Richard Wagner: A Controversial Titan of Classical Music 

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!

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.

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."

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?

Lisa Simpson's school band leader Mr Largo

Lisztomania!

?

@@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 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.

2nd!

3rd.

41st

5TH

So has David Brent 👍🏿🙈

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 😂

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.

That joke with his posh English was "Random good Jimmy Carr one-liner" level.

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'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.

Congrats dude

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.

That’s right. Beirut is in Lebanon ( where Fafner’s neck in the original production ended up.)

Seconding Tchaikovsky!

Because you love (Wagner).

True and I love Wanger

One of my earliest exposures to Wagner's music via Arthur Fiedler and Boston Pops

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

Yeah, very annoying how he pronounces the name of the town. Makes you think Wagner worked in Lebanon!

Tahn-HOI-zer

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?

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.

Yes!

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 😂

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.

Would you like a crisp?

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.

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.

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.

I studied him at University, thanks...Maybe you, you're gonna have to actually read a book.

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.

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.

BeardoGraphics? Business Beard? BeardBlaze

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.

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.

🤘

Joey de Maio

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.

@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.

Same here : despite the questionable views of Wagner (Hitler's favourite composer - no surprise there) I still think his output by means of his compositions, is no less than influential, so much, it exists on to this day.

Heard that Herman Goring was the life of the partied too

Same

I don’t think Wagner would have been much fun at a party. The critic Deems Taylor said, “ An evening with Wagner, was an evening spent listening to a monologue.”

@@valerietaylor9615 Yes, I've read Taylor's work. But, I'm willing to bet, considering how accommodating Wagner's wealthy and highly-placed investors and/or supporters could be, that he was entertaining at gatherings. And, I'm sure some of his monologues both shocked and amused the guests. Just my opinion. :)

Ludwig I of Bavaria was also interesting, especially his affair with Lola Montez. Montez herself would make an interesting subject.

Second that! Rhoades!

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.

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

Lol 😂

ah,come on,guys,not cool.

Poland, the most invaded country in europe😂

Lol

It does that.

Change your girlfriend!

@@javiergilvidal1558 i did

@@thegurem Good!

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.

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