[This is one (peculiar) answer to the question "If Brahms is good for
back pain, what can Wagner do for you?" (http://tinyurl.com/ysjbeq) from
former San Franciscan Charlie, a friend now a resident in Janacek's
hometown] -

   Actually, when I was in high school, Wagner made me
   uncontrollably furious, so much so that once I drove my
   fist into a metal locker door.

   As a result, I spent years trying to figure out what it was
   in Wagner's music that drove me to such extremes. I finally
   figured out it was his massing mid-to-low range brass in
   triadic notation. Usually a chord has larger intervals at
   the bottom and smaller at the top, which makes perfect sense
   both as sound and physics: sound, those low notes rumble
   and grate together; physics, those long wide waves jumble
   up together.  But Wagner went against common judgment and
   put 1-3-5 clumps of brass in the mid to low baritone range,
   and for whatever reason this just drove me BONKERS.

   It's a very effective dramatic effect, but for me its effects
   were deleterious.

Janos Gereben
www.sfcv.org
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