Maiden Voyage

September 22, 2009--This day in music history:
--1869 - First production of Richard Wagner's opera Das Rheingold, in Munich, with Franz Wullner conducting.
--1962 - Bob Dylan performs at Carnegie Hall.

The introduction of such undisputed musical forces, both on the big stage and on the same day...how adventageous! I too have added to this day's list of celebrated premieres of the famous and infamous, known as Object Appear Closer (or OAC if it achieves 'hip' status). But let's forget the boasting and focus on the real monumental events....
It seems Wagner was annoyed his Rheingold (written between 1853-1854, Part 1 of the mammoth Ring cycle) couldn't wait for presentation in its entirty with the other operas, but his meal ticket King Ludwig II insisted that Wagner show some of his work before the next check was cut.  Wagner had gotten back into the swing of the project after a 12-year "break" spend composing Tristan und Isolde and Die Meistersinger. He picked up where he left off in 1869, completing Sigfrieg and Gotterdammerung in the following 5 years. All told: eleven years of composing over a 20-year period to create Der Ring des Nibelungen, with the sneak peak of Rheingold in 1869. The complete Ring's first production would come in 1876, and was likely that generation's Woodstock...minus the mud and bad acid, of course. If you like opera or Wagner, or detest both equally (there are some out there, counting me at one point), my experience has been this: boy, what an amazing feat of compositional brain and brawn. Also, one can always learn something about the present by investigating the past IF one's ears are sharpened with constant use and inquiry. Listen to the music composed for the sonically scenic opening, writing akin to a cinematographer capturing the opening shot from above of a massive inland river. The music is the depiction of that river, the Rhine, and masterfully sets the tone for Rheingold, and the rest of the Ring story to follow. Listen again, and if you think it sounds reminiscent of some recent stylistic phenomenon, then you've been paying attention. You might ask why the minimalist movement became the rage with its return to musical civility (re: tonality) and it's seeming innate ability to provide drama while remaining relatively static, save for a few parlor tricks using logical mathmatical formulas to predetermine the course of changing rhythms and harmonies. Well when I returned to Rheingold to hear what I might be missing I thought I'd heard music like this before, and then it occured to me: Philip Glass is just a "1st-136-measures-of-Wagner's-Rheingold" disciple, and has gotten a lot of mileage out of those bars.
Bob Dylan's Carnegie Hall debut means as much to music history as any of history's storied geniuses' debuts at that venue...but oh, to have been there, when Dylan was still in his creative gestation, not yet misunderstood as being anything but what he was: a surprisingly young but gifted minstrel of conscience. Listening to live performances from that period (and I'm sure this concert's available too) the clarity and subtle power which his astounding poetry is delivered reminds me it's good to always keep an eye out for those occational comets that sometimes circle this earth at dangerously low altitudes. Will the next generation be so blessed as we were to experience such a force at it's absolute zenith? And to have been there at the beginning, on the eve when the world would experience sudden and painful transformation...but would I have appreciated it? Or sitting in the opera house hearing the opening strains of Wagner? Let that thought remind me to keep my ears and mind open tomorrow.