Wagner the Conductor – With Professor Chris Walton

HERE IS THE LINK TO THE ARCHIVAL RECORDING OF THIS EVENT:: https://youtu.be/HYiiyBfbHNE

Richard Wagner was regarded as one of the leading orchestral conductors of his day, even among those such as Eduard Hanslick who were highly skeptical of his aesthetic and his methods. Through his disciples Hans von Bülow, Hans Richter, Anton Seidl, Felix Mottl, Arthur Nikisch and their protégés in turn (most notably Richard Strauss and Gustav Mahler), Wagner succeeded in making his art of interpretation the norm in Europe and America until well into the 20th century. He also committed his ideas about conducting to paper, and these essays had a long-lasting impact on subsequent generations of conductors from Mengelberg to Furtwängler, Böhm, Scherchen and beyond. Even those conductors generally believed to have been antithetical to his ideas – such as Arturo Toscanini – adopted many of Wagner’s recommendations when performing the German Classics.

In 2021, Chris Walton published the first complete, modern English translation of Wagner’s essays on conducting, along with an extensive commentary on their reception and impact. In this talk, he  discusses Wagner’s conducting practices, his innovations in tempo, his art of transition, his creation of a new vocabulary to describe his art, and his success in establishing a school of conductors to promote his works and his aesthetic. Walton studied at the universities of Cambridge, Oxford and Zurich. He has published widely on Central European music and is today an honorary professor at the University of Stellenbosch and lectures in music history in Bern and Basel.