| I agree, generally. I am even artsy enough to admire "Triumph of the Will" as a film. Have you ever read Nietzsche's "The Case of Wagner", written after their break? In it, he protests the decadence of Wagner, the bombastic and hyperventilating tendencies, as it were, contrasting Wagner unfavorably to Bizet, especially "Carmen", which is more earthy, more sunny, more Mediterranean. Anyway, a lot of what he says resonates with me, suggesting that Wagner is more interested in overwhelming the audience and forcing emotional response than writing music. In this context, then, it is less a matter of eschewing his music due to his opinions, as in feeling that the emotional atmosphere of fascism is present in too much of his work..... |
