Alex Ross: prediction

Transcript context

…Maybe it’s our enthusiasm itself for Wagner that we should worry about. In your book, you mention, of course, Apocalypse Now — Francis Ford Coppola’s use of the music from Die Walküre when the helicopters are bombing the countryside, and there’s some combination of terror and beauty in the music that does make that a thrilling scene. Shouldn’t we be repulsed by our very attraction to Wagner? And thus, we’re always wanting to keep it at a distance. Maybe we listen to it two or three times a year just to remind ourselves of why we don’t treat it as we would Beethoven or Mozart, who were classical liberals, very human, very vulnerable figures, had a strong sense of humor. And the whole tradition of Wagner’s descendants, and how they connected with Hitler and the Nazis — shouldn’t we keep it at a very real distance from ourselves, but periodically pull it out of the drawer to remind ourselves why we’re attracted and then run away as fast as we can? I don’t think so. I don’t feel there’s a clear and present danger with Wagner in today’s culture. If you look at what’s going on in the world, if you look at the threats that we face, if you look at racism in contemporary America, if you look at inequality across the globe, Wagner is not lurking behind, really, any of this that’s happening today. What is at work in ways that I don’t think we’re fully conscious of, or we haven’t analyzed enough, is all of this American popular culture that we think of as innately good and pure and innocent. It’s our music. It’s music from the people, and yet it is unquestionably mixed up with American history and present-day American politics. Wagner isn’t to blame for any of this. And just because classical music no longer has anything like the role that it once had on the world stage in culture today, I just don’t think you’re going to see some kind of new Hitler arising, enthused by Wagner and unleashing terror on the world. So I think we can go too far in demonizing Wagner. I think it’s a mistake to say that Beethoven and Mozart and Bach were all these wonderful, pure, liberal, humanist figures, and Wagner was this evil, irrational, protofascist, nationalist anti-Semite. The Magic Flute by Mozart is unambiguously racist in a way that no work by Wagner is because Jews are not present explicitly in any of Wagner’s operas. It’s theorized that there are stereotypes at work, but there’s no one labeled a Jew in Wagner. There are no Black people in Wagner. There is this atrocious stereotype of Monostatos in The Magic Flute. I think that is a problem to be conscious of. Beethoven was a misogynist, and so many of these composers were misogynist. Wagner had a lot of bad qualities, but he was not the most evil person who ever lived. And so I think, again, to create this black and white where these composers, on the one hand, are pure and innocent, and Wagner is infused with evil is a mistake. Wagner teaches us not to idealize Wagner in that way. Talk to us through your favorite recording of the Ring Cycle and why you find it so valuable and interesting. Which would it be, if you have to pick one?…

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