The Wagnerian's guide to the Gramophone Classical Music Awards 2011 - Wagner "related" entries only

Yes, it's that time again - Gramphone have announced this years shortlist. Ok, so there isn't any Wagner in the opera category and in one or two places I am having to stretch the definition of "Wagner related" but to save you having to go through the entire thing,  I present you with the following selection of Wagner related nominations in this years short list: (the full list can be found here). I include samples - where I could find them. If I  have missed anything, I am sure someone will let me know

DVD Documentary

At least Wagner is well presented here, with two Carlos Kleiber documentaries (his Tristan is still sitting on my turntable)

*Carlos Kleiber: Traces to Nowhere
A film by Eric Schultz Arthaus 101553

*Carlos Kleiber: I am lost to the world
A film by Georg Wübbolt C Major 705608

Carlos Kleiber: Tristan Prelude (live July 25, 1972, Stuttgart)

And also nominated is Tony Palmer's:

The Wagner Family A film by Tony Palmer Tony Palmer Films TPDVD172

Recital

It may be stretching the definition a bit but I feel we can include both:

R Strauss Great Strauss Scenes
Christine Brewer; Eric Owens; Atlanta SO / Donald Runnicles Telarc TEL3175502

*Verismo Arias Various
Jonas Kaufmann; Chorus and Orchestra of the Santa Cecilia Academy, Rome / Antonio Pappano Decca Classics 4782258

Solo vocal
Ok, so really stretching things here:

R Strauss Lieder
Diana Damrau; Münchner PO / Christian Thielemann Virgin Classics 6286640

Diana Damrau: Strauss - Lied der Frauen

DVD Performance

Franck Symphony Wagner. Fauré Orchestral works
Charles Munch ICA Archives ICAD5015

Historic

Not really that Wagner related but this disc has him performing the Magic Flute, the Don and Strauss and it is, after all, Fritz Wunderlich!

Live on Stage Various
Fritz Wunderlich Deutsche Grammophon 4779109

Fritz Wunderlich Recital: Mozart-Zauberfloete Tamino's Aria

Opera

Alas, no Wagner but on a related theme (kind of):

*Mozart Die Zauberflöte
Soloists, RIAS Kammerchor; Akademie für Alte Musik / René Jacobs Harmonia Mundi HMC902068/70

R Strauss Ariadne Auf Naxos (in English)
Soloists; Scottish Chamber Orchestra / Armstrong Chandos CHAN3168(2)

And finally: Gramophone Artist of the Year 2011 - the one you can vote for. Of the many fine artists here I think of particular interest to us are:

Iván Fischer

Andris Nelsons

Jonas Kaufmann

Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra

Vote for your "favourite" here

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August 1935 - Gramophone: "My trouble with Parsifal is that I am incapable of accepting Wagner's sincerity of belief."

I found this editorial from Gramophone 1935 interesting, especially given Katharina Wagner's recent remarks about  Parsifal and "religion".




EDITORIAL: August 1935, Gramophone

Parsifal

After many years of writing I have learnt most of the provocative statements of opinion, and one of the most provocative of all is to say anything derogatory about Parsifal. So I was not surprised when our esteemed Madrid correspondent, Señor Nueda y Santiago, wrote to rebuke my slighting allusion to it. To Señor Nueda Parsifal is not only "the most beautiful, superb and astonishing masterpiece of music ever written, but the most beautiful, superb and amazing masterpiece ever produced in any art." Now, Señor Niieda has written an extremely interesting book on the oestheties of music, Dc Musica, with most of which I should agree, and he on his side cordially approves of my choice of music for that imaginary desert island. Equally we should agree absolutely with one another in our admiration of the Ring, and yet Parsifai affects us both quite differently. Señor Nueda does not mind whether Parsifai be Christian, heathen, Buddhist, or theosophist." In the dedication to Richard Wagner with which he prefaces his book he writes " My mother taught me to pray and to believe. In materialin I learnt to doubt. You restore my faith, because when I enjoy your divine music I am aware of my soul and I believe in it."

My trouble with Parsifal is that I am incapable of accepting Wagner's sincerity of belief. He takes a great Christian legend and theatricalises it. It is not a dogmatic necessity for a Christian to believe in the Holy Grail, but if a Christian believes in the dogma which inspired the legend he finds it impossible to forgive the distortion of it in Wagner's treatment. Nietzsche's attack upon Parsifal gave Parsifal a kind of religious kudos, but an orthodox Christian ought to agree with much of what Nietzsche said about it. It is impossible to imagine Nietzsche's attacking the music of Palesirina any more effectively than a clothes'-moth could attack a granite monolith. Nevertheless, although I shall never myself derive any emotional, intellectual, or even purely musical pleasure from Parsifai, the very reasons for which I condemn it compel me to recognise the right of its admirers to claim a magic for its influence.

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WAGNER By Peter Latham: Aesthetics and Orchestration. Gramophone 1926

An article published in Gramophone, June 1926. Latham discuss, Wagner, Gluck, Music -Drama, Aesthetics and Orchestration.

WAGNER himself never wished to be regarded as a composer pure and simple. He protested with some justice that his achievement covered many fields, and that any estimate of it must be based on a general survey and not merely on the music that constituted but one element in the complex whole. Even the modern opera-goer (andthe opera-singer, too) is far too apt to forget all other considerations in his anxiety to appreciate to the full the music that the composer puts before him ; and if this tendency is common to-day, it was almost universal when Wagner lived and wrote. For though the obvious truth that an opera is a combination of music and drama has never been entirely forgotten since it was first stated by the group of Florentines among whom this form of art originated, yet the ideal blend of the two has not proved easy to discover. Music has always had a way of asserting her pm-eminence at the expense of the plays with which she has been associated, in spite of all the efforts of theorists and reformers to keep her within legitimate bounds. Even the redoubtable Gluck himself could not always resist her imperious demand for freedom to develop unrestrained along her own lines, and during the seventy-five years or so that elapsed between Iphigenia in Tauris and The Rhine gold she succeeded in reducing the sister art to a condition of almost complete subjection. Mozart and Beethoven, it is true, never failed to give due consideration to the significance of the scene they were setting, but the bent of their minds towards purely instrumental compositions made them illfitted to continue the work of Gluck, even if the sheer splendour of their genius had not been such as to overwhelm by its very magnificence the dramas to which it lent its lustre. Their deep sense of artistic fitness did, indeed, lead to the creation of an operatic tradition that was to develop through Weber till at last it bore rich fruit in the work of Wagner himself. But before this consummation could be reached a period had to be traversed during which the original ideals of dramatic music seemed to be obliterated in a flood of lyric eloquence and vocal virtuosity. This is not the place for an estimate of the operas of Spontini, Meyerbeer, Auber, Donizetti, Bellini, and a host of others, all famous in their day and not by any means forgotten even now ; but it will be generally conceded that in their work it was the music and the singers that mattered. The very inanity of so many of their libretti is sufficient evidence of the small store they set on dramatic considerations.

Such being the operas to which audiences were accustomed when Wagner appeared upon the scene, it is not surprising that he should have decided that his theories required some explanation if they were to prove acceptable to the operatic public. His hearers, he felt, must be made to see that his mature work, however novel it might appear, contained nothing that was not perfectly logical and easily intelligible once the standpoint from which he regarded the artistic problem was properly appreciated, and consequently we find him in his writings insisting again and again on the essential unity of the true "Music-Drama," in which literature, acting, and stagecraft should all play their part with the music in achieving the desired dramatic result.

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