Wagner and the Radio

New Zealand Listener, Volume 23, Issue 583, 25 August 1950, Page 13

Wagner and the Radio

M I right in thinking that Wagner is badly served by the radio? Whenever I hear broadcasts which give some+ thing more of him than the time-worn extracts we hear frequently, I fee) that the emotional swirl in which Wagner catches us has somehow been lost. Is it the fact that we are more alone when listening to the radio and miss the feeling of the excitement of other listeners? We miss, of course, the sheer impact of sound which makes the Prelude to the Rhinegold so majestic, the. strength of the brass in the Valkyrie theme, and so on, but I feel that this can’t be quite all the difference. Perhaps we must wait for television to provide the answer. I have always been interested in the life of this extraordinary man so charming and so exasperatingly. repulsive, whose overwhelming opinion of himself history has justified, and in a little book by W. J. Turner I recently came upon two letters of Wagner’s which do much to explain his relationships with his friends. One of these is to an old friend asking for the "loan" of ten thousand francs; the friend replies that he is unable to lend the sum. Wagner then writes: "It would be wrong of me to pass over without censure an answer such as you "have given me. Though it will probably not happen again that a man like me will apply to you, yet a-perception of-the impropriety of your letter ought of itself to be a good thing for you. . . If you are not prepared to have me at one of your estates, you could have seized the signal opportunity I offered you of making the necessary arrangements for receiving me in some place of my choice. It is consequently offensive of you to say that you will let me know when you are prepared to have me. You should have omitted the wish you express with regard to my Tristan: your answer could only pass muster on the assumption that you are totally ignorant of my works. Let this end the matter. . . Richard

Wagner."

D.

M.