion, and most
remarkably chiseled features.
That was Wagner, the composer of "Tannhäuser" and "Lohengrin."
(Quoted from: http://users.belgacom.net/wagnerlibrary/articles/wlar0039.htm
)
I only remembered the adjective ‘tall;’ but needless to say, the
further description of Wagner as having “black hair [and] swarthy
complexion” rather invalidates the whole report. Still, I do have the
impression that rather few of Wagner’s contemporaries found his height
to be so remarkably minuscule that they had to comment on it, whereas
it is almost always pointed out – and made fun of – today.
kjbk Wallin
> <snip - skipping over well-trodden ground>
>
> If you check the references given in K's copious footnotes you will find
> that a high proportion of the pages referenced do not exist, or are blank
> or contain only illustrations, while many of those that do exist contain
> texts that do not even remotely support the conclusions that K purports
> to draw from them.
>
Indeed, this is well-trodden ground. Rather depressing how a
discussion that was originally about Wagner’s skills as a pianist can
get side-tracked so fast by the Charcoaler.
I was aware that a great many of K’s references are fake; I did not
know, however, that some of them are to pages that don’t even exist.
But the man is absolutely shameless, so it doesn’t surprise me.
Perhaps it is mistaken to get upset about this creature. He certainly
should be ignored; and presumably he will be, eventually. Again, I
think it is a sign of the weakness of much of what passes for Wagner
scholarship today that this is not yet the case. Though nobody takes
him seriously, his name keeps cropping up. I recently saw a book
called ‘Nietzsche, Prophet of Nazism,’ which seems to argue along the
same lines as K*, only applied to Nietzsche instead. But I doubt the
field of Nietzsche studies will take much heed of this. My guess is
that all it gets is a few dismissive reviews, and that’s that. And
that’s as it should be (though it must be said that the contemporary
image of Nietzsche is a rather sanitized one; he did, after all,
speculate about how the breeding of the new man would have to entail
the ‘extermination of millions of degenerates [Mißrathener],’ and he
most certainly wasn’t speaking metaphorically when he said that. But
that’s a different story.)
kjbk Wallin
“But it is towards 1880 that the journalists and novelists and
caricaturists begin to play exultantly with the thesis that Wagner was
of Jewish origin. That thesis was evidently widely current by then;
and it is not improbable that it owed its diffusion to talk by
Nietzsche, who by that time had drifted apart from his former
idol.” (Newman, The Life of Richard Wagner, Vol. II, p. 613)
The idea that this myth started with Nietzsche has been parroted again
and again in later scholarship. I very much doubt this is the case.
Newman certainly did have an expert knowledge of what was going on at
that time, but he isn’t infallible. The rumor was around at least as
early as 1876; and though I guess it *could* owe its origin to
Nietzsche, I don’t find that very probable. Then there is of course
that footnote in Der Fall Wagner. It would be interesting to know how
many contemporary reviewers commented on that. Or do we know if
Cosima, Wolzogen, or Chamberlain grumbled something when they heard of
it? It should also be remembered that there were a number of anti-
Semites around who detested Wagner, and who happily pounced on this
rumor as another way to discredit him. In addition, considering how
many other ‘great’ Germans were ‘accused’ of being partly Jewish
(Goethe, Bismarck, etc), it was probably something that was bound to
appear. In the Völkischer Beobachter, I once came across a notice
where the editors reject a charge that had been made in a different
paper hostile to Nazism: to wit that Hitler had his own ‘Hausjude’
that he hung out with. In that case, I guess one could argue that *if*
that had been an effective way of discrediting Hitler, it was a
legitimate trick to play. Still, it doesn’t make for very pleasant
reading, as the rhetoric employed to attack Hitler’s anti-Semitism is
itself tinged with anti-Semitism. We know, of course, which modern
‘scholar’ has applied the term Hausjude to some of Wagner’s friends,
with barely concealed contempt.
Ultimately, this is surely not a matter of very great importance. I
just think it’s indicative of how Nietzsche’s importance is often
overestimated because people don’t know of all the other writers and
journalists at that time who basically said the same thing.
Derrick Everett
> By the way, I just read the following in Newman:
>
> “But it is towards 1880 that the journalists and novelists and
> caricaturists begin to play exultantly with the thesis that Wagner was
> of Jewish origin. That thesis was evidently widely current by then; and
> it is not improbable that it owed its diffusion to talk by Nietzsche,
> who by that time had drifted apart from his former idol.” (Newman, The
> Life of Richard Wagner, Vol. II, p. 613)
>
> The idea that this myth started with Nietzsche has been parroted again
> and again in later scholarship. I very much doubt this is the case.
> Newman certainly did have an expert knowledge of what was going on at
> that time, but he isn’t infallible. The rumor was around at least as
> early as 1876; and though I guess it *could* owe its origin to
> Nietzsche, I don’t find that very probable. Then there is of course that
> footnote in Der Fall Wagner.
The charge that Wagner was in some sense "Jewish" had a much longer
history, indeed. I suspect that it was in response to such claims --
made by those who regarded Wagner, on good grounds, as a protegé of
Meyerbeer -- that Wagner wrote his infamously anti-Semitic (although
primarily anti-Meyerbeeran) essay. In his Paris years, Wagner had been
part of a musical clique in which not only Meyerbeer and Halevy but many
of their associates were of Jewish origins. In the 1840's there were
probably many who believed that Wagner was too.
Nietzsche's footnote (the one about eagles and vultures) is supposed to
derive from his conversations with Wagner pre-1876 but that is no more
than speculation. Wagner was being caricatured by cartoonists with
Jewish features long before then.
<snip>
> We know, of course, which modern ‘scholar’ has applied the term
> Hausjude to some of Wagner’s friends, with barely concealed
> contempt.
>
With open contempt, really. His implication is that because of Wagner's
anti-Semitic attitude, any Jewish person who was a friend of Wagner (and
in particular the pianists Rubinstein and Tausig), were not really Jewish
at all. The argument, if it is an argument, is circular.
Mike Scott Rohan
> Den Thu, 07 Jan 2010 15:22:14 -0800, skrev kjbk Wallin:
>
>
>
>
>
> > By the way, I just read the following in Newman:
>
> > “But it is towards 1880 that the journalists and novelists and
> > caricaturists begin to play exultantly with the thesis that Wagner was
> > of Jewish origin. That thesis was evidently widely current by then; and
> > it is not improbable that it owed its diffusion to talk by Nietzsche,
> > who by that time had drifted apart from his former idol.” (Newman, The
> > Life of Richard Wagner, Vol. II, p. 613)
>
>
> > We know, of course, which modern ‘scholar’ has applied the term
> > Hausjude to some of Wagner’s friends, with barely concealed
> > contempt.
>
> With open contempt, really. His implication is that because of Wagner's
> anti-Semitic attitude, any Jewish person who was a friend of Wagner (and
> in particular the pianists Rubinstein and Tausig), were not really Jewish
> at all. The argument, if it is an argument, is circular.
And, when you think about it, profoundly anti-semitic in itself. It's
amazing how the Gutmans, Kohlers and their kind would have us believe
that Jews of intelligence and talent could somehow be induced to
cuddle up to the blank-eyed psychopath they portray -- as if there
were something inherent in the Jewish character, some masochistic
streak. As indeed I've heard suggested -- by anti-semites, eager to
claim that the Jews have brought their troubles upon themselves,
didn't fight back against the Nazis, etc etc. Nauseating there, so why
do they get away with it here?
The obvious explanation -- that Wagner, for all his nasty grumbles
about his imagined Jewish establishment, was in person much more human
and actually got on rather well with many Jews, especially if they
admired him, of course -- they choose to ignore, perhaps because it
clashes with their preconceptions. Or because it won't sell their
books.
Cheers,
Mike
kjbk Wallin
> The charge that Wagner was in some sense "Jewish" had a much longer
> history, indeed. I suspect that it was in response to such claims --
> made by those who regarded Wagner, on good grounds, as a protegé of
> Meyerbeer -- that Wagner wrote his infamously anti-Semitic (although
> primarily anti-Meyerbeeran) essay. In his Paris years, Wagner had been
> part of a musical clique in which not only Meyerbeer and Halevy but many
> of their associates were of Jewish origins. In the 1840's there were
> probably many who believed that Wagner was too.
>
That's an interesting hypothesis, which I don't think has really been
argued for in print. I think I'll need to mull over it some more. I am
of the impression, however, that the more explicit presentations of
that claim are of a later date, as Wagner's fame grew more and more. I
wonder if it might have something specifically to do with it becoming
known that Wagner had been born in the Brühl in Leipzig, which I guess
was known as a Jewish quarter? And was that perhaps information Wagner
had only released in his autobiography (though I highly doubt he would
ever have intentionally kept silent about it), which was then leaked
during the process of printing it in a small edition (it was only
intended for a select circle of friends)? Anyway, it's not that
important, really.
>
> > We know, of course, which modern ‘scholar’ has applied the term
> > Hausjude to some of Wagner’s friends, with barely concealed
> > contempt.
>
> With open contempt, really. His implication is that because of Wagner's
> anti-Semitic attitude, any Jewish person who was a friend of Wagner (and
> in particular the pianists Rubinstein and Tausig), were not really Jewish
> at all. The argument, if it is an argument, is circular.
>
Yes, with open contempt. I've found it very comforting to read your
vigorous refutations of this and similar claims earlier on this
newsgroup.
kjbk Wallin
Liszt, where I came across the following passage, which perhaps adds
some further light to the issue of Wagner as a pianist – though this
time it’s not about Richard but his wife:
Cosima evinced a pronounced pianistic talent, a rarely observed aspect
of her personality. She became so proficient in her teens, in fact,
that she could play the standard Beethoven sonatas with aplomb. She
also made a special study of Weber and Hummel, and she once took
pleasure in telling her father that she had begun work on the latter
composer’s Concerto in B minor, a composition in which she knew that
Liszt himself had at one time specialized. Later on, encouraged by
Seghers, she began playing some of her father’s own compositions,
including the operatic fantasia on Lucia di Lammermoor, Robert le
diable, and Les Huguenots. Marie d’Agoult saw in Cosima a second Clara
Schumann and wanted her to concertize, but Liszt resisted the idea. We
do well to remember that Cosima became a pupil of Hans von Bülow
before she became his wife. After hearing her play for the first time
Hans told Liszt that he was “affected and deeply moved at recognizing
in Fräulein Cosima’s playing the ipsissimum Lisztum [‘the essence of
Liszt’].” Even allowing for some slight exaggeration on the part of
Bülow in order to please his master, Cosima must have possessed an
exceptionally musical nature. (Walker, Franz Liszt: The Weimar Years,
p. 435n18)
Hans von Bülow was a man of brutal honesty, who would not – unlike his
one-time father-in-law – brook any mediocrity in the field of art. His
reply to Nietzsche, who had sent him some of his own compositions for
evaluation, has become famous; Bülow seems downright insulted that the
young philologist could even presume to send him such trash, which had
about the same significance for the laws of music as a crime does to
the laws of morality (I paraphrase from memory). Similarly famous is
the episode where he cleaned out the Augean stables for Liszt. Not
wanting to turn any students away, Liszt had let the crowd of pupils
surrounding him grow beyond control. Then, when Liszt was ill one day
and Bülow substituted for him, he brutally confronted and threw out
all the lesser talents that really had no right to impose on Liszt’s
time, as all instruction was ultimately lost on them. This background
makes it all the more fascinating to reflect on the case of Cosima:
was Bülow in fact, as Walker appears to suggest, willing to exaggerate
slightly on this occasion because – as Schopenhauer may very well have
suggested – his aestehtic judgment had been clouded by sexual desire?
Or was Cosima really that good? Would he have fallen in love with a
woman for whom music was really nothing more than a social skill (I’m
reminded of Dorian Gray’s sudden falling out of love with Sybil Vane
after seeing her perform horridly in a Shakespeare play)? I personally
don’t know enough of either Cosima or Bülow, or of the exact
circumstances in which they met, to offer an informed guess about it.
But it does seem like it was a passionate affair, of sorts, though the
passion was perhaps of a rather cerebral or spiritual kind. Maybe
there was in fact too little sexual desire involved.
Be that as it may, I have no particular desire to rehabilitate the
rather tainted reputation of Cosima. I just feel, though, that much of
the criticism she has attracted has been leveled at her for tactical
reasons. Many scholars of Wagner would rather have her be bigoted and
nasty than her husband. It’s like the scapegoating of Elisabeth
Förster-Nietzsche, who seems to have been guilty of only a fraction of
the perversions the Nietzscheans have accused her of. This is also why
I find that account by Albert Schweitzer, which I quoted from in one
of my earlier posts, so revealing. I have read parts of Oliver Hilmes
recent biography about her, and as could have been safely predicted,
he makes much of the fact that he’s not a hagiographer like Moulin-
Eckart. But I wonder if these exercises in ‘debunking’ are not carried
out a bit too zealously at times. Everybody is so afraid of appearing
to ‘whitewash’ or ‘apologize’ or even ‘admire’ either Cosima or
Richard that they go to extreme lengths to express their contempt for
them. For the reader accustomed to biographies of Wagner,
incidentally, the book by Walker is refreshingly naive in its
unabashed affection for Liszt (at least what I’ve read of it).
Perhaps I can illustrate this logic with another example from Michael
Burleigh’s ‘The Third Reich: A New History.’ As Mike (Scott Rohan,
that is) has pointed to earlier, Burleigh only refers to Wagner
briefly and in passing, and it seems clear that he doesn’t buy in to
the hallucinations of the school of K---. Having referenced the
alleged importance of the Bayreuth Circle*, he goes on to say:
“This is not to pursue the fallacy that Wagner’s own hateful views on
Jews were simply replicated in his operas. That Wagner conceived epic
hatreds against individual Jews, notably the composer Giacomo
Meyerbeer, and unattractively exploited Jewish acolytes and associates
he despised, is not in doubt, though he is surely not the only
creative genius who practised deceit and hypocrisy in his personal
relations.”
Burleigh obviously has a magisterial grasp of the history of the Third
Reich, and it’s not my intention here to quibble with him on details.
My point is merely this: that Wagner “unattractively exploited Jewish
acolytes and associates he despised” is an easy concession to make, as
it were, serving to lend credence to his overall skeptical estimation
of Wagner’s importance. He’s saying that, sure, Wagner was a really,
really nasty person, but that doesn’t matter all that much for our
purposes – the influence of his ‘philosophy’ was probably rather
limited. The fact remains, though, that the idea that Wagner
‘exploited’ these people, whom he also ‘despised’ is a myth. It just
wasn’t so. Perhaps Burleigh even knows this, but he also knows that
this isn’t his fight. He is concerned with a correct assessment of
Wagner’s influence on the Third Reich, and if it’s necessary to throw
a bone of empty rhetoric to the congenital Wagner haters to get the
point across more effectively, so be it.
Anyway, I apologize for dragging in this whole Nazi stuff yet again. I
know this newsgroup has gone over this a million times already, and
that many a discussion has been torpedoed because of the zealotry it
brings out in certain people. It’s just difficult to avoid altogether,
especially when touching on the biography of Wagner (which is, again,
why many are content to make a few comments/concessions about the
utter monstrosity of Wagner’s character in order to be able to move on
to the stuff that *really* matters, namely his art). I did have one or
two remarks that I wanted to make about K---, but that’ll have to wait
to another time.
* which I think even he overestimates, by the way – the only person
who really mattered in that group was H.S. Chamberlain; and it’s not
like the Bayreuther Blätter, with its highly limited circulation, had
any monopoly on racism and Germanist supremacism at that time. And
though Chamberlain certainly was an extremely important figure, I
don’t think there is much evidence that he had much direct influence
on Hitler; and though he may have had rather more of an influence on
Rosenberg, I think a strong case can be made that that influence is
rendered relatively unimportant by the fact that Rosenberg’s ‘Mythos’
was in fact never accepted as any ‘official Nazi philosophy,’ as is
sometimes suggested.