Part of the Wagnerism Audiovisual Companion. Most audio samples are by kind permission of Pristine Classical.
Hermann Levi, rabbi's son and Parsifal conductor.
p. 231: W. E. B. Du Bois's story "Of the Coming of John," as it appeared in The Souls of Black Folk in 1903.
p. 239: Anton Grandjean and Josef Koch von Langentreu's satire of Wagner's anti-Semitic essay "Jewishness in Music" has, as far as I know, never been discussed in the Wagner literature. I asked the tenor Nicholas Phan to record a bit of it for my audiobook, and he generously obliged. Here, accompanied by Myra Huang, he sings a grimly ridiculous passage in which spiteful words from the 1869 republication of the essay are pasted onto the noble melody of the Pilgrims' Chorus: "Only in Petersburg, only in Moscow did I find the terrain of the musical press entirely free of Jews..."
p. 242: Not long after the première of Meistersinger, in 1868, speculation arose that Wagner intended to parody some stereotype of Jewish singing in Beckmesser's Act II Serenade, which requires awkward melisma passages. Latter-day scholars have elaborated that idea, which remains controversial.
Bernd Weikl as Beckmesser, Georg Solti conducting.
p. 243: Alberich's "Mir zagt, zuckt und zehrt" in Rheingold.
Gustav Neidlinger in Krauss's 1953 Ring at Bayreuth (Pristine).
p. 268: Luranah Aldridge as she was portrayed in Friedrich Wild's guide to the 1896 Bayreuth Festival.
p. 270: Patricia Hammond presents a short feature on the music of Amanda Aldridge.
p. 276: Donald Lambert's stride-piano fantasy on the Tannhäuser overture.
Charlie Parker quotes the Song to the Evening Star from Tannhäuser in "Cool Blues" (25 seconds in).
Live at Storyville, 1953.
Hans Sachs's "Wahn" monologue from Meistersinger.
Ferdinand Frantz in Rudolf Kempe's 1956 Meistersinger (Pristine).
