After Mats Norrman's (I think rather unpleasant) attack on Don Satz's
Wagner views in the "Atonal Music"-thread I think it is time to think about
the reasons for the subjective and controversial reactions pro and contra
Wagner.

Why is it that Wagner gets more hysterically attacked and adored than
almost any other composer? I'd like to present my thoughts on the subject.
(I myself like some of Wagner's music, some of it bores me and I have read
some biographies on the man that made me not especially looking forward to
meet him in eternity.)

I think almost everyone would agree that the next two sentences are
correct:

1) Wagner is one of the most gifted composers in the history of music.
2) Wagner was a man of a dubious (some would say lousy) character.

First his works.

Wagner's music is music of genius.  But at the same time the music is
pure Romanticism, pure GERMAN Romanticism.  Haydn and Mozart, the two
most classical of all classical composers, always knew, like their great
contemporary Goethe, that the world of art is not more important than the
real world.  No dreams of the absolute.  Goethe said:  If you want to reach
eternity, you have to eternally care for the real world.  Goethe's Faust
wants to become like God but he has to see that man is bound to the real
world.  Of course no Romanticist would have subscribed to this.  Locked
in a world where they could not act politically, they dreamed the absolute
dream:  absolute religion, absolute love, absolute art.  A simple marriage
with honest Erik is not enough for Wagner's Senta, it must be the absolute
love to the Hollaender.

And a simple opera house was not enough for Wagner, he had to have a
temple:  Bayreuth.  Art as religion, that is Romanticism, that is Bayreuth.
It is in my opinion Wagner's Romanticism, his exagerrated belief in his own
importance (the artist as seer, prophet, priest, pope), his lack of irony
regarding his own role, the ridiculously stiff routine of the Bayreuther
Festspiele that adds to the dislike of him.  At least it provokes irony and
parody and comic relief.  If you've ever listened to the whole Ring (and I
did and I consider it great music though I do not buy the whole thing and
the whole idea) you really hunger for some humour (I mean real humour, not
sarcasm, irony or cynicism - humour is a sign of accepting the real world,
sarcasm shows belief in one's own superiority over others).

And then there is Wagner's personality.

And, of course, his antisemitism.  Wagner surely was not the only composer
with a lousy character and surely not the only rascist or antisemite among
them.  But there is not one composer with followers who tend so much to
idolize their favourite musician.  Why is that so? I think this idolization
is an echo of Wagner's self-idolization.  There is the Bayreuth temple,
there is his prophetic and humour-proof belief in his own concept of the
Gesamtkunstwerk, there is his belief in the value of his own verse (and,
as a native German and a lover and teacher of German poetry, I can tell
you:  Wagner's poetry is very poor and often pathetic (all the ridiculous
Stabreime) compared with even some of the lesser German poets of his time),
there is his artistic arrogance, there is his fierce belief that he was
right to fight artistic "enemies" any way he chose (one way was the
disgusting "Das Judentum in der Musik").

Yes, maybe there is the rub:  the Wagnerites are very fast to believe that
all people who try to see Wagner "only" as a good and gifted composer and
not as a genius and demigod with great and important messages (I for one do
not like most of Wagner's messages) are their enemies.  I like Goethe a lot
but know that Goethe was a very dubious character and wrote a lot of good
stuff and a lot of nonsense.  Why not say that Wagner was a very dubious
character who wrote a lot of good music and a lot of nonsense? It sure is
right and does not make this composer of genius man one inch smaller.

The problem is that the Wagner cult (especially of Bayreuth) is dangeroulsy
near to a religion and this is a concept I (and many others) dislike a lot.
I am a German and I know from my countries past that no man (and no woman)
deserves god-like worshipping.  If you want to do Wagner right, give him
respect and critical consideration, not adoration.  And the Wagnerites
could begin to stand (and do!) some joking on Richard's costs:  it would
be a sign of inner independence.

(One of Germanys best humourists and cartoonists, Loriot, a great admirer
of Wagner's works (he did a fantastic and funny Guide to the Ring with
the Berliner Philharmoniker, drew a portrait of Wagner, entitled "A Great
German":  it shows Wagner, looking very very serious and important, with
a clown's nose.  Now that is a Wagnerite!)

Robert Peters
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