Night Waves - Wagner & Myth
Arts & Ideas
BBC
4.2 • 599 Ratings
🗓️ 25 October 2012
⏱️ 44 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In a special edition Samira Ahmed examines the importance of Norse and Greek mythology to Wagner and how the tales of ancient heroism influenced his work and in particular the Ring Cycle, with novelist A.S. Byatt, philosopher Roger Scruton and lecturer in music and European history Mark Berry.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome back to the home of the oxymoron. Evil genius. He asked the newspaper to print his obituary early so he'd enjoy it. That's like hiding at your own funeral. Yeah, it's a big, great gig. I'm Russell Kane. Join me to weigh in on whether the biggest players in history are more evil or genius. Becoming that rich, I'd say that is some level of genius. It also helps |
| 0:21.2 | that it's a long time ago, right? It's like the podcast version of telling your kids the ice cream |
| 0:26.1 | van plays music when it's out of ice cream. Listen to evil genius on BBC sounds. |
| 0:32.2 | This is a download from the BBC. For more information and our terms of use, go to BBC.co.ukh slash radio three. |
| 0:40.7 | Well, tonight, as Goet-Dermon reaches its climax on Radio 3, we do look at Wagner and |
| 0:45.7 | myth, the source of the rich Nordic stories of warrior gods and goddesses that inspired him, |
| 0:51.5 | the desire to re-forge old Germanic legends in an age of high romanticism, |
| 0:57.0 | and how and why the composer transformed them in his ring cycle. |
| 1:01.6 | For this journey through the land of legends, I'm joined by philosopher Roger Scruton, |
| 1:06.8 | Dr Mark Berry, historian and lecturer in music, and the novelist A.S. Bayett. |
| 1:12.5 | Woutan's bold assault on the world ash tree of life sets off events, as Aesbite reveals in this extract from the prologue to Gutter-Demavon. |
| 1:22.3 | From the world ash tree, Wotan then broke off a branch, a spear shaft, the mighty one cut from the trunk. |
| 1:31.4 | In the course of a long time, the wound laid waste of the wood. The foliage faded and fell. |
| 1:38.8 | The tree decayed and died. Thank you, Ayers, Byatt. And we'll be hearing more from you later. |
| 1:46.2 | Now, Wagner's ring cycle evolved over more than 20 years after 1848, the year of the German |
| 1:52.6 | Revolution through to 1874. |
| 1:55.7 | The March Revolution, as it was known, saw popular uprisings across the Austrian Empire |
| 2:00.6 | and Germanic states, |
| 2:02.2 | with demands for better pay and conditions for the downtrodden masses, |
| 2:06.1 | a free press and freedom of assembly. |
| 2:08.7 | So how did Wagner's vision of divine warrior princes and princesses connect to this world? |
| 2:14.6 | Earlier I spoke to the former Conservative Minister and MP Michael Portillo to discuss |
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