I'm not a fan of Wagner's music for the most part.

I tried to listen to the Ring Cycle, I got the complete box set from the library.

I couldn't handle it.

Opera & Wagner are not for everyone.

I do like Gyorgy Ligeti's Le Grande Macabre.

It is more of an 'Anti-Opera' than an 'Opera' though.

Yeah, but Ligeti is Ligeti...if you know what I mean...

Which version are you talking about?

There is the original 1977, the revised one from the early 1990's and the final 1997 version.

Hellview of Bellvue:
Mingus was a damn pimp. I don't know...there's no way I could ever dislike Mingus. Can he really be considered unsavory?

Since I just went through a giant Wagner phase with my fellow amateur composer friend (who also got me into Verdi...Italian opera!!! Yikes!)...I'll have to digress:

Schoenberg / Ode to Napoleon Buonaparte, op. 41 / LaSalle Quartet w. Kenneth Griffiths (speaker) and Stefan Litwin (piano)

If you're having trouble with opera, seriously, try to get a hold of The Cunning Little Vixen performed by Mackerras with Popp as the Vixen (London Records).

It depends who you ask. If you were one of the musicians he hit in the stomach while being in the middle of a solo, because Mingus didn't like what that musician was playing, you might think differently.

There is also the time he went after Juan Tizol with an ax. It was during Mingus' short stay with Ellington's band. Not that Tizol was anywhere close to an angel. He had a switchblade out at the time, as well. And was a well known thief who would steal from the other members of the Ellington band.

Jackie Mclean even stabbed Mingus after Mingus punched him and thinking Mingus was going to kill him. During one performance he tried to crush the piano players hands and then punched Jimmy Knepper in the mouth. Mingus didn't like what they were playing at the time.

Mingus could be an angel or he could be a lunatic. And you never wanted to bring up his mixed heritiage to his face. He was bipolar and had serious anger management problems.

It was Mingus destroying his bass at a London performance that influenced the Animals into destorying their instruments, which grew to other rock bands like the Who.


But he was still the greatest bass player to play the instrument and one of the greatest composers in music.

I know he punched a trombone player (Knepper, thank you!) in the mouth and knocked out a cap or two.

Yeah, he chopped the guys chair in half after being threatened with a knife and was dismissed by Duke as a result.

Well, those kinds of things are just interesting anecdotes.

Mingus's anger was usually expressed in self-destructive ways.

Mixed heritage? Or yeah, isn't he a blood relative of Abraham Lincoln? "But Dad, I don't want to be white!"

(Hey you edited...well, my thing is in response to your fist paragraph...)

I know...that Mingus stuff is all just crazy musician behavior. It's different when Wagner's polemics are brought up and I feel like I have to "defend my record collection."

What about Karajan's Nazi affiliation...no-one brings that up either.
http://www.classicalnotes.net/features/furtwangler.html