Felix Delbrueck replies to me:

>>Of course, at this point it doesn't matter how big an SOB Wagner was.
>>He and everybody who knew him are dead.  We will never find ourselves at
>>a party in which he is a fellow guest.  All we have is his work - in short,
>>the best of him.  However, while we can admire the work, I don't see why we
>>must admire the man as well.
>
>I don't think we can draw that clear a distinction in W.'s case.
>The works are so personal and deal so directly with Wagner's political
>and philosophical ideas that you can't divorce them from the man

This is only because we have been brought up on interpretations that take
into account Wagner's ideas when considering his music.  I'm not saying
that one has nothing to do with the other.  However, Wagner typically
works as a fabulist, and one can interpret a fable in many ways.

>But how much more meanspirited does that make the ending look, with
>Beckmesser's unredeemed disgrace and the undignified warnings against the
>danger of Frenchified culture from across the border?

Beckmesser disgraces himself, and I, for one, am happy about it.
Beckmesser sets himself up as a fellow of Perfect Taste and believes that
those who don't agree with him are unworthy fools.  When it turns out he
can't produce anything at all, one isn't happy for his inability but for
the comeuppance of his pretensions.  Also, he's the barrier to True Love.

As to the finale and the hymn to German culture, I doubt most opera-goers
take this as anything but a general triumph of Love over snobbery and a
celebration of art as an ideal.  Besides, we would have to fault Brahms's
Triumphlied (celebrating the Prussian victory in the Franco-Prussian war)
on the same grounds.

Further, there's this odd idea going around that great artists always
tell the truth in great art.  I argue with my betters all the time.  One
takes from a work of art the things that make sense.  I can still love
Meistersinger in general and fault the text (though not the music) of the
finale.

Steve Schwartz