I have a special relationship to Daniel Barenboim’s music-making. It was Barenboim’s ka-jillion-LP set from which I learned the Beethoven piano sonatas in 1972 or so. It was Barenboim who conducted Tristan in my first visit to Bayreuth in 1981. It was Barenboim who was at the podium for the Harry Kupfer Ring, and who continued […]
We forget that the author of Die Meistersinger could be a very funny guy. My sister, early on the Wagner curve but of a tenacious ear, sent me a 200th birthday tribute with its sophisticated tongue firmly in its cheek. Have good laugh on the Meister: Happy Birthday Tristan!
As part of its series of Wagner works conducted by Marek Janowski, Pentatone Classics has released a recording of a live concert performance of Tristan und Isolde that took place in the Berlin Philharmonie on March 27, 2012. I enjoyed all of it very much and a great deal of it was revelatory. Janowski seems to […]
Meistersinger appears on its face to be a paean to German art, expressed in a tribute to German musical heritage. And most pronounced in that heritage is the mastery of counterpoint and of well-tempered tuning. So the great work begins in C-major, ends in C-major, and features passages of fugal writing (such as the Act II riot) […]
The Wagner Blog is a forum for discussion of contemporary themes arising from the works of Richard Wagner. Discussions relating to Wagner’s musical, literary, theatrical, philosophical, political and theoretic work are all appropriate for this forum.
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