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Showing posts from June, 2015

150th anniversary of the première of Tristan und Isolde

This 10 June, 2015, we are celebrating the 150 th anniversary of the première of Tristan und Isolde (Munich, 10 June 1865).   According to the French-born American historian and philosopher, Jacques Barzun, the year 1859 was a pivotal year. In 1941, Professor Barzun wrote a seminal work, Darwin, Marx, Wagner: Critique of a Heritage . The recently deceased Columbia University professor said that in 1859, three major revolutionary works were finalized: The Origin of the Species, by Charles Darwin, the Critique of Political Economy, by Karl Marx, and Tristan und Isolde , by Richard Wagner . Since then, biology, social sciences and music have acquired new meanings and dimensions and we are still living with the results of such major revolutions. For many Wagnerians, Tristan represents the supreme peak of the master’s musical inspiration (equaled, perhaps, but never surpassed by his later works); its music and words are a sublime praise of love, a love that is so