Robert Peters wrote in reply to me:

>Satoshi Akima wrote:
>
>>I fight for the Wagnerian cause for the same reason I recently fought for
>>the Schoenbergian cause: because there is too much that is neglected and
>>misunderstood.
>
>This is exactly what is so strange for me about the Wagnerites.  Why do
>you have to FIGHT for him and why is there a CAUSE? My goodness, it is
>music.  Let the music speak for itself.

Hold your horses!  I could just as well talk about fighting for CPE Bach's
"cause", or that of Pierre Boulez, just as I DID in fact talk about the
"cause" of Schoenberg.  I should make it clear that the "cause" in the
case of Wagner is not just that of Wagner, but what I feel to have been his
misappropriation as propaganda for the most dubious political "causes".  I
have spoken of the history of Wagner interpretation as the history of the
monstrous distortion of his aesthetics for the most perverse motivations.
Where such gross misappropriation results in the unjust condemnation of an
artist, or the interpretation of his aesthetics based upon such perversions
then I think it is only fair to speak out.

>It is no message to heal the world or to or to enlighten the ignorant: it
>is MUSIC.  When I for one listen to music I do not want to be missionized:
>I want to enjoy and maybe be moved, that is all.

But this would also be to condemn Beethoven's 9th Symphony:

    Ihr stuetzt nieder, Millionen?
    Ahnest du den Schoepfer, Welt?
    Such ihn ueberm Sternenzelt,
    ueber Sternen muss er wohnen!
    (Schiller: An die Freude)

Not to mention his Fidelio.  Wagner raises questions about the freedom and
the destiny of humanity, of the question of human love and passion, of life
and death.  What is so wrong with ANY artist challenging us with such
utterly fundamental matters?

The mention of Beethoven (Alle Menschen werden Brueder/All mankind shall
be brothers) makes it appropriate to take this opportunity to reveal yet
another 'dimension of Wagner'.  It is one of so many dimensions of his art.

The Ring can be interpreted from a Marx-Engels perspective.  We live in
a world not much different to that of the Ring, ruled by Wotan the God of
wrath, hatred, vengeance, and oaths.  We do not talk of oaths but we call
them treatises, pacts, laws, conditional agreements, contracts etc.  It is
to the system of so called justice we turn to wreak vengeance when these
'oaths are broken.  We are intricately bound to this system, slave to it.
Behind it all is a politico-economic juggernaut geared to produce a gross
national product, a profit margin, wealth and ultimately power.  It is
no different to the struggle for the Ring which is after all a symbol
of wealth and power.Whether we agree with the Marxist solution to the
situation it is hard not to share with him a sense that the whole system
is corrupt.  It is indeed a dark loveless world we live in world ruled
over the god of wrath and hatred, in which ever individual struggles for
the pettiest advantage over the other.  Do not forget either that the gap
between rich and poor nations is wider than it ever was, with countless
children dying of starvation every day.  Wagner's vision in the Ring is
partly a statement of the feeling that this corrupt juggernaut is headed
towards its own inevitable collapse: die Goetterdaemmerung.

In the Ring is contained the vision of the possibility of the freedom
of man.  THAT is why Wagner chose to open Bayreuth with a performance of
Beethoven's 9th.  That is why Wotan calls Siegfried 'the one who is freer
than I - the god' (Die Walkuere, Act III), for even Wotan is forced to
realise that he to has become a slave to this nexus of power.  In Wotan's
spear is carved oaths over which he is guardian, and when Siegfried
shatters his spear it spells the beginning of the end.

It must surely be asked whether it is indeed right that art should merely
be harmless pleasantry.  I think it is allowed to challenge, provoke and
inspire - even to change people if not the world.  In fact it was Handel
who said "forgive me if I have merely entertained then, for I wanted to
make them better".

Satoshi Akima
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