You can buy Collin Cleary’s Wagner’s Ring & the Germanic Tradition here.
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Richard Wagner was born on May 22, 1813 in Leipzig in the Kingdom of Saxony. He died on February 13, 1883 in Venice. As an artist, intellectual, author, and cultural force, Wagner has left an immense metapolitical legacy, which is being evaluated and appropriated in the North American New Right. I wish to draw your attention to the following writings which have been published at Counter-Currents. (more…)
Laure LePrunenec performing live with Igorrr.
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Laure LePrunenec is one of the most impressive artists in any genre in the past 15 years. The classically-trained French singer is known for her work with several bands including the avant-garde metal group Öxxö Xööx, the difficult-to-classify Igorrr, and Corpo-Mente. The latter two are collaborations with fellow French musician Gautier Serre and others, and she has also released two very interesting solo albums under the name Rïcïnn. (more…)
Phil Eiger Newmann, Beethoven, 2020.
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Today is the 250th anniversary of the christening of Ludwig van Beethoven, a titan of classical music and one of the greatest composers of all time. Beethoven transformed every genre in which he wrote and singlehandedly changed the trajectory of classical music. Rooted in the Classical idiom of Mozart and Haydn, he paved the way for the Romantic era and influenced composers such as Brahms, Liszt, and Wagner. His works remain cornerstones of the classical repertoire. (more…)
Hollósy Simon, Zrínyi’s Charge on the Turks from the Fortress of Szigetvár, 1896.
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Nikola Šubić Zrinski is an opera written in 1876 by Croatian composer Ivan Zajc that retells the Siege of Szigetvár. It is Zajc’s most accomplished work and is considered the national opera of Croatia. An excellent recording of the opera was released in late July featuring the Rijeka Symphony Orchestra (more…)
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Why does Scruton not examine the role of Melot in Death-Devoted Heart more closely?
Tristan und Isolde echoes themes from Romeo and Juliet and Othello, so it is unlikely that Wagner did not have both plays in mind when he composed his opera. The Othello theme is especially clear in the regrets expressed by King Marke that he could not clearly see, just as Othello could not clearly see. Melot, like Iago, faces death if he cannot make good the claim of adultery; (more…)
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Sir Roger Scruton, who died of cancer on January 12th, 2020 at the age of seventy-five, wrote more than fifty books, was the editor of the conservative publication The Salisbury Review, and in his final years was briefly chairman — dismissed and subsequently reinstated — of the Conservative Government’s “Building Better, Building Beautiful Commission.”
I once met Roger Scruton. He invited me to his flat in London in 1982 where I remember enjoying his excellent wine. (more…)
Wilhelm von Kaulbach, The Fifth Adventure, 1848
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A manuscript containing Hitler’s ideas for an opera entitled Wieland der Schmied, inspired by Wagner’s draft for a libretto of the same name, was recently put on display for the first time at the Museum Niederösterreich. The museum is currently running an exhibit on Hitler’s early life featuring artifacts collected by August Kubizek between 1907 and 1920. (more…)
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Franz Liszt
Liszt: Sardanapalo & Mazeppa
Staatskapelle Weimar, conducted by Kirill Karabits
Audite, 2019
Franz Liszt began composing an opera to an Italian libretto based on Byron’s tragedy Sardanapalus in 1849. (more…)
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Richard Wagner (1813-1883) was the most influential composer of the nineteenth century and one of the most influential composers in the history of Western art music. (more…)
Parsifal and Gurnemanz travelling through German history and entering the Grail Hall in Hans-Jürgen Syberberg’s film of Parsifal – a truly outstanding presentation of the drama.
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For a Wagnerian, seeing a performance at the Bayreuth Festspielhaus (Festival House) – the theater that was built and established by Richard Wagner himself, with the financial support of Wagner Societies across Germany as well as King Ludwig II and the Bavarian state coffers in the 1870s – is the Holy Grail of Wagnerism, the pinnacle of the Wagner experience. (more…)
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To listen in a player, click here. To download the mp3, right-click here and choose “save link as” or “save target as.” To subscribe to the CC podcast RSS feed, click here.
Seeing an opera production these days, if you’re anything even approximating a small-t traditionalist, is always a risky business. When the guardians of Western culture – who actually hate Western culture, or at least what it was until recently – want to change literature, painting, television, or film to suit whatever agenda they’re pursuing at the time, it’s a relatively simple matter: they simply create new works in new styles. (more…)
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Frederic Spotts
Hitler and the Power of Aesthetics
New York: The Overlook Press, 2003
Leaders throughout history have frequently deployed the arts as a means by which to display their power. Hitler is unusual, however, in that art was central to his political vision. He was intensely interested in the arts (painting, sculpture, music, and architecture) and dreamed of forging a state whose artistic and cultural achievements would rival those of ancient Greece and Rome. (more…)