Richard Wagner's work
Despite Richard Wagner's obvious overdose of enthusiasm coupled with a lack of interest in other people I hold his work overall in high esteem, because this heightened sensitivity for the troubles that life throws at people produced some fine works of art.
Wagner composed of course many operas, but I would say that only four of them, depending on how you count Der Ring des Nibelungen, are spiritually relevant, namely
Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg finally is a mere exercise.
Tristan und Isolde doesn't require a lot of explanation, but before I go on to discuss Wagner's idea of heroism, I'll make a few remarks about Parsifal.
Wagner likens personal maturation to societal maturation. Kundry serves as a guide, who eventually becomes superfluous. This guide must, in order to steer events to their designated goal, violate the nature of the guided parties, and does so by means of wooing.
As Parsifal realises this violation, he understands his nature. And from there on he can go his own way. The knights he left learned it as well during his absence. When he returns he is simply being recognised as the first who changed his walk of life.
This is a metaphor both for the wounds that must lead to understanding in order to heal and let a man mature and find his way until he can finally accept death, as well as for the inevitable spiritual growth that occurs through the centuries. That is, Wagner believed in an enlightened future of another kind, one along the lines of Arthur Schopenhauer, one in which the understanding of man's nature would be commonplace.
He was not the first to say this. The first we know of was Parmenides in On Nature. And then of course John said as much in the Revelation.
Obviously Wagner didn't quite agree with either of them, but since Parsifal is a metaphor this must concern no-one. (Notwithstanding that Klingsor stands for the Catholic Church and Kundry for the Jews in accordance with our history.)
Wagner's heroism.
Siegmund und Sieglinde are not the first pair of brother and sister in Wagner's work. The first time this constellation occured in Rienzi. The only difference between Rienzi and Der Ring des Nibelungen is that the latter work is archetypal, while the former is based on a novel, apart from contemporary political commentary, that is.
What makes Rienzi and Siegfried heroes is that they are pure, that is not base and that they are strong enough to follow their nature. Rienzi of course makes some errors of judgment and that does him in, but in principle he's like Siegfried, up to the point that only his next of kin can truly appreciate him (Brünnhilde is of course Siegfried's aunt), because the others have no concept of their exaltation.
I can assure you that this is not exactly my point of view. But many people start there. If you would ask some Afghans in some remote valley, whether they think that they are smarter than the people in the rest of the world, what would they answer? And not all of them are imbeciles. Perhaps you know the scene from The Mouse That Roared where a man with a longbow claims the Empire State Building? That's the spirit. And probably the only spirit there is. So let us not criticise the belief in the grace that God has bestowed on one's kin. At least not as such. It is a natural element of fables. And it's also the foundation for any enterprise to improve the communal living conditions. But Wagner went too far in that direction and he is rightfully regarded as an oddball for this.
The funeral march in Die Götterdämmerung depicts the wake that the beating of a hero's heart causes, even if he made a fool of himself, because it's categorically superior and there is no hope, but that which gave it life. Is that not the meaning of Christ's resurrection and the pouring forth of the Holy Spirit?
Isolated, there is nothing wrong with it. However, Brünnhilde's subsequent understanding of herself as the cup that has lost the wine that it was supposed to hold makes it all about kinship and simultaniously kills off all erotic attraction that may exist between a man and a woman.
I simply abstract from that when I listen to her immolation, reducing her lament to a reflection over the loss of the opportunity to take part in a noble fate.
But on a more personal note. I've got my own hope, which aligns with Parmenides', John's and Schopenhauer's, and Schopenhauer's father hails from the same city that my family hails from, so I'm not entirely without kin in this undertaking, but the undertaking transcends my kin. And so it should be. Ideally.
Nowhere though Wagner depicted a man who's found his place. Parsifal covers some aspects of age, but Wagner certainly addressed the youth and didn't seem to have matured that much himself.
Wagner composed of course many operas, but I would say that only four of them, depending on how you count Der Ring des Nibelungen, are spiritually relevant, namely
- Rienzi and Der Ring des Nibelungen for their heroism,
- Tristan und Isolde for its fatefulness and
- Parsifal for its personal growth with age.
Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg finally is a mere exercise.
Tristan und Isolde doesn't require a lot of explanation, but before I go on to discuss Wagner's idea of heroism, I'll make a few remarks about Parsifal.
Wagner likens personal maturation to societal maturation. Kundry serves as a guide, who eventually becomes superfluous. This guide must, in order to steer events to their designated goal, violate the nature of the guided parties, and does so by means of wooing.
As Parsifal realises this violation, he understands his nature. And from there on he can go his own way. The knights he left learned it as well during his absence. When he returns he is simply being recognised as the first who changed his walk of life.
This is a metaphor both for the wounds that must lead to understanding in order to heal and let a man mature and find his way until he can finally accept death, as well as for the inevitable spiritual growth that occurs through the centuries. That is, Wagner believed in an enlightened future of another kind, one along the lines of Arthur Schopenhauer, one in which the understanding of man's nature would be commonplace.
He was not the first to say this. The first we know of was Parmenides in On Nature. And then of course John said as much in the Revelation.
Obviously Wagner didn't quite agree with either of them, but since Parsifal is a metaphor this must concern no-one. (Notwithstanding that Klingsor stands for the Catholic Church and Kundry for the Jews in accordance with our history.)
Wagner's heroism.
Siegmund und Sieglinde are not the first pair of brother and sister in Wagner's work. The first time this constellation occured in Rienzi. The only difference between Rienzi and Der Ring des Nibelungen is that the latter work is archetypal, while the former is based on a novel, apart from contemporary political commentary, that is.
What makes Rienzi and Siegfried heroes is that they are pure, that is not base and that they are strong enough to follow their nature. Rienzi of course makes some errors of judgment and that does him in, but in principle he's like Siegfried, up to the point that only his next of kin can truly appreciate him (Brünnhilde is of course Siegfried's aunt), because the others have no concept of their exaltation.
I can assure you that this is not exactly my point of view. But many people start there. If you would ask some Afghans in some remote valley, whether they think that they are smarter than the people in the rest of the world, what would they answer? And not all of them are imbeciles. Perhaps you know the scene from The Mouse That Roared where a man with a longbow claims the Empire State Building? That's the spirit. And probably the only spirit there is. So let us not criticise the belief in the grace that God has bestowed on one's kin. At least not as such. It is a natural element of fables. And it's also the foundation for any enterprise to improve the communal living conditions. But Wagner went too far in that direction and he is rightfully regarded as an oddball for this.
The funeral march in Die Götterdämmerung depicts the wake that the beating of a hero's heart causes, even if he made a fool of himself, because it's categorically superior and there is no hope, but that which gave it life. Is that not the meaning of Christ's resurrection and the pouring forth of the Holy Spirit?
Isolated, there is nothing wrong with it. However, Brünnhilde's subsequent understanding of herself as the cup that has lost the wine that it was supposed to hold makes it all about kinship and simultaniously kills off all erotic attraction that may exist between a man and a woman.
I simply abstract from that when I listen to her immolation, reducing her lament to a reflection over the loss of the opportunity to take part in a noble fate.
But on a more personal note. I've got my own hope, which aligns with Parmenides', John's and Schopenhauer's, and Schopenhauer's father hails from the same city that my family hails from, so I'm not entirely without kin in this undertaking, but the undertaking transcends my kin. And so it should be. Ideally.
Nowhere though Wagner depicted a man who's found his place. Parsifal covers some aspects of age, but Wagner certainly addressed the youth and didn't seem to have matured that much himself.
Labels: 24, kommentar, persönliches, psychologie, rezension, wahrnehmungen, ἰδέα, φιλοσοφία
Eingetragen Am/um
00:39
