Certainly shows where Mahler was coming from when he said: "If I could say it in words I wouldn't need to write symphonies." and "A symphony must be like the universe: it must contain everything."
When I was in college I was awarded a partial scholarship for singing in the choir. The choir would do a tour every spring and one of the years I was there we did the choir's first international tour, performing at churches in Denmark and in Germany. We got the opportunity to do a tour of the Wagner Opera house and when the guide found out that we were a visiting American choir they asked if we would perform one of songs on stage. We of course accepted and being that one of our songs was written by Wagner, we had to do that one. So a nobody from a small town in Iowa got the opportunity of performing a Wagner piece on stage in Wagner's Opera House.
Removing Wanger from the history of music is as difficult as removing Jane Austen from the history of the novel. Very, very hard because the influence is so deep.
I paid 300 dollars a seat at the NY Met' for me and my two children. Directed by Jimmie Lavine, it was Die Walküre and lasted 8 hours: it only seemed like an hour. Total magic. We were suck downed onto the stage and became part of the drama. He was nuts, but a genius of unknown quality.
Why are you making up lies? Die Walkure is only 3 hours tops..., I mean did they present a second opera with it, also James Levine is a conductor, so are you talking about him directing the music or directing the staging?
Richard Rodgers is another great example of one who uses leif motifs. Great example of his work is "Victory at Sea". Also Alexander Courage with the Star Trek themes.
One of your best Bio Team. I've always been interested in who Wagner was considering he was Hitler's favourite composer, but never bothered looking him up. That's why I rely on Simon Whistler, the Oracle, to inform me of most things these days. One day when UA-camrs rise to power I'm sure they'll make a statue of Simon Whistler somewhere in cyberspace.
I will seek out whatever you are selling and buy it. I too am bald and I was balding at 25 years. That razor, square space and all your sponsors are right to fund you. Keep um coming. Mark in Bangkok a Texas lad of 70.
Thank you for this. Not an opera fan but I do enjoy Wagner. Myself like a lot of boomers, was introduced into classical music by Looney Tunes. My introduction to Wagner was the episode called What's Opera Doc? with Bugs and Elmer. And with Elmer singing 'Kill the wabbit, kill the wabbit to the Flight of the Valkyries. Been a Wagner fan ever since.
“Composer’s block - if there’s such a thing.” Yes, there is. And I had experienced it for many years. It’s basically writer’s block for music writers. Nothing fanciful there.
Von trier uses his music to majestic affect in melancholia. Also 1980’s Excalibur by John boormaan uses Parsifal and Tristan und Isolde to a stirring fashion. Great stuff biographics!
Nietzsche was not a professor of philosophy at age twenty four as stated in the video. He was a professor of classical philology. This would be similar to a professor of classical languages or a professor of classical studies today.
@@geneklee7608 : In other words, he was focused on his career and influence rather than the less savoury side of life, far better to keep a low profile - Schumann reportedly was an alcoholic, unfortunately Vivaldi (known as The Red Priest) died penniless.
I have loved Wagner and his music. You have made a monumental biography of a difficult man. Warts and all of a super talent are told in Simon's signature style. There will be a bronze of this man Simon in a hundred years when UA-cam is only a legend. Simon, you are a legend!
Richard Wagner was the only major European composer who was deeply inspired and influenced by India’s ancient Vedic philosophy like most German intellectuals at the time. He also gained lot of knowledge on Indian philosophy from his brother in law Herman Brockhaus who was a well known professor of Sanskrit at Leipzig University. Wagner has interpreted Indian philosophy in his later works such as Lohengrin, Tristan, Parsifal and his epic opera the Ring Cycle.
Well done for subverting the usual tropes and having an objective view on Wagner and Nazism. I've read a bit on Wagner and yours is an excellent summary of the masses of information that could have been covered. Enjoyable - Thanks! PS. Bryan Magee's book 'Wagner and Philosophy' is a great exploration of philosophical ideas through the lens of Wagner and his operas.
@@geneklee7608 true Kant was kind of boring man, one fun annecdote was that Kant would always take a walk at the same time that you could set your watch to him.
I once read that on the day Kant read Rousseau’s “ Emile”, he got so wrapped up in it, that he forgot to take his walk. As a result, many citizens of Koenigsberg were late for appointments that day.
I majored in music, and one of my professors was FURIOUS when I wrote an essay on Richard Wagner. He then told the whole class to rip out the pages about Wagner from our music history books, and we could skip all questions about him on the exam. In other classes with this same professor, he refused to conduct nor even let students perform songs by Wagner, insisting "no antisemitic music would be heard in these halls." Yet when we pointed out all the other antisemitic composers who were far more vocal about the issue, he refused to treat them with the same animosity. As a trombonist who had prepared to perform "Flight of the Valkyries" in an audition, this ban on wagnerian music was troubling. He outright refused to listen to me the day of my audition to the uni's wind symphony, and I had to scramble for a new song to perform right there on the spot, which led to a horrible audition and I ended up last chair of the 2nd trombones, basically the lowest a tenor trombone can be placed. Part of me thinks that low placement was due to my love for Wagner's music (despite my hate for his sociopolitical views) rather than the actual quality of my performance (which was anxiety-filled, granted).
@@katiewinchester3757 Off hand, I recall Chopin, Mussorgsky, Liszt to a lesser extent. (Wagner insisted Liszt was not anti-Semitic, yet his own letters hint otherwise.) Richard Strauss, who my professor loved to perform, hung out with Nazis and even asked a high ranking Nazi Party member to protect his child's in-laws, who were Jewish, by having them remain under house arrest rather than sent to a concentration camp. (It's hard to debate if this meant he did not hate Jews, or if being buddies with high ranking Nazi meant he was okay with genocide so long as it wasn't family.) Tchaikovsky kept his hatred private, but letters he wrote show he used slurs against Jews and felt they stank up the air on trains. Another composer notorious for hate rhetoric yet super popular in classic music (and with my professor) was Australian composer Percy Grainger, who is about as offensive and flamboyant as they come! Grainger insisted he wasn't anti-Semitic because his secretary was a Jew, but he believed blue-eyed Nordic people were naturally superior, they were the only "sane" race, and all other races (including Jews) were insane and greedy. Yet he was the sort who loved to play the White Savior and care for people of color like they were all helpless lost souls. So, a charitable racist. Fun.... In more recent music, Roger Waters of Pink Floyd very openly talks about his opinions of Jews and Israel (which can be separate issues, but he clumps them together in his stage shows).
I heard of wagner through being a metalhead. Classical music has some interesting parallells and tangents in metal. A lot of great guitarists drew inspiration from the classics.
Wagner and I share the same birthday. I will now require a symphony to play the ride of the valkyrie instead of everyone's terrible off key happy birthday.
The day I turned 40 I went into my office, closed the door, and put on Siegfried's Funeral March. Then I stoically embraced my middle agedness and went about my business.
That's because Wagners ring cycle and the Lord of the Rings are both inspired by earlier european folktales and mythology. The idea of a magic ring (the ring of gyges) that can make the wielder invisible, and how that power could corrupt that individual was also present in Platos writing 2500 years ago,
@@lapamful And those composers were usually the middle-men, having gained their inspirations from earlier works, often from classical cultures, be they songs or stories or legends..
What the Nazi's did was to manipulate History to achieve their goals - not a new thing but it was taken to the next level by Goebbels. Churchill did the same but he knew that what he was doing was cherry picking History but he also knew he needed to do it for a noble reason. Adam Curtis, a British journalist and social scientist who works for the BBC made a 3 part series about it called "The Living Dead". The first episode has Nazi Germany as one of his themes - and the last one talks about how Thatcher - who heard Churchill as a child - held that cherry picked History as the real History - and try to rebuild "the good old times of imperial Britain" as if there were no bad times ... The second episode is about how what we consider to be the real history affects our behaviors and, in the case of high ranking officials, the behavior of States. I also tells how history inevitably loses an important component: the personal experience of those who lived though it - and that goes back to the interviews done in the first episode. I also will show, by the end, that History is not a simple collection of data. The most important aspect of History we all must learn is how and why some events and facts enter the textbooks - how History is written, created and researched. We all live History because the present becomes the past instantaneously. This post will become History when I click on the button "Comment" - well ... at least data I'm sure it will become!
It is true that every culture, state and most famous people portray a highly selective, often crafted view of themselves. It is harder to get away with outrageous claims now, but many try.
Very good presentation Mr. Whistler. The saying "it ain't over until the fat lady sings" comes from the Ring. The fat lady being Brünhilde. She has a final aria and throws herself in the pit of fire ending the series and 15 hours of your life that will never return. Also the cartoon operas always show singers with Viking horns, that's also from the Ring. (Thanks, and work a little on your German.)
Actually, most modern Ring productions do not include horned helmets. But when I just listen to the music, I always picture the characters wearing them. I just can’t help it.
Woody Allen is another fine example of an inconvenient genius like Wagner. IF you can separate the art from the artist, both are masters of their realm.
Simon, if you're doing composers, do Mahler. Dude wrote the best symphony of all time. Or do Stede Bonnet, wealthy 18th Century landowner who decided one day he'd had enough of all this and became a pirate.
Woah, even Mahler thought that Beethoven's 9th was the best. He even had his own arrangement of Beethoven's work, that arrangement is still quite popular.
Wagner's music is extraordinary. I'm 51 and have played Classical violin since I was 4 (you have to start very young, it is a very tricky instrument to master). Of course I have heard and performed Wagner over the years but it was only in my mid 40s when I really begun to understand his genius as a composer, his orchestration is simply awesome, he was able to paint masterpieces using music instead of brushes. Listen to the Prelude to Lohengrin and you will hear this.. it's extraordinary.
@BLUE DOG Completely irrelevant, but there is a legal monopoly on resources, and there are cost barriers on market entry. It is illegal to sell shoes without purchasing costly permits from the government and giving the government a cut. Plus all the large multinational corporations like Nike get subsidies and don't have to pay taxes, which gives them a significant advantage over a cobbler or collective trying to sell shoes out of their garage.
What a wonderful piece. I had no idea who this person was, despite being so profusely acquainted with some of his works. The man was a composer, a true force of artistic influence and a magnet for political and philosophical head figures. Failed, hailed, flawed and lauded.
Hi from Germany here, I would like to inform that there is mostly no controversy over Wagner from where I am from (Bayern), we universaly agree he was a brilliant composer and musician as well as an undisputed Ahole XD still wonderful video!
@@theConquerersMama Why? I find it funny how this stuff is taken as sacred. . I bet Ol' Dick Wagner would laugh at it. I can't imagine being so uptight about a thing that I would get actual mad at someone for taking the piss out of it. Classical music is funny to me, its held aloft by tunes composed 150 or more years ago, barely chugging on in its glass tower, but it THINKS its so relevant. Go to an art museum, the contemporary exhibits are loaded with people every day, all day. Put on a contemporary classical (oxymoron of a name isn't it) performance in a medium sized city and you might get 15 people for one show. So, no. getting mad about a joke that is about how serious you take a thing like this is not ok, its sad.
Juan De Cristomo Arriaga (hope I got the name correct) probably has the tragic accolade of any composer who ever existed : he was only 19 years old when he passed away - there's a start.
Please consider doing videos on the following people: 1. Dennis Rader 2. Jack London 3. Upton Sinclair 4. Jack Ketchum 5. Jane Austen 6. Anton LaVey 7. Annaliese Michel
I liked the video, and you do a great job. Though I would have loved even a brief mention of the Tristan chord, even at risk of being boring to non musically inclined. Its influence deserved as much.
Richard Wagner was a masterful composer. The Ring of the Nibelungs, Tannhauser, and The Master Singers of Nuremberg are my three favourites. I've seen their music dramas on UA-cam. Very beautiful.
Peter Windhorst The one that always blows my mind is how Orville Wright died when Neil Armstrong was 18. We went from learning to fly to walking on the moon in that short of a time
Since you've mentioned him in the video and considering that this year marks the 270th anniversary of his death, how about a video on Johann Sebastian Bach?
The biography of Richard Wagner is good, but your pronuciation of Bayreuth hurts me. I don't expect perfection there, but you could have made it much better.
And if there’s something that we can learn from Wagner’s life other than that failures are an inevitability in a life of true success, is that marriage can be a _hell of a complication than perhaps one artist focusing on his musical career would be better off avoiding._
It’s not enough that a composer’s work be great (or a writer’s or an artist’s). His life itself has to be interesting, with some drama and preferably some scandal.
Bach’s life wasn’t exactly devoid of interest or scandal. He fought a duel once, served a prison sentence, and was married twice and had twenty children. Incidentally, Simon didn’t mention the fact that Wagner served a sentence in debtor’s prison during his first stay in Paris.
Don’t get me wrong, I bloody love your videos and they’re super interesting but I’m so excited to finally watch a video within my own interests! “Classical” music is so easily forgotten about with younger generations but if you go looking you’ll find many of us actually love it! Twoset Violin is a prime example. Thank you for this video! X
Wagner was purposely depicted as poorly as possible. People wrote books about how listening to his work would make you go insane. I’m tired of arguing about this
A pretty good, though necessarily quick, precise of Wagner's life and work. No one could expect the detail of Ernest Newman’s massive four-volume biography in a 30 minute youtube. My one complaint is that the only music you use is Ride of the Valkyries…okay, with snippets of Parsifal and a few others. But not at least a few notes of the Lohengrin Prelude? A whiff of Tristan? Meistersinger? Or even the Bugs Bunny Hollander/Tannhäuser music? While I understand TRotV is Wagner’s main calling card for contemporary audiences thanks to Apocalypse Now, a touch more variety couldn’t have hurt. That said, you handled a massive subject with much enlightening aplomb for those unfamiliar with this world-changing artist.
@@mikeock1881 Rather, Wagner drew the Ring Cycle from the Norse Volsunga Saga whereas Tolkein drew from the poems and heroic lays of the Elder Edda. The former being a subset of the latter.
GREAT! To Watch a Live Performance of any of his best known Operas is a true Transcendental Experience. PURE GENIUS!!! ~ With Gratitude and Appreciation for the Video. THANK YOU!
Check out Squarespace: squarespace.com/biographics for 10% off on your first purchase.
whats the name of your new channel...the link in the description goes to youtube studio
Simon, please keep the beard going.
Can you do one on Babe Ruth please
Request for Queen Anne, last of the Stuart’s.
I'm a Violinist for big orchestas please do more of these I love classical music. I teach violin, viola, and cello. I adore my job!
“Music is the inarticulate speech of the heart, which cannot be compressed into words, because it is infinite”
Richard Wagner
Certainly shows where Mahler was coming from when he said:
"If I could say it in words I wouldn't need to write symphonies."
and
"A symphony must be like the universe: it must contain everything."
When I was in college I was awarded a partial scholarship for singing in the choir. The choir would do a tour every spring and one of the years I was there we did the choir's first international tour, performing at churches in Denmark and in Germany. We got the opportunity to do a tour of the Wagner Opera house and when the guide found out that we were a visiting American choir they asked if we would perform one of songs on stage. We of course accepted and being that one of our songs was written by Wagner, we had to do that one. So a nobody from a small town in Iowa got the opportunity of performing a Wagner piece on stage in Wagner's Opera House.
Thats awesome xD im from iowa too c: gives me hope
What college?
@@Elijah-qp5nh It was Grand View College at the time. It is now Grand View University.
You are not nobody. Nobody's nobody. Even Cpt. Kirk comes from Iowa.
Removing Wanger from the history of music is as difficult as removing Jane Austen from the history of the novel. Very, very hard because the influence is so deep.
the novel is a garbage medium anyways
@@XIXCentury
I think you mean Light Novels are the true garbage medium.
Karadshian of novels
@@XIXCentury what? Why do you say that
Why would we remove Jane Austen from the history of novels?
Could you do a video on Franz Liszt? He’s an icon in the piano/classical music world
Lisa Simpson's school band leader Mr Largo
Lisztomania!
Favourite Wagner quote - “I believe in God, Mozart, and Beethoven.”
I only belive in Bach.
@@seanleith5312
Johann Christoph? (Ach das ich wassers gnug hatte)
Johann Sebastian?(erbame dich mein gott)
@@seanleith5312 Me too
Yes wtf where is bach
Bach is god. So when he said I believe in god Beethoven and Mozart he was saying bach Mozart and Beethoven.
So weird to see Simon mention Star Wars without saying, “I wouldn’t know, I haven’t seen it”
?
@@forcedtohaveahandle I only have one thing to say: go watch Business Blaze. You absolutely won't regret it.
I personally think he has seen at least some but has forgotten them ( who could blame him with all the info he’s got swirling around his head🤓
I'd love to know how many of us pick up on stuff like this on Simon's other channels. Business Blaze is a pretty good insight.
He hasn’t missed much.
I've asking dis for long, A Biography on Fyodor Dostoevsky.
2nd!
3rd.
41st
5TH
So has David Brent 👍🏿🙈
I paid 300 dollars a seat at the NY Met' for me and my two children. Directed by Jimmie Lavine, it was Die Walküre and lasted 8 hours: it only seemed like an hour. Total magic. We were suck downed onto the stage and became part of the drama. He was nuts, but a genius of unknown quality.
Why are you making up lies? Die Walkure is only 3 hours tops..., I mean did they present a second opera with it, also James Levine is a conductor, so are you talking about him directing the music or directing the staging?
Good lord. Well it sounds like you really enjoyed it.
@@yumyumwhatzohai In fairness... with Levine conducting, most operas get quite a bit longer.
@@benjaminsagan5861 lol fair point
@@TheZestyCar 😂
My absolute favorite classical composer. It's no wonder that John Williams took a lot of inspiration from Wagner.
J. R. R. Tolkien as well
I never realized how much of an influence Wagner was on John Williams. I definitely can see how he did, though
Not as much as he took from Holst.
Richard Rodgers is another great example of one who uses leif motifs. Great example of his work is "Victory at Sea". Also Alexander Courage with the Star Trek themes.
And quite a lot from Stravinsky.
Oh, that Pringle reference! Your writers are brilliant. That deserves a BAH-DAH-BOOM-BOOM-TISSSSSSSSS!!!
That joke with his posh English was "Random good Jimmy Carr one-liner" level.
One of your best Bio Team. I've always been interested in who Wagner was considering he was Hitler's favourite composer, but never bothered looking him up. That's why I rely on Simon Whistler, the Oracle, to inform me of most things these days.
One day when UA-camrs rise to power I'm sure they'll make a statue of Simon Whistler somewhere in cyberspace.
If this was reddit I'd be up voting the hell out of this comment and probably a gold 😂👍⭐
Agree. And Wagner’s a tough bio, too.
One day we will know when Simon lost his hair.
@@martytu20 he starting losing his hair from the day he began doing 100 push-ups, 100 sit-ups, 100 squats and 10km run everyday.
I will seek out whatever you are selling and buy it. I too am bald and I was balding at 25 years. That razor, square space and all your sponsors are right to fund you. Keep um coming.
Mark in Bangkok a Texas lad of 70.
YAAAASS I'VE BEEN ASKING FOR THIS ONE FOR AGES
Congrats dude
Bio of Tchaikovsky at some point, please
I absolutely love the prelude to Lohengrin. It's just beautiful. The buildup is fantastic.
One of my earliest exposures to Wagner's music via Arthur Fiedler and Boston Pops
Thank you for this. Not an opera fan but I do enjoy Wagner. Myself like a lot of boomers, was introduced into classical music by Looney Tunes. My introduction to Wagner was the episode called What's Opera Doc? with Bugs and Elmer. And with Elmer singing 'Kill the wabbit, kill the wabbit to the Flight of the Valkyries. Been a Wagner fan ever since.
“Composer’s block - if there’s such a thing.”
Yes, there is. And I had experienced it for many years. It’s basically writer’s block for music writers. Nothing fanciful there.
i've been experiencing both composer and writer's block since birth. I am an IT guy. I could never write a song or write anything.
Steven Moore , 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣.
Don’t have to. It’s what most people I know would often say about his music.
Not necessarily, there are many composers known for having too many ideas, and not having enough time to write them down.
YES! THANK YOU GUYS! Mozart, Beethoven, Tchaikovsky, Handel for bios?
Seconding Tchaikovsky!
Von trier uses his music to majestic affect in melancholia. Also 1980’s Excalibur by John boormaan uses Parsifal and Tristan und Isolde to a stirring fashion. Great stuff biographics!
Plus a lot of Karl Orff's "Carmina Burana", another composer who's work was tainted, quite unfairly, by nazi association.
That was s a good movie. Brutal & as realistic as imagined. I think it put most of Ireland to work.
ZARDOZ. With Sean Connery. Good one
Sean Bean would do a very good portrayal as him in a movie. Would love to see a biographical on Sir Terry Pratchett 💖💖
Jeremy Kemp would've also made a great Wagner, unfortunately passed away just last year :'(
Pratchett would be great
That depends... can we make wagner die by impaling him with a giant satellite?
There's a fantastic 10-hour film from 1973 with Richard Burton who is just perfect.
Did you just say 10 hours?
Minor correction, the city in known as Buy Royt not Bay Rooth
That’s right. Beirut is in Lebanon ( where Fafner’s neck in the original production ended up.)
Nietzsche was not a professor of philosophy at age twenty four as stated in the video. He was a professor of classical philology. This would be similar to a professor of classical languages or a professor of classical studies today.
We need more videos like this from you: this length and about musicians/composers! Thank you.
Can you do one on the Superman, Richard Strauss? I saw Thus Spoke Zarathustra at the Boston Symphony Hall back in the 1990s.
Although Richard Strauss’ music was great, he was not a very interesting person and didn’t have a very interesting life.
@@geneklee7608 : In other words, he was focused on his career and influence rather than the less savoury side of life, far better to keep a low profile - Schumann reportedly was an alcoholic, unfortunately Vivaldi (known as The Red Priest) died penniless.
I shed my first sincere tears when I heard a performance of Tristan und Isolde
I have loved Wagner and his music. You have made a monumental biography of a difficult man. Warts and all of a super talent are told in Simon's signature style. There will be a bronze of this man Simon in a hundred years when UA-cam is only a legend. Simon, you are a legend!
When you are in music school and know Wagner's story from beggining to end, but still watch the video, because you love this channel
Because you love (Wagner).
True and I love Wanger
Richard Wagner was the only major European composer who was deeply inspired and influenced by India’s ancient Vedic philosophy like most German intellectuals at the time. He also gained lot of knowledge on Indian philosophy from his brother in law Herman Brockhaus who was a well known professor of Sanskrit at Leipzig University. Wagner has interpreted Indian philosophy in his later works such as Lohengrin, Tristan, Parsifal and his epic opera the Ring Cycle.
Well done for subverting the usual tropes and having an objective view on Wagner and Nazism. I've read a bit on Wagner and yours is an excellent summary of the masses of information that could have been covered. Enjoyable - Thanks!
PS. Bryan Magee's book 'Wagner and Philosophy' is a great exploration of philosophical ideas through the lens of Wagner and his operas.
Whenever I listen to Wagner, I get the urge to conquer Poland.
Lol 😂
ah,come on,guys,not cool.
Poland, the most invaded country in europe😂
Lol
It does that.
Errata 1:36: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart played the organ in the Thomaskirche but did not work in the aforementioned church.
Baudelaire was also in awe of Wagner and wrote an essay, "Richard Wagner and Tannhauser in Paris", published 1861.
Thank you for finally covering music history; I’ve been waiting so long for this!!!
Love the longer form video, but you had me dying at the Pringle joke! Bravo!
Bayreuth = "BYE-roit"
Yeah, very annoying how he pronounces the name of the town. Makes you think Wagner worked in Lebanon!
Tahn-HOI-zer
Why couldn't my history of music class be this interesting? I would have actually learned and paid attention
Can we get a biography on Simon whistler
Can we get a biographic on Simon's beard?
@@bratman82 massive,glorious and beautifully made.😄
No? But if you want to hear some stories from his youth go watch Business Blaze. Simon lets his (nonexistent) hair down.
I'd like to request that you guys do Peter Sellers or Immanuel Kant please, thanks!
How about “The Influence of Immanuel Kant’s Philosophy on the Work of Peter Sellers”?
Descartes’ life was far more interesting than Kant’s.
@@geneklee7608 true Kant was kind of boring man, one fun annecdote was that Kant would always take a walk at the same time that you could set your watch to him.
@@geneklee7608 Sure, do Descartes too, then I'd understand
I once read that on the day Kant read Rousseau’s “ Emile”, he got so wrapped up in it, that he forgot to take his walk. As a result, many citizens of Koenigsberg were late for appointments that day.
I majored in music, and one of my professors was FURIOUS when I wrote an essay on Richard Wagner. He then told the whole class to rip out the pages about Wagner from our music history books, and we could skip all questions about him on the exam.
In other classes with this same professor, he refused to conduct nor even let students perform songs by Wagner, insisting "no antisemitic music would be heard in these halls." Yet when we pointed out all the other antisemitic composers who were far more vocal about the issue, he refused to treat them with the same animosity.
As a trombonist who had prepared to perform "Flight of the Valkyries" in an audition, this ban on wagnerian music was troubling. He outright refused to listen to me the day of my audition to the uni's wind symphony, and I had to scramble for a new song to perform right there on the spot, which led to a horrible audition and I ended up last chair of the 2nd trombones, basically the lowest a tenor trombone can be placed. Part of me thinks that low placement was due to my love for Wagner's music (despite my hate for his sociopolitical views) rather than the actual quality of my performance (which was anxiety-filled, granted).
This is probably the most "makes you think" comment for this video.
Which other composers were antisemitic? I barely know anything about classical music, composers, and the like, and I'm genuinely curious!
@@katiewinchester3757 Off hand, I recall Chopin, Mussorgsky, Liszt to a lesser extent. (Wagner insisted Liszt was not anti-Semitic, yet his own letters hint otherwise.) Richard Strauss, who my professor loved to perform, hung out with Nazis and even asked a high ranking Nazi Party member to protect his child's in-laws, who were Jewish, by having them remain under house arrest rather than sent to a concentration camp. (It's hard to debate if this meant he did not hate Jews, or if being buddies with high ranking Nazi meant he was okay with genocide so long as it wasn't family.) Tchaikovsky kept his hatred private, but letters he wrote show he used slurs against Jews and felt they stank up the air on trains.
Another composer notorious for hate rhetoric yet super popular in classic music (and with my professor) was Australian composer Percy Grainger, who is about as offensive and flamboyant as they come! Grainger insisted he wasn't anti-Semitic because his secretary was a Jew, but he believed blue-eyed Nordic people were naturally superior, they were the only "sane" race, and all other races (including Jews) were insane and greedy. Yet he was the sort who loved to play the White Savior and care for people of color like they were all helpless lost souls.
So, a charitable racist. Fun....
In more recent music, Roger Waters of Pink Floyd very openly talks about his opinions of Jews and Israel (which can be separate issues, but he clumps them together in his stage shows).
@@rhov-anion wow that was very informative. Thank you! And I hope you ended up having a good career in music in the end :)
Sounds like a good professor
I heard of wagner through being a metalhead. Classical music has some interesting parallells and tangents in metal.
A lot of great guitarists drew inspiration from the classics.
🤘
Joey de Maio
We need more Biographics on composers 🎼🎹🎺🎻
Yes!
Wagner and I share the same birthday. I will now require a symphony to play the ride of the valkyrie instead of everyone's terrible off key happy birthday.
The day I turned 40 I went into my office, closed the door, and put on Siegfried's Funeral March. Then I stoically embraced my middle agedness and went about my business.
Now you get everyone humming Wagner terribly off key 😂
There's a lot of nonsense written about Wagner.
1:20 - Chapter 1 - First notes of the scale
6:20 - Chapter 2 - The flying saxon
13:15 - Chapter 3 - Revolution & exile
18:05 - Mid roll ads
19:45 - Chapter 4 - Your N°1 fan
25:55 - Chapter 5 - A cathedral of music
31:35 - Chapter 6 - An uncomfortable legacy
Anyone besides me noticed that Wagner's 15 hour opera sounds like Lord of the Rings
All the big name movies had their themes pinched from various great composers.
That's because Wagners ring cycle and the Lord of the Rings are both inspired by earlier european folktales and mythology. The idea of a magic ring (the ring of gyges) that can make the wielder invisible, and how that power could corrupt that individual was also present in Platos writing 2500 years ago,
You mean Lord of the Rings sounds like Wagner’s 15 hour opera.
@@lapamful And those composers were usually the middle-men, having gained their inspirations from earlier works, often from classical cultures, be they songs or stories or legends..
@@lapamful he means the story, not the music.
Great video! Wagner was the favorite composer of John Philip Sousa.
Yes, whenever I hear Sousa I want to invade Cuba and the Philippines. 😏
@@geneklee7608 I just want to open a can of good ol' fashioned America liberation whenever I hear Sousa.
I didn’t know that.
What the Nazi's did was to manipulate History to achieve their goals - not a new thing but it was taken to the next level by Goebbels. Churchill did the same but he knew that what he was doing was cherry picking History but he also knew he needed to do it for a noble reason. Adam Curtis, a British journalist and social scientist who works for the BBC made a 3 part series about it called "The Living Dead". The first episode has Nazi Germany as one of his themes - and the last one talks about how Thatcher - who heard Churchill as a child - held that cherry picked History as the real History - and try to rebuild "the good old times of imperial Britain" as if there were no bad times ...
The second episode is about how what we consider to be the real history affects our behaviors and, in the case of high ranking officials, the behavior of States. I also tells how history inevitably loses an important component: the personal experience of those who lived though it - and that goes back to the interviews done in the first episode. I also will show, by the end, that History is not a simple collection of data.
The most important aspect of History we all must learn is how and why some events and facts enter the textbooks - how History is written, created and researched.
We all live History because the present becomes the past instantaneously. This post will become History when I click on the button "Comment" - well ... at least data I'm sure it will become!
It is true that every culture, state and most famous people portray a highly selective, often crafted view of themselves. It is harder to get away with outrageous claims now, but many try.
Very good presentation Mr. Whistler. The saying "it ain't over until the fat lady sings" comes from the Ring. The fat lady being Brünhilde. She has a final aria and throws herself in the pit of fire ending the series and 15 hours of your life that will never return. Also the cartoon operas always show singers with Viking horns, that's also from the Ring. (Thanks, and work a little on your German.)
Actually, most modern Ring productions do not include horned helmets. But when I just listen to the music, I always picture the characters wearing them. I just can’t help it.
"I can't listen to too much Wagner, after a while I begin to get the urge to invade Poland." - Woody Allen
"I can't watch too many Woody Allen movies, after a while I begin to get the urge to sexually harass women." - Me. Just now.
My Woody Allen impression - "I'm a neurotic nerd, who is into little girls."
Woody Allen is another fine example of an inconvenient genius like Wagner. IF you can separate the art from the artist, both are masters of their realm.
@@josephdadey Considering how much of Woody Allen's art reflects his own psyche, I can't separate them too much.
@@MrGksarathy Indeed, I can't blame anyone for not being able to separate them. Particularly a movie like "Manhattan".
Simon, if you're doing composers, do Mahler. Dude wrote the best symphony of all time.
Or do Stede Bonnet, wealthy 18th Century landowner who decided one day he'd had enough of all this and became a pirate.
Woah, even Mahler thought that Beethoven's 9th was the best. He even had his own arrangement of Beethoven's work, that arrangement is still quite popular.
Thanks Simon, can you also do Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky?
I laughed way too hard at the Pringle joke
Would you like a crisp?
Wagner's music is extraordinary. I'm 51 and have played Classical violin since I was 4 (you have to start very young, it is a very tricky instrument to master). Of course I have heard and performed Wagner over the years but it was only in my mid 40s when I really begun to understand his genius as a composer, his orchestration is simply awesome, he was able to paint masterpieces using music instead of brushes. Listen to the Prelude to Lohengrin and you will hear this.. it's extraordinary.
Please do Biographics episodes on Scott Joplin, Ella Fitzgerald, and Cab Calloway!
@BLUE DOG Completely irrelevant, but there is a legal monopoly on resources, and there are cost barriers on market entry. It is illegal to sell shoes without purchasing costly permits from the government and giving the government a cut. Plus all the large multinational corporations like Nike get subsidies and don't have to pay taxes, which gives them a significant advantage over a cobbler or collective trying to sell shoes out of their garage.
What a wonderful piece. I had no idea who this person was, despite being so profusely acquainted with some of his works. The man was a composer, a true force of artistic influence and a magnet for political and philosophical head figures. Failed, hailed, flawed and lauded.
Hi from Germany here, I would like to inform that there is mostly no controversy over Wagner from where I am from (Bayern), we universaly agree he was a brilliant composer and musician as well as an undisputed Ahole XD still wonderful video!
Aren't there any defenders of Wagner's character in Germany?
Very little can be said in favor of Wagner’s character, alas.
@@valerietaylor9615 Are you sure? He was a capricious fellow. When he met the Emperor of Brazil, He made a headstand in front of him… 😀
Since you love WW2, Cold War, and classical composers, please consider Dimitri Shostakovich.
I once called him Dick Wagner (as in wag -ner not Vagner) in my university music history class. My prof actually got mad at me.
As they should.
@@theConquerersMama Why? I find it funny how this stuff is taken as sacred. . I bet Ol' Dick Wagner would laugh at it. I can't imagine being so uptight about a thing that I would get actual mad at someone for taking the piss out of it. Classical music is funny to me, its held aloft by tunes composed 150 or more years ago, barely chugging on in its glass tower, but it THINKS its so relevant. Go to an art museum, the contemporary exhibits are loaded with people every day, all day. Put on a contemporary classical (oxymoron of a name isn't it) performance in a medium sized city and you might get 15 people for one show. So, no. getting mad about a joke that is about how serious you take a thing like this is not ok, its sad.
I’ve played so many of this dudes pieces back in high school and as a trombone player I had TONS of fun
Finally a classical composer! Thank you Biographics.
Love composers, would love more!
Juan De Cristomo Arriaga (hope I got the name correct) probably has the tragic accolade of any composer who ever existed : he was only 19 years old when he passed away - there's a start.
tristan und isolde is a masterpiece, wagner is a genius. but i really have to separate the art from the artist when it comes to wagner
Was*
Justin Ospinal
Ironically there’s a letter by Wagner where he talks about how one shouldn’t seperate the art from the person.
John Coltrane is a Genius. Richard Wagner is a disgusting racist bigot who shall ever bow to the superiority of France. 🇫🇷
Agreed. At least his work is public domain so I don’t have to worry about lining his or his estate’s coffers when listening to his works.
virtue signal harder.
Please consider doing videos on the following people:
1. Dennis Rader
2. Jack London
3. Upton Sinclair
4. Jack Ketchum
5. Jane Austen
6. Anton LaVey
7. Annaliese Michel
I liked the video, and you do a great job. Though I would have loved even a brief mention of the Tristan chord, even at risk of being boring to non musically inclined. Its influence deserved as much.
I cant even, this made my life on so many levels. I been askin'. Thank You! Bravo! Well done!!!
I studied him at University, thanks...Maybe you, you're gonna have to actually read a book.
Well done!!! Keep up with the composer bios!! These are wonderful!!!!
Can you please make a video about Cecil John Rhoades,Paul Kruger and Piet Retief
Second that! Rhoades!
Richard Wagner was a masterful composer. The Ring of the Nibelungs, Tannhauser, and The Master Singers of Nuremberg are my three favourites. I've seen their music dramas on UA-cam. Very beautiful.
I’m beginning to think Simon’s beard needs its own channel now 🤣🤣
BeardoGraphics?
Business Beard?
BeardBlaze
Yeaah! Nice one! Love it.
You should do salazar of portugal.
that bastard made Portugal even more backwards,and is also the reason i don't trust that much the Oliveiras,though it's not your fault.
Regardless of Wilhelm Richard Wagner's questionable views, in my view he's no less than a brilliant composer.
Musician here; composer's block is REAL
This is hands down my favorite Biographics episode. The reason I didn't click immediately as that I wouldn't concentrate while I was at work.
"Wagner's music is not half as bad as it sounds".Mark Twain.
The fact that they coexisted blows my mind
@@fademusic1980 How about Mark Twain being friends with Nokola Tesla.
@@peterwindhorst5775 poor tesla, theft isnt a strong enough word
Peter Windhorst The one that always blows my mind is how Orville Wright died when Neil Armstrong was 18. We went from learning to fly to walking on the moon in that short of a time
Since you've mentioned him in the video and considering that this year marks the 270th anniversary of his death, how about a video on Johann Sebastian Bach?
The biography of Richard Wagner is good, but your pronuciation of Bayreuth hurts me. I don't expect perfection there, but you could have made it much better.
Hey biographics. Could you do a video about Kaiser wilhelm the first
Ludwig I of Bavaria was also interesting, especially his affair with Lola Montez. Montez herself would make an interesting subject.
I swear that beard grows more epic with every video.
And if there’s something that we can learn from Wagner’s life other than that failures are an inevitability in a life of true success, is that marriage can be a _hell of a complication than perhaps one artist focusing on his musical career would be better off avoiding._
Can I ask why you haven't made a video on Bach yet?
It’s not enough that a composer’s work be great (or a writer’s or an artist’s). His life itself has to be interesting, with some drama and preferably some scandal.
Just to piggyback on this question ... when Simon finally does a video on him I will be very perturbed if he doesn’t make an “I’ll be Bach” joke
Bach’s life wasn’t exactly devoid of interest or scandal. He fought a duel once, served a prison sentence, and was married twice and had twenty children. Incidentally, Simon didn’t mention the fact that Wagner served a sentence in debtor’s prison during his first stay in Paris.
Saw a production of "The Ring" by NY Met. Awesome. A true moving experience. Rapture in opera.
Don’t get me wrong, I bloody love your videos and they’re super interesting but I’m so excited to finally watch a video within my own interests! “Classical” music is so easily forgotten about with younger generations but if you go looking you’ll find many of us actually love it! Twoset Violin is a prime example.
Thank you for this video! X
Simon, I think you should permanently name your space heater "the squarspace space heater for heating square spaces sponsored by squarspace"
Wagner was purposely depicted as poorly as possible. People wrote books about how listening to his work would make you go insane. I’m tired of arguing about this
And once you realise it, you also realise that Wagner was right.
I saw siegried live, about 6 hours of heavy opera. Sadly without acting.
My gf was fast asleep after about 40 minuts
Change your girlfriend!
@@javiergilvidal1558 i did
@@thegurem Good!
Without king Ludwig 2nd his life would ve taken a tragic path of failure.
Thank you for your content! Only seen a few of your videos but they are thorough and cover topics that need a keen eye
The beard is more elegant than ever, just about to over take rasputin and claim the best beard of 2020!
I didn't know Rasputin was still one of the contenders for 2020... 😂😂
In my books you can be alive or dead, he is still behind Santa Denmark leader, Christian IX and Franz-Josef
You Habsburgs are good at growing beards too; you have to cover up the incest features 😂
the beard is definitely epic
What about Ned Kelly?
A pretty good, though necessarily quick, precise of Wagner's life and work. No one could expect the detail of Ernest Newman’s massive four-volume biography in a 30 minute youtube. My one complaint is that the only music you use is Ride of the Valkyries…okay, with snippets of Parsifal and a few others. But not at least a few notes of the Lohengrin Prelude? A whiff of Tristan? Meistersinger? Or even the Bugs Bunny Hollander/Tannhäuser music? While I understand TRotV is Wagner’s main calling card for contemporary audiences thanks to Apocalypse Now, a touch more variety couldn’t have hurt. That said, you handled a massive subject with much enlightening aplomb for those unfamiliar with this world-changing artist.
I kept waiting for the most orgasmic and apotheotic piece of music ever written, The Liebestod.
I like the new start in classical guys, do you have a video about beethoven
Don't think I've ever heard such mispronunciation of German names and terms.
Welcome to Biographics... and all of Simon’s channels, for that matter.
Ah! Excellent work! If you're going to do some more classical composers, Beethoven would be a great place to start!
Please do a biographics for Werner Von Braun.
Yes!
Richard Wagner looks a lot like Stephen Fry...or Stephen Fry looks like Richard Wagner, either one
Stephen Fry did an interesting documentary about him, 'Wagner & Me', about liking his music while being of Jewish descent.
I don't know if you know, but Stephen Fry is a huge Wagnerian, he even did a documentary about it.
27:40 The neck ended up in Beirut, this is the best part of the whole story🤣🤣
Bayreuth
@@sandybarnes887 almost positive he says “Beirut”, his delivery is just so brilliantly deadpan, I missed it at first
Simon could you make a video on the life on Joachim Von Ribbentrop - The Foreign Minister for Nazi Germany
A ring to rule them all? Hmmm...Am I the only one who recognized Lord of the Ring?
tolkien drew a lot of inspiration from wagner, that was an intentional nod to that fact
Many similarities, but a much happier ending to TLOTR.
@@mikeock1881 Rather, Wagner drew the Ring Cycle from the Norse Volsunga Saga whereas Tolkein drew from the poems and heroic lays of the Elder Edda. The former being a subset of the latter.
And he said it without adding “I’ve never seen it” :)
Almost blatant plagiarism... eyebrows raised
Please do all Composers that would be freaking blazing awesome.
GREAT! To Watch a Live Performance of any of his best known Operas is a true Transcendental Experience. PURE GENIUS!!! ~ With Gratitude and Appreciation for the Video. THANK YOU!