It's SB Sunday. I'm Listening to Wagner's Die Meistersinger.

[stopbush]

4.5 hours of sublime musical bliss...and it's funny, too!

Why aren't you doing the same?

[BelleCarolinaPeridot]

1. I played that in the seventh grade in band lol .

Well not the 4.5 hours of it but I still like the piece that we played .

[stopbush]

2. So did I Meistersinger Prelude to Act 1!

Our band director called him Wagner - with a "W", not a "V" sound.

BTW - I played oboe. What was your instrument?

[BelleCarolinaPeridot]

4. My instrument was / is the B Flat Clarinet .

[Benhurst]

3. I won't listen to it because

I listened to it (Karajan/EMI) several weeks ago during an ice storm.

[stopbush]

7. Hey, that's the one I listened to today.

The studio version from the 70s, not the Bayreuth 1951 version.

I have a lot of Meistersingers in my collection. What a piece!

[Benhurst]

9. That's the one. The studio versions are often better. I love

Solti's London (Decca in Europe) version of the Ring Cycle.


Edit: :spank: It's late and I'm getting a bit sloppy.

[Rabrrrrrr]

5. Woo hoo! I stood through a performance of it at the Met

a number of years ago.

YAY Wagner!!

Also stood through Tristan und Isolde, and the Ring Cycle - twice - plus Die Walkure one extra time and Das Rheingold two other times and Lohengrin (the AWESOME Robert Wilson stage set one).

Missed the Flying Dutchman, though, when it was there. Meant to go a few times, but never made it. Kinda bummed about that. I also missed Tannhauser.

Wagner is best, I think, while standing, at least at the Met. The cheap seats are so utterly uncomfortable, I could never sit that long. Plus the standing really helps one feel that one is connected to the mythically extravegant stuff happening in the music and on stage.

Fuckin' genius.

Unlike the Italians, who write stuff about people who are in love, the Germans - especially Wagner - prefer to write about LOVE itself. Ah, I'm all melty now.

[Capt_Nemo]

6. Indeed, if you want 4.5 hours of sublime musical bliss...

... it's Wagner you should listen, but IMHO not Die Meistersinger.
It has to be Parsifal or Gotterdamerung.
If you'll settle for a shorter work than Tristan und Isolde will
do the trick.

I find that Wagner's musical stile doesn't match very well with
lighter subjects. It has to be tragic all the way.

For me Verdi's Falstaff works much better as a "comic" opera than
Die Meistersinger, and I'm not very fond of Verdi's music.

It's just like Francis Ford Coppola: The Godfather trilogy and Apocalypse Now are timeless masterworks (one could say Wagnerian ;-) ),
but he should avoid making films like Peggy Sue Got Married.

[stopbush]

8. I love Verdi. Falstaff is wonderful, but I think Don Carlo may

be my fav.

I've grown to like Meistersinger more and more as I age. I've never seen it live in the theatre, even though I lived in NYC for 20 years. They just didn't do it back then. At The Met I've seen the Ring (2 productions), Tristan, Tannhauser, Dutchman (2 productions), Lohengrin and Parsifal.

I spin Parsifal around Easter...it's a NYC tradition that I've brought to Vegas.

[tjwmason]

10. Parsifal rocks

Wagner is one of very few 19th century composers I like, and my fav. is definitely Parsifal. The whole of the mysticism fits so perfectly with the musical style.