QUOTE OF THE DAY: SCHOPENHAUER IN MUSIC Feat. AUTHOR'S CHOICE & DID YOU KNOW?

Today’s Quote of the Day comes to us from 19th century German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer:

“The inexpressible depth of all music, by virtue of which it floats past us as a paradise quite familiar and yet eternally remote, and is so easy to understand and yet so inexplicable, is due to the fact that it reproduces all the emotions of our innermost being, but entirely without reality and remote from it’s pain…”

-Arthur Schopenhauer, from "The World as Will and Representation"

SUGGESTED READING:

• Arthur Schopenhauer: Life & Times (Encyclopedia Britannica) 

• Influence on composer Richard Wagner (BBC Radio)

• Schopenhauer in the works of Wagner (Oxford Scholarship *subscription*)

 

AUTHOR'S CHOICE: 

Listen below to my most beloved of
all arias, Liebestod

Enjoy below the very much Schopenhauer-inspired masterpiece "Liebestod" ("Love-Death"), by 19th century Romantic composer and maestro, Richard Wagner, from his epic opera Tristan und Isolde (Tristan and Isolde), as sung by soprano Margaret Price under the perfected baton of conductor Carlos Kleiber.

The breathtakingly exquisite, highly emotionally charged "Liebestod," in particular Price's version under my most beloved maestro Carlos Kleiber is this author's hands down, all time favorite aria. It simply doesn't get more beautiful, more sensual - more perfect - than this:

Did you know?

Welsh soprano Dame Margaret Price offered a fresh
take on the role of Isolde, historically reserved for a
more dramatic soprano. Maestro Carlos Kleiber took
a chance with casting Price for the role and what
resulted from this most glorious collaboration was
the most perfect album of all time:* Richard Wagner's
"Tristan und Isolde" as conducted by maestro Carlos
Kleiber; Deutsche Grammophon,1982 (*according to
the author of this blog!)

As ethereally gorgeous as Kleiber's recording of Tristan is (if you ask me, even more so than the conductors' much lauded performance in 1974 at Bayreuth with Swedish dramatic soprano Catarina Ligendza in the role of Isolde), the finished product - in it's current state - was never supposed to see the light of day had Kleiber gotten his way.

The ever selective perfectionist Carlos Kleiber was not at all thrilled with the release by record label Deutsche Grammophon of his in-studio recording of Tristan, which was gifted unto the fans of the conductor entirely without the maestro’s endorsement.

Although to my taste, and to the taste of very many an admirer of Kleiber (and Price), the recording is unfalteringly sublime - the opera, which in this instance was not performed on stage but rather within the confines of a recording studio - was pieced together by musical engineers who selected only the best “cuts” to make the appearance of a seamless whole.

Kleiber was reportedly so outraged at the release of the album - which, from the perspective of Carlos was little more than a selection of rehearsal audio - he threatened in 1982 to never again set foot in a recording studio!

-Rose.

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