Christian Thielemann: My Life with Wagner

This is a fascinating book. Its unusual in that written very accessibly from the p.o.v. of an expert practicing musician. I like the ‘with’ in the title suggesting personal relationship -which it is and must be for a musician I think.

There are some interesting nuggets of biographical info and how he started – in small German opera houses of course…and the way he writes about music in fascinating – knowledgeable and yet very accessible. There are lots of fascinating Wagner nuggets too of course– e.g. no Wagner opera ends in a minor key…

His views on directors and roles of conductor and director interesting and considered (P.112 etc). He makes some excellent points re W’s anti-Semitism and how ‘deal’ with it in terms of the work (pp.88-89) and how W both revolutionary and conservative (P. 34)

The remarks about the relationship words and music re libretti also v interesting, as on pp 31 and 32)

The second part of the book is a series of chapters (of largely increasing length), which cover every one of Wagner’s operas with Thielemann. He covers the history of composition, a plot summary, ends with a quick survey of recording, but the best parts are the sections about the meaning of the operas, his understanding of them, related to his direct experience of conducting them. There are gems of observation in all of these (well, from Dutchman onwards) but I found the Tristan chapter the most interesting. The remarks about the overall structure of the work are fascinating and purely musical aspects (pp. 195-198). I did also wonder if it would be possible, if perhaps simplistic, to contrast Tristan with Meistersinger as the former being all in and of the mind, the latter all in and of the body…