Wagner's "Siegfried's Funeral March" was playing when I got the news about Neil Armstrong

[Aristus]

I just got a new CD of orchestral renditions of Wagnerian favorites, and I took it for a test listen this morning.

Noodling around on the net, I got the news about Armstrong during Wagner's tragic, yet triumphant ode to a dead hero...

Strange coincidence...

[Ron Obvious]

1. That music will be playing at my funeral..

I only fell in love with Wagner when the movie Excalibur came out, but it's been a deep love affair ever since. Same with Parsifal and Tristan & Isulde obviously.

Separate the man from his art. As the great Leonard Bernstein once said, "I despise Wagner, but on my knees..."

[Aristus]

2. "Excaliber" was also my introduction to Wagner.

To this day, the final triumphant coda of the funeral march brings to mind the scene of Percival returning the sword to the Lady of the Lake.

[Ron Obvious]

3. Same here...

I also see Arthur pounding the rocks at Stonehenge when that dramatic crescendo of Parsifal played. I was separated from my peers and their musical tastes forever at that moment, and glad I am for it.

I once frisbee'd a Klemperer LP of Parsifal off my apartment balcony because he'd conducted the piece like he was late for the last bus and didn't hold those dramatic notes nearly long enough.

[Aristus]

4. Even Georg Solti had his off performances.

The man renowned for conducting the first complete stereo recording of the entire Ring Cycle. His rendition of the funeral march for Decca's "Gotterdammerung" sounds as if he was on Thorazine when they recorded it. It's just awful. "Excaliber" used a famous recording of the march by George Szell and the Cleveland Symphony Orchestra for the movie. It is, in my opinion, the best recording of this piece ever.

[Ron Obvious]

5. Furtwängler takes some beating...

Furtwängler is mostly considered to be the definitive interpretation, but the sound quality is so inferior by modern standards that it's difficult to entirely agree.

I'm with you, the Szell version is my favourite as well, but then I saw Excalibur in the theatre nearly every day for $1 matinees for as long as that played, so that's why it imprinted.

Thanks be to Napster that I got the complete soundtrack (Igrayne's Dance, etc). That aluminium armour may not hold up that well, but the music sure does. I wonder how many people are like us in that regard. I've met about 6, including you.

[Joe Shlabotnik]

6. same here

I saw it when I was 11 years old, and it left an indelible mark. Over the years, Siegfried's Funeral March (played very loudly), became a staple of every one of our cat's funerals.

[Ron Obvious]

7. Brother! n/t

[Lionel Mandrake]

8. "Ride of the Valkyries" was mine.

Colonel Killgore rides!

[sarge43]

9. The O Fortuna when Arthur rides out for the last battle. Stunning

For Armstrong I hear Copeland's Fanfare for the Common Man.