Richard Wagner and the Law of Ruin Value in Music (1990)

Overview

Assuming that an observer living in the year 6000 would contemplate our period, for example, from 1607 to 2008 (approximately the era of our opera), Heiner Müller posits that this observer would find music to be the substance and crux of that period and not our palaces or other architectural structures. But what form would music take on as an antique ruin? The director and composer Pierre Boulez says that noteworthy music is when the music itself holds together its qualities as a skeleton. The composer Luigi Nono teaches us that we can also use methods from cinema, i.e. close-ups, long shots, editing, etc., in music recordings. He says you can identify the special quality of Richard Wagner, for example, through fragmenting. With Richard Wagner's Twilight of the Gods (behind the stage), The Valkyrie, Siegfried, The Flying Dutchman, The Mastersingers of Nuremberg.