First of all… I was never a very big fan of Wagner, probably because he was a raging anti-Semite and I just didn’t want to give him the satisfaction even though he’s been dead for a number of years now. However, over the past couple of years I have listened to more of Wagner’s operas, and I have to say that I find his music quite beautiful. I think it’s probably because I fell in love with Strauss, who also uses all of these very lush and fairly ambiguous harmonies in his compositions, so my ear was prepared for Wagner when I really began to listen to his music. Even with all of this said, I’m continuously blown away that so many people took such a disliking to Wagner. Or rather his music, Wagner the man I don’t really care if people don’t/didn’t like him, but the music is different. I am especially surprised by how many people disliked Wagner but loved Liszt.
In the chapter on “Daniel Deronda as Music Historiography,” George Eliot is said to have not really cared for Wagner, but was a huge fan of Liszt. Liszt was one of Wagner’s big influences, and Liszt’s later music contains a great deal of hazy harmonies and he actually used the Tristan chord before it was the Tristan chord. I just find that really interesting and should probably do some research into why Liszt was so accepted and Wagner not so much.
Wagner was extremely revolutionary but still very much a product of what had come before him, which brings me to my next point. Darwinism. One of the most fascinating parts of this chapter for me was reading about how evolution was perceived at that time. I had it in my head that everyone hated Darwin and there was a huge uproar and people were absolutely appalled! I never knew that evolution itself was generally an excepted concept; it was the idea of natural selection that people took issue. The fact that it was all chance and there was no process involved, perhaps that is a big reason why people disliked Wagner so much, they failed to see his process, but I still don’t understand why they all loved Liszt. The End.
A lot of Liszt's appeal was his rock-star-ness. he was one of the first pianists to perform from memory, turned the piano sideways so you could see his profile, was flamboyant about his beautiful mistresses and money, etc. His pieces are huge and bombastic and technical, and that was impressive to audiences.
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