'Tristan' is a very unique case, not just in Wagner's output, but in music in general. It remains contemporary no matter what else surrounds it. There is something self-renewing about it.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
Tristan and Isolde were lucky to die when they did. They'd have been sick of all that rubbish in a year.
Wagner is contrapuntal in a philosophical way as well as a musical way. What I mean by that is that every tendency has its opposite, and you see that in the man himself. He's a metaphysical hermaphrodite - he embraces hard and soft, masculine and feminine.
The thing about Wagner is we're always wrong about him, because he always embraces opposites. There are things in his operas which viewed one way are naturalistic, and viewed another way are symbolic, but the problem is you can't represent both views on stage at once.
Most of the dramatism in Wagner comes from a very close link between the music and the language of the text. So much of the expressivity of Wagner's music dramas comes from the singers' capacity to play with the sound of the language. This kind of thing you can do very well in concert performance.
Wagner manages to convey emotion with music better than anyone, before or since.
Everything in Wagner's work - the music, the acting, the staging - stemmed from the text. Everything served to interpret the text.
Richard Wagner, a musician who wrote music which is better than it sounds.
I love Wagner, but the music I prefer is that of a cat hung up by its tail outside a window and trying to stick to the panes of glass with its claws.
Please write music like Wagner, only louder.
We've been listening to Wagner, which is so great.
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