Satoshi Akima <[log in to unmask]> wrote a highly interesting post yet
again.  I have tended to nod to much when I have read him lately, but here
are some points I wanted to comment on:

>I am not so sure.  Nietzsche pointed out - and I think utterly rightly
>- that Wagner's music is very French in character especially in the
>sensuousness of the orchestral texture.  It took me a long time before
>I could see any German influences at all in Wagner's music.  Nietzsche
>is correct in identifying Berlioz as perhaps the most glaringly obvious
>influence in his music.  True understanding of Wagner's greatness only
>begins when one can see through the irrelevant superficially nationalistic
>elements.

I am not so sure.  I percieve Wagner as very German.  Still I think
Berlioz is an important influence.  It is just that, that I don't see what
is French in Berlioz.  I always thought him to be very Germanstyled.  In
fact, I would say that when DeBussy appeared his music was the first with
a most French spirit since Rameau expired.  For Wagner I would say that his
tree grew in Webers garden - and Weber is the most German I can imagine.

So we have reached what I see as the nucleus of all Mr. Akimas arguing:

>There is such a vast amount of material in the text to deal with without
>having to resort of innuendo or subtext to interpret Wagner.  Wagner
>interpretation based on subtexual innuendo is nothing but a free ticket
>to distort him in whatever perverse fashion should capture one's fancy.
>Wagner interpretation has been however traditionally rife with this sort
>of nonesense.  I am bitterly critical of this tradition, which I believe
>to be the product of the widespread acceptance of the National Socialist
>perversion of Wagner which can only be achieved by such subtextual
>expansion.  This methodology seems to have gained widespread acceptance.
>'If the National Socialist do it why shouldn't I' is how the thought
>process runs, only to end up sinking to their base level.  This is not to
>deny that there is a subtext in Wagner - as with ANY writer.  Rather it is
>an insistence that such overblown interpretation of subtext at the expense
>of the TEXT will no longer be tolerated as the dominant mode of Wagner
>interpretation.  Let us read the TEXT first in order to properly understand
>any subtext.  We have not even begun to do this.  We have, after all this
>time, scarely even begun to understand Wagner.

Mr.Akima here traces something very important for the understanding of
an artwork, and I hope he doesn't try to deny an important side of it.
Subtexts causes a dilemma as it tend to both exist and not exist - and
Schroedinger was talking as much about this as particle physics when he
drove around with that damned cat!  Wagner has in the Ring formed an
allegory about the society he lived in and the society he wanted to create.
But after all Siegfried doesn't say to Wotan when he cracks his spear "Get
out of the way old man, here I come to form the socialist society", becuase
if Siegfried had said that, Wagner could at best count with yet another 12
years in exile.  So he formed an allegory.  Therewith he could talk in
confedilety with his devotees and say to the authorities "My opera is not
about socialism, it is a old German tale about completely other things!
Read the text!  Where is the word 'socialism' mentioned?" One could say
that the subtextual messages exist only in mutual agreement.  When both the
sender and the reciever interprets (and want to interpret) the message in
the same way, it is there.  But there is seldom a plain message only, and
there is seldom a subtextual message only, as these two tend to allow and
float into each other.  Because you cannot say, as the talibanians (or pick
your favourite fundamentalist here) say when they read the Koran; "We are
the true muslims, because we don't interpret, we just read what is actually
written", because, we are nomads without windows, as Leibniz said, and to
read a plain text is also to make an interpretation.  All communication is
interpretation.

An illustration too:  I for once, believes that Sjostakovitj actually
meant something when he quoted the "Lovemotif" from the Ring in his 15th
symphony.  This is a piece of subtextual information, and that symphony
wouldn't make much sence to me it this should be denied.  If it was denied,
why should Sjostakovitj compose symphonies (say f.e.  "Babi Yar") that
meant something (i.e same meanting as 15.  roughly) straight, and other
that didn't, like the 15th?

But, to take a step back, IMO we shouldn't actually choose "either ...
or" in this case.  Let us now praise Schroedingers cat and find relax in
the determination that steers the world.

Mats Norrman
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