- Wagner the Gaydog - Humour in Mister Serious? -

Over the years I have been on the list, Wagner has been the target
for discussion several times.  And it is nothing rare with that.  In
fact, Wagner is the, in written medium, most discussed character in world
history, after Mister Jesus and Mister Napoleon.  Much can be said about
Wagner, much is said, and much of it I don't like.  The most blasphemous of
all sayings is perhaps that (about the Ring): "Fifthteen hours of the most
bonehard seriousness", and similar rutabaga.  Let me therefore repeat what
I propagated for Stirling Newberry and Paul Wilson, on their private list.

First of all; wherein lies the difficulty of an musical expression.
One common misbelief is that the pathos; the true and sublime feeling
is the most sacred value of expression, as the honesty of feeling this
and meanwhile express it in a musical term needs a great and noble heart
just beside a powerful musical mind.  I don't see it so.  I think as a
general rule that humour must pass a more diffucult test.  My own musical
compositions for example, give a humouristic impression to some people,
as they take my lack of experience as humour (And if that is their real
impression or their properity is not to be sure on of course).  Then we
soon see that we must differ humour and really fun humour.  There should
actually be more than one word for what you stupid Englishmen express with
"humour" solely, like contact of different grades when you meet an UFO.
So, my compositions are I would say, humour on a lighter level (even if
I can think they wouldn't appear so to such a sharp musical mind like the
British journalist Andrew Morrison, and others of his like), because the
humour is "onefold".  This is fourtunately not a judge of the musical
quality per se, as Mozarts "Ein Musikalischer Spass" is also "onefold",
and with that example I think it is ratehr clear what I mean with the term.

Wagner is to me one of the more humoristic composers, despite what others
say; people who seem to never have heard "Die Meistersinger von Nuernberg".
I don't understand how one can claim that Meisteesinger is "an exception",
but perhaps there lies some humour therein to mean that just when Wagenr
is serious there is no humour? - I must say though that I appreciate Wagner
"Die Meistersinger von Nuernberg" much more than any opera by King Rossini
of Opera Buffa, and still there are more:

"Die Meistersinger von Nuernberg" is of course a very funny opera.
Beckmesser is the great cuckoo, thats no secret, and best I like the
part where Sixtus Beckmesser sings his prizesong for Hans Sax in the
night in Akt II.  We must know the background to Wagners Buergerlieder to
musically appreciate the fun.  Wagner was very very well versed in these
old songforms (Minneslied also, although he never treats the Minneslieder
in Tannhaeuser with the same skill as the Buergerlieder in Meistersinger),
and he mastered the technique and knew the rules for it as well as his own
pockets.  Wagenrs treatment is interesting from many aspects, as he uses
the songs as propulsing device for the drama itself.  Walther von Stolzing
represents Wagner himself and his role in the new art; with his "stepping
over" the old rules (increasing chromatism i.e.), and hence are Walther von
Stolzings songs breaking the rules for the Buergerlied in a masterful way;
they way only a musicain who master the rules can do, and as it was not
enough it follows the authentic development of the Buergerlied.  The
mastersiners on the other hand, and Sixtus Beckmesser in particular, sing
Lieder that are so 'perfect' Buergerlieder.  The best example of this is
Beckmessers singing for Hans Sax in Akt II, where the pattern is followed
to I dare to say ultimate perfection.  And this part is for me greater
humour than one million "Ein Musikalischer Spaesse", because the humour
is "twofold".  That means that the humour is not just an humouristic
expression that is humourous, but an humouristic expression that is
dressed is clothes of an honest expression.  It is a joke that requires
more than just a good mood to appreciate; it is a joke that gives also
an intellectual challenge, and if you didn't know the rules of the
Buergerlied, you might not have seen it.  This is an example of that Wagner
was a very sophisticated humourist, and it is not strange that people
sometimes mistake him for being gravely serious when he is joking in his
best mood.  Then, to go on in the story, Sax corrects Beckmesser with
verses that well make sence in the context, but not even rhyme, and
Beckmesser accepts it!  That is also fun, but this is a much cheaper grip,
which I can enjoy, but it doesn't belong to the sophisticated humour which
I am a fan of, and whih I adore Wagner so much for.  Then the ridiculing
of Beckmesser in the final szene is also good humour.  It is of course a
ratehr nasty humour, to laugh at somebodys unluck someone might argue, but
it is a "darker" humour, well worth of Schopenhauers pessimism, which I
also enjoy to some extent, and I suspect that people snore at it just
because it has the label I just gave it.  The same evening they snored at
Wagner they watch Mister Bean in TV and laugh so their cheek disjoints, of
course without reflecting over that the final szene of Meistersinger and
the standard Mister Bean Joke are one and the same chathegory of humour.
Take it or leave it!

Now let me just point out a few things further: I said that "Die
Meistersinger von Nuernberg" is not the only humouristc Wagenr opera.
And I was in fact not joking, not even on a deeper level.  There are
several examples of jokes and insiders in the early operas, but also to
large extent in The Ring.  "Das Rheingold" also (if not the whole Ring) has
this pretentiousness; "Das Rheingold" opens with that famous Eb-Dur accord,
the most serious description of The Creation since The Holy Scripts, and
only to be followed by that hilarous conversation between Alberik and the
Rhinetoechter.  Hilarous!  The way Odin and Loke fool Alberik to transform
himself to a frog, is another relatively good example, at least muscially.
In "Siegfried" there are also much buffa.  Mime is a clown whereever he
appears, and Siegfrieds ridiculing of him is good worthy fun.  Muscially
also the dragon is very successful; here we have a little of the same
phenomen I described from the Meistersinger; the Fafnirdragon is just
too much dragon to be a completely serious expression!  Also muscially
very successful is the quarrel between Mime and Alberik.  But the list of
humouristic details in the Ring is too long for me to have time to produce
here, but I can say many of those examples lies in the Leitmotifs (or the
development of them).  It is after all so that some things you can describe
with music, and some you cannot.  Think of it!  - Wagner liked animals and
I think he would have smiled if he had heard Saint-Saens "Carnival of the
Animals".  The dragon is one example of Wagners own playing with animals,
another are the horses.  At one occassion where a horse appears, the
orchestra plays a triole, which in *no* way sounds like a horse (but later
it sounds like a running horse, when a lot of those trioles are played
in row), and the effect is very funny.  There are besides also purely
instrumental music by Wagenr whcih is humouristic.  I think above all
of the independent early ouvertures.

Finally, again, and I know some will crevade here; there have also been
antiantisemitic analysises of Wagenr and his output that are very
humouristic.  It is just that the authors don't know they are.

But everything isn't humour either I can say like a little antidote to
this.  Robert Gutman finds homosexuality in "Tristan" in his book "Richard
Wagner - The man, his mind and his music", and he speculates that it is
a bad joke by some publisher (what is unlikely as it appears in Wagners
revided original).  But Gutman was a child of his time (the book is written
in the mid 1960ies), and he could not see homosexuality as somthing else
than a bad thing.  But alas, the Rainbowsymbolism in "das Rheingold" is
*not* a joke, and fourtunately there is a wider perspective and Wagners
initiative for homosexuality and also Womens Emancipation, can today be
seen as that forerunning as it is.  There was a propos a staging which took
up this some years ago in Germany (Frankfurt opera?), where the pederastry
at least once was brought to its right light.  I'm sure you know which
staging as it is rather well known.  I just wonder what it had been like if
it had been staged in say the early 16th century, before women were allowed
to be actors on the stage.  Imagine a man who is in love in a woman who is
played by a man who is playing a man who is dressed like a woman etc - well
that *is another sort of humour*!....

I don't remember if I have pointed out the ongoing releases on Naxos
historical, and I am too lazy to check the archieves to see if I did, but
these are a musthave.  It is some Leinsdorf Metropolitan sets, but theyre
danmed good.  I have heard one of these recordings in an old edition,
noisy, clicking!  But to listen to these is just another chickenhut; the
new transtechnique has made wonders for the Leinsdorf "Tristan"!  Just
a pity there is no libretto.  I usually am partial to more expensive
labels than Naxos just to have an included librettos.  Naxos usually have
relatively wellelaborate inlaybooklets in three languages so I don't think
it would be to much an effort for them to include librettos.  I have my
librettos to the hardcore repertoire by now, but it is always a joy to read
a new translation, and it is furtehr a matter of principles: I think a
complete set is marking abitiousness from the label and a libretto is
needed to call an opera set complete always.

Mats Norrman
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