my little volkswagner goes pling plong: curd duca and his switched-on machines transforming richard wagner to minimalistic moog music, plus a very crude selection of rarely heard interpretations and wagner-related sounds by maria callas, astrid varnay, andy mackay, the solo harmonites steelband, mikhail rudy and me=myself=am=i, plus a statement by friedelind wagner from 1943

 

guten tag. when the austrian composer curd duca released his switched-on wagner interpretations in 1996 i instantly hated them; the bare blare of a squeaky moog seemed to be completely wrong to my ears, and the i noticed: yes, it is completely wrong and that is what it is all about. it made me realize how much i love the musi of rich/art wagner, and how much i hate all these pretentious bastards that capture and misappropriate his music for their own purposes in bayreuth über alles; duca's interpretations in contrast are defending wagner and themselves against any abuse by the elevated upper classes by being coumpletely uneasy listening. no fun, my baby, no fun.

 

for your and my very own listening pleasure i decided to add some rarely heard wagner-interpretations and wagner-related sounds from evil ways beyond; i recommand to burn the whole stuff down to one cd-r and hit random/repeat.

 

so let us start with switched-on wagner by curd duca from 1996:

01 - air (listen directly)

02 - echo

03 - pulse

04 - reed file

05 - nervous (listen directly)

06 - organ

07 - ghost

08 - microwave

09 - bass (listen directly)

10 - bell

11 -whistle

(...)

and now for the bonustracks:

 

(...)

 

12 - the solo harmonites steelband - overture to rienzi

(recorded live at the world steelband festival "pan is beautiful v" in trinidad and/or tobago in 1988; unfortunately the linernotes for this cd are rather vague)

 

(...)

 

13 - ralf siemers - kosmische volkswagner (listen directly)

(recorded in 2013 and revisited exclusively for this collection)

 

(...)

14 - mikhail rudy - elegy in a flat (listen directly)

(recorded in march 2001 in paris. from the 3-cd-compilation "the other wagner")

 

(...)

15 - astrid varnay - mild und leise (listen directly)

(niederösterreichisches tonkünstlerorchester conducted by hermann weigert; june 1951)

 

 

(...)

16 - maria callas - dolce e calmo

(orchestra della rai, torino, directed by arturo basile; november 1949 in turin)

 

(...)

 

17 - friedelind wagner - stimme aus amerika (listen directly)

(recorded on the 13th of february 1943, the 59th anniversary of richard wagner's death: friedelind wagner explains why her grandfather would have hated the nazis. from the 4-cd-compilation "entartete musik" from 1988)

 

(...)

18 - andy mackay - ride of the valkyries (listen directly)

(rehearsal 1974; from the 1992 cd-version of "in search of eddie riff" on rifff-records)

 

(...) 

19 - marcia davenport - outro

(recorded live at the san francisco opera on the 13th of november 1936)

 

download the rich/art wagner gesamtkunstwerk

(mp3 / all scans included / direct download)

 

and by the way: ten versions of the parsifal verwandlungsmusik can be found in a 2013 post in this=here blog...