If I Could Choose Only One Work By...WAGNER

It Would Have To Be...Der Ring des Nibelungen
What else?

The List So Far...
1. Ravel: Ma Mère l’Oye (Mother Goose Ballet)
2. Bruckner: Symphony No. 7
3. Schubert: String Quintet in C major
4. Shostakovich: Symphony No. 4
5. Mahler: Symphony No. 2 “Resurrection”
6. Tchaikovsky: The Nutcracker
7. Debussy: Preludes for Piano (Books 1 & 2)
8: Handel: Saul
9. Mozart: Le Nozze di Figaro
10. Brahms: String Sextet No. 2 in G major
11. Vaughan Williams: Job
12. Bach: Goldberg Variations
13. R. Strauss: Four Last Songs
14. Berlioz: The Damnation of Faust
15. Haydn: “Paris” Symphonies (Nos. 82-87)

[Warp]

I’ve finally bitten the bullet & started listening to Wagner.
It’s weird to go to sleep & wake up & it’s still playing

[GG-cupg]

The choice is apt. This means Wagner gets more hours of music than any other composer thus far. Good news for fans of endless operas everywhere. 😂

[johnbyrd]

I’d rate Meistersingers and Parsifal above the Ring cycle, though I’d rate Gotterdammerung their equal.

[nb]

As much as I love Wagner's music in general, I would unhesitatingly trade in all of his other works for Parsifal. My first encounter with it as a college student was not only a life changing experience, I also realized that it's the granddaddy of all the music I love the most; it is the supreme spring from which flowed all of the subsequent great works of late Romanticism and Impressionism. Even today it has a spellbinding, hypnotic effect on me every time I hear it.

[ianng]

Great choice probably without any contention. Tristan has that Chromatic bangs and a glorious resolution, but so does the ring, so does gotterdammerung, which is my favorite along with Tristan. Interesting tho we have not covered Beethoven… I would pick either the ninth. YES THE NINTH. A dark or fun first and second movement, a long beautiful adagio and a timeless triumphant choral ending, a demonstration of Beethoven’s creative art in a work. Plus I don’t think there’s anything really quite like it in music

[daniellibin]

The Ring is a no-brainer pick for Cancrizans. Maybe it’s the only no-brainer of the series thus far.

[jgesselberty]

When I saw the title, I thought "Das Rheingold." But, you went one step further and did the entire work.

[JG_]

Ultimately I agree with picking the Ring because there's so much more content and a better story, but Tristan and Isolde is much more enjoyable to me as music than The Ring. I can enjoy most of Tristan, but with the ring I really have to pick and choose what I listen to. Also Isolde's Liebstod makes me tear up more than most pieces of music I've heard for some reason, even though (perhaps because) I can't understand the lyrics.

[eddihaskell]

Parsifal, preferably the disc set conducted by Barenboim and Berlin Philharmonic. It can change your life and is hypnotic. I became addicted to this and got into the best shape of my life through this music. I was listening to this on my headset and went bicycling around the Dutch countryside for 5 hours non-stop at least 5 days a week at high speeds impressing the fit Dutch kids who were 20 years younger. I lived in Holland for a year. They thought I was demonic. Part 2, Act 1, beginning with Transformation Music is particularly good for getting one's hearbeat up to 140 and maintaining it for 90 minutes. The Barenboim set has Siegfried Jerusalem, Mattew Holle, Waltrud Meier, and Jon Tomlinson singing in wonderful sonics.

[samuelstephens]

Meistersinger. A comedy longer than Gotterdammerung, yes, but the melodies don't ever stop. Love the characters.

[runcis]

I think this is the least controversial so far! I'm currently on Mendelssohn binge, I haven't listened to all his works yet, but so far it seems like Symphony no. 2 'Lobgesang' would be my pick. At the beginning we hear the masterful Symphonic mastermind, followed by beautiful vocal/choral passages, culminating in triumphal, life affirming finale. It's like proto Mahler's 'Resurrection' symphony.
On a side note, from my journey through Mendelssohn's work, I have noticed he can compose Adagio/slow movements like no one else and his piano concertos are underrated.

[jg]

I was one of the Tristan proponents, but that was just because I thought the Ring would be counted as 4 works and not one. It being eligible, there's no question it is the natural choice. It really is one of the best creations ever, which incidentally I'm only now getting to know completely and in profound awe already. Thanks for the perfect timing and for everything.

[dennischiapello]

Your point about Tristan being a linchpin to a school of music that produced relatively little of value had never occurred to me, but it's right on point! Although musicologists point to the Prelude to Act 3 of Parsifal as being quasi-atonal, Wagner certainly didn't treat ultra-chromaticism as a gateway to a new frontier. Tristan was followed by Meistersinger, of which Toscanini said there was "too much C Major!"

[GG-cupg]

One work for Schumann: I suggest the piano quintet. It has his idiosyncratic syncopations and melodies in abundance and is very satisfyingly constructed. I have read that it helped establish the piano quintet during the romantic era. Two examples of its inspiration are how much he manages to make out of what are essentially ascending and descending scales in the scherzo and the contrapuntal reintroduction of the first movement theme in the finale. A delightful piece.

[joncheskin]

Wagner is the only composer on the list who spent most of his life writing one piece. If you count it all as one piece, then it is the obvious pick.

[petterw]

I picked the Ring because it has an example of every kind of human voice. The Woodbird, Gutrune, Sieglinde and Brünnhilde are four different sopranos, and then there are the mezzos, the deep altos... The only fach missing is the countertenor... luckily!

[albastros]

The scope of the Ring Is olympic. As a work of almost 3 decades of creativity, it deserves the first place.

[benjaminharris]

For me, I’d go with Parsifal. Intensely visionary.

Today’s choice: Bernstein Candide. Like my reasons for The magic flute it’s an opera of parts that shouldn’t add up but do and the glitter (and the gaiety) of the whole is fun and wondrous. The ending (Make our Garden Grow) is breathtaking. The best thing Bernstein wrote (amongst a lot of very good stuff).

[mehmeh]

The Ring is the right choice. HOWEVER…a good case could be made for a set of overtures and extracts from all the operas. I couldn’t imagine being without some Parsifal or Meistersinger or the Liebestod or the Tannhäuser overture.

[stevenault]

The Ring absolutely. I treasure the memories of Birgit Nilsson's Immolation Scene at the Met, after which I would be in an altered state of consciousness for a week. Question: on another subject entirely (well not entirely, as the central theme also involves a ring), Dave, do you accept a composer's self definition of a work being called a symphony? If so, what about the Lord of the Rings Symphony by Howard Shore? I think it's a 21st Century masterpiece and quite Wagnerian. What's your take on it?