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They made a statue of us
They made a statue of us
The tourists come and stare at us
The sculptor’s mama sends regards
They made a statue of us
They made a statue of us
Our noses have begun to rust
We’re living in a den of thieves
Rummaging for answers in the pages
Were living in a den of thieves
And it’s contagious
And it’s contagious
[sachaviernyinside]
[shatzy inside]
[teenagejesus inside]
Last verticalized portrait by now....
Yes, this is a 2012 presidential election joke. The 2020 version of the title would be Trump VS Biden.
from the eastern white pine language project #1. by Gerry Shikatani.
Toronto, Curvd H&z, 25 march 1983 (trade edition released 25 february). of an edition totalling 1oo, 2o copies numbered & signed, issued as Curvd H&z 181 & Th Wrecking Ballzark 46.
14 pp/7 printed, photocopy & rubberstamp with pencil holograph cover label. 8-1/4 x 1o-1/4, japanese-sewn card covers with board label.
visual poetry, cover graphic by jwcurry.
75.oo
Aren't people funny when they are brought together like this!? Forced to pursue the same objective, seemingly reluctant to accept that they are all in pursuit of the same thing - in this case a bus home after shopping or working.
We're described at 'social animals' but you wouldn't think so to look at this photo in Madrid!
Sign Spanish Language Cuba Cuba Oriente © Schrift Spanische Sprache Kuba © Lengua Española © All rights reserved. Image fully copyrighted. All my images strictly only available with written royalty agreement. If interested, please ask. © Alle Rechte vorbehalten. Alle meine Bilder generell nur mit schriftl. Honorarvereinbg. Bitte ggf. fragen. ©
PRESIDIO OF MONTEREY, California -- The 2018 Language Day celebration was held by the Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center at the Presidio of Monterey, May 11. Language Day is open to the public and attended by schools across the nation to promote an understanding of diverse customs and cultures from around the world. Approximately 6,000 people attended this annual event featuring cultural displays, activities and international ethnic cuisine served by local vendors.
Official Presidio of Monterey Web site
Official Presidio of Monterey Facebook
PHOTO by Steven L. Shepard, Presidio of Monterey Public Affairs.
After the last snowfall, a mysterious message was found along the hillside near the Ollersbach church.
It resembles the ancient script of Sumerian, if I am not mistaken, but I'm not sure what it says.
Ugolino and His Sons is a marble sculpture that is known for its expressive detail and was created by Jean-Baptiste Carpeaux in Paris from 1865 to 1867.
The subject of this intense marble statue is derived from canto XXXIII of Dante's Inferno, which describes how the Pisan traitor Count Ugolino della Gherardesca, his sons, and his grandsons were imprisoned in 1288 and died of starvation.
best_of_2021: The Wire, Uncut, Resident Advisor, The Quietus, Rough Trade UK, Gorilla vs Bear, Mojo, Rolling Stone, Louder Than War, Stereogum, Billboard, AllMusic, Consequence of Sound, Pitchfork, NME, Slant, NPR, PopMatters, Gigwise, The Guardian & deepskyobject.
...
The 50 Best Albums of 2021 by deepskyobject
1. Crystal Canyon - Yours With Affection and Sorrow [shoegaze]
2. Wolf Alice - Blue Weekend [alternative]
3. Черноплодь/Чернохор - И З Г О Р А [drone, russian avantgarde metal]
4. Nation of Language - A Way Forward [new wave]
5. Amyl and The Sniffers - Comfort To Me [punk]
6. Trigg & Gusset - Black Ocean [dark jazz]
7. TRPP - TRPP [dream pop]
8. Biosphere - Angel's Flight [ambient]
9. Alessandro Cortini - Scuro Chiaro [drone, electronic]
10. Divide and Dissolve - Gas Lit [doom]
11. Flyying Colours - Fantasy Country [shoegaze, dream pop]
12. Stereolab - Electrically Possessed [Switched On vol. 4] [lo-fi]
13. НОМ - МАЛГИЛ [Посвящается ОБЭРИУ] [russian avantgarde]
14. Kraków Loves Adana - Follow The Voice [darkwave]
15. Kælan Mikla - Undir Köldum Norðurljósum [icelandic post-punk]
16. Soft Blade - Softic [minimal wave, russian electronic]
17. Drug Store Romeos - The World Within Our Bedrooms [indie pop]
18. Vollam - Mirror EP [shoegaze, dream pop]
19. Ethereal Shroud - Trisagion [atmospheric black]
20. Olivia Rodrigo - Sour [pop]
21. Goat Girl - On All Fours [indie pop]
22. Faye Webster - I Know I'm Funny Haha [indie pop]
23. The Splashers - Homesick EP [dream pop]
24. Françoiz Breut - Flux Flou de la Foule [french pop]
25. Jarvis Cocker - Chansons D'Ennui Tip-Top [pop]
26. Tape Waves - Bright [dream pop]
27. 김민하 [BrokenTeeth] - 편지(The Letters) [shoegaze, dream pop]
28. Blankenberge - Everything [shoegaze]
29. Midwife - Luminol [ambient pop, shoegaze, slowcore]
30. Dry Cleaning - New Long Leg [indie rock]
31. Minuit Machine - Sainte Rave [darkwave]
32. Leila Abdul-Rauf - Phantasiai [dark ambient]
33. Alice Phoebe Lou - Glow [pop]
34. Wednesday - Twin Plagues [dream pop]
35. Lucid Express - Lucid Express [shoegaze, dream pop]
36. Suffering Hour - The Cyclic Reckoning [black, death]
37. Vessel of Iniquity - The Doorway [death, industrial]
38. Space Afrika - Honest Labour [ambient]
39. Still Corners - The Last Exit [dream pop]
40. Seefeel - St / Fr / Sp [unreleased][electronic]
41. Pia Fraus - Now You Know It Still Feels the Same [shoegaze, dream pop]
42. BadBadNotGood - Talk Memory [jazz fusion]
43. White Flowers - Day By Day [dream pop]
44. Dummy - Mandatory Enjoyment [noise pop, kraut]
45. Mogwai - As The Love Continues [post-rock]
46. Elephant9 - Arrival of the New Elders [nu-jazz]
47. Shamblemaths - Shamblemaths 2 [avant-prog]
48. Ora Clementi - Sylva Sylvarum [electroacoustic]
49. BRUIT ≤ - The Machine is burning and now everyone knows it could happen again [post-rock, drone]
50. Valentina Goncharova - Recordings 1987-1991, vol. 1,2 (2020-2021) [musique concrète]
...
The Wire's Releases of the Year 2021
1. L'Rain - Fatigue
2. Moor Mother - Black Encyclopedia of the Air
3. Floating Points, Pharoah Sanders & The London Symphony Orchestra - Promises
4. Low - Hey What
5. Daniel Bachman - Axacan
6. Apartment House - Number Pieces
7. Hamid Drake, Elaine Mitchener, William Parker, Orphy Robinson & Pat Thomas - Some Good News
8. Jana Rush - Painful Enlightenment
9. Circuit Des Yeux - -io
10. Phew - New Decade
11. Dry Cleaning - New Long Leg
12. Angel Bat Dawid - Hush Harbor Mixtape Vol. 1 Doxology
13. James Brandon Lewis - Jesup Wagon
14. Chris Corsano & Bill Orcutt - Made Out Of Sound
15. Les Filles de Illighadad - At Pioneer Works
16. Tomaga - Intimate Immensity
17. Anthony Braxton - 12 Comp (ZIM) 2017
18. The Bug - Fire
19. Sons of Kemet - Black To The Future
20. Maggie Nicols - Creative Contradiction: Poetry, Story, Song & Sound
21. BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra - Minds in Flux
22. Muqata'a - Kamil manqus
23. Alpha Maid - CHUCKLE
24. William Parker - Migration of Silence Into and Out of the Tone World (Volumes 1–10)
25. Aaron Dilloway & Lucrecia Dalt - Lucy & Aaron
26. Space Afrika - Honest Labour
27. Clarissa Connelly - The Voyager
28. Perila - How much time it is between you and me?
29. Grouper - Shade
30. Sourdure - De mòrt viva
31. Madlib - Sound Ancestors
32. Moor Mother & Billy Woods - BRASS
33. Divide And Dissolve - Gas Lit
34. RP Boo - Established!
35. Eliane Radigue - Occam Ocean 3
36. Karkhana - Al Azraqayn
37. Pauline Anna Strom - Angel Tears in Sunlight
38. Pamela Z - A Secret Code
39. Patricia Brennan - Maquishti
40. Rambutan - parallel systems
41. Mdou Moctar - Afrique Victime
42. Azita - Glen Echo
43. Raed Yassin - Archeophony
44. Damon Locks Black Monument Ensemble - Now
45. William Parker - Mayan Space Station
46. Meemo Comma - Neon Genesis: Soul Into Matter²
47. Patrick Shiroishi - Hidemi
48. Ahmed [حمد] - Nights on Saturn (Communication)
49. Ben LaMar Gay - Open Arms to Open Us
50. IZ Band - IZ: 路过旧天堂书店 Drop by Old Heaven Books
...
Uncut's 75 Best Albums of 2021
1. The Weather Station - Ignorance
2. Floating Points, Pharoah Sanders & The London Symphony Orchestra - Promises
3. Nick Cave & Warren Ellis - CARNAGE
4. Low - Hey What
5. SAULT - Nine
6. Arooj Aftab - Vulture Prince
7. Cassandra Jenkins - An Overview On Phenomenal Nature
8. The War on Drugs - I Don't Live Here Anymore
9. Black Country, New Road - For the first time
10. Richard Dawson & Circle - Henki
11. Lana Del Rey - Chemtrails Over the Country Club
12. Sons of Kemet - Black To The Future
13. Mdou Moctar - Afrique Victime
14. Saint Etienne - I've Been Trying To Tell You
15. Mogwai - As the Love Continues
16. Sleaford Mods - Spare Ribs
17. Dry Cleaning - New Long Leg
18. Hiss Golden Messenger - Quietly Blowing It
19. John Grant - Boy from Michigan
20. Modern Nature - Island Of Noise
21. Little Simz - Sometimes I Might Be Introvert
22. The Coral - Coral Island
23. St. Vincent - Daddy's Home
24. Valerie June - The Moon And Stars: Prescriptions For Dreamers
25. Jane Weaver - Flock
26. Paul Weller - Fat Pop (Volume 1)
27. Arlo Parks - Collapsed In Sunbeams
28. Ryley Walker - Course In Fable
29. Steve Gunn - Other You
30. Teenage Fanclub - Endless Arcade
31. Robert Plant and Alison Krauss - Raise The Roof
32. The Hold Steady - Open Door Policy
33. Chuck Johnson - The Cinder Grove
34. Courtney Barnett - Things Take Time, Take Time
35. John Murry - The Stars Are God's Bullet Holes
36. Arab Strap - As Days Get Dark
37. Dean Wareham - I Have Nothing to Say to the Mayor of L A
38. Madlib - Sound Ancestors
39. Squid - Bright Green Field
40. Sturgill Simpson - The Ballad of Dood & Juanita
41. Damon Albarn - The Nearer the Fountain, More Pure the Stream Flows
42. Faye Webster - I Know I'm Funny haha
43. My Morning Jacket - My Morning Jacket
44. Rhiannon Giddens With Francesco Turrisi - They're Calling Me Home
45. Bobby Gillespie & Jehnny Beth - Utopian Ashes
46. Israel Nash - Topaz
47. Elephant9 - Arrival of the New Elders
48. David Crosby - For Free
49. Sunburned Hand Of The Man - Pick A Day To Die
50. Lindsey Buckingham - Lindsey Buckingham
51. Yasmin Williams - Urban Driftwood
52. Damon Locks Black Monument Ensemble - Now
53. The Black Keys - Delta Kream
54. Daniel Bachman - Axacan
55. LoneLady - Former Things
56. Damon & Naomi - A Sky Record
57. Haiku Salut - The Hill, The Light, The Ghost
58. Big Red Machine - How Long Do You Think It's Gonna Last?
59. Strand of Oaks - In Heaven
60. Grouper - Shade
61. The Besnard Lakes - The Besnard Lakes Are the Last of the Great Thunderstorm Warnings
62. Sufjan Stevens & Angelo De Augustine - A Beginner’s Mind
63. Chris Schlarb & Chad Taylor - Time No Changes
64. Pino Palladino & Blake Mills - Notes With Attachments
65. Moor Mother - Black Encyclopedia of the Air
66. Sarah Davachi - Antiphonals
67. Lucy Dacus - Home Video
68. Cathal Coughlan - Song of Co-Aklan
69. Dave - We're All Alone In This Together
70. black midi - Cavalcade
71. Buffalo Nichols - Buffalo Nichols
72. Marianne Faithfull With Warren Ellis - She Walks In Beauty
73. Sleater-Kinney - Path of Wellness
74. Rosali - No Medium
75. Rose City Band - Earth Trip
...
Resident Advisor's Best Albums of 2021
1. Space Afrika - Honest Labour
2. AceMoMa - A Future
3. Eris Drew - Quivering in Time
4. Emeka Ogboh - Beyond the Yellow Haze
5. Erika De Casier - Sensational
6. George Riley - interest rates, a tape
7. Hoavi - Invariant
8. Virtual Dreams: Ambient Explorations In The House & Techno Age, 1993-1997
9. Various Artists - The Sound Of Limo
10. Skee Mask - Pool
11. Yu Su - Yellow River Blue
12. Perila - How much time it is between you and me?
13. Andy Stott - Never the Right Time
14. Wanton Witch - Wanton Witch
15. Dawn Richard - Second Line
16. L'Rain - Fatigue
17. Various Artists - Amapiano Now
18. Floating Points, Pharoah Sanders & The London Symphony Orchestra - Promises
19. DJ Manny - Signals in My Head
20. Dean Blunt - Black Metal 2
21. Tirzah - Colourgrade
22. aya - im hole
23. HTRK - Rhinestones
24. Joy Orbison - still slipping vol. 1
25. Mr. Mitch - Lazy
26. Loraine James - Reflection
27. Arushi Jain - Under the Lilac Sky
28. Conclave - Conclave
29. Nala Sinephro - Space 1.8
...
The Quietus Albums Of The Year 2021
1. The Bug – Fire
2. aya – im hole
3. Dean Blunt – Black Metal 2
4. The Weather Station – Ignorance
5. William Doyle – Great Spans Of Muddy Time
6. Loraine James – Reflection
7. Richard Dawson & Circle – Henki
8. Scotch Rolex – Tewari
9. Sleaford Mods – Spare Ribs
10. Gazelle Twin & NYX – Deep England
11. Tanz Mein Herz – Quattro
12. Liars – The Apple Drop
13. Divide And Dissolve – Gas Lit
14. The Armed – ULTRAPOP
15. L'Rain – Fatigue
16. Tomaga – Intimate Immensity
17. Tirzah – Colourgrade
18. Arab Strap – As Days Get Dark
19. Rắn Cạp Đuôi – Ngủ Ngày Ngay Ngày Tận Thế
20. black midi – Cavalcade
21. Natalia Beylis & Eimear Reidy – Whose Woods These Are
22. Eris Drew – Quivering In Time
23. audiobooks – Astro Tough
24. Ben LaMar Gay – Open Arms To Open Us
25. MICROCORPS – XMIT
26. Joy Orbison – still slipping vol. 1
27. Little Simz – Sometimes I Might Be Introvert
28. The Transcendence Orchestra – All Skies Have Sounded
29. HARD FEELINGS – HARD FEELINGS
30. Part Chimp – Drool
31. Rochelle Jordan – Play With The Changes
32. ioulus – oddkin
33. Kìzis – Tidibàbide / Turn
34. Black Country, New Road – For The First Time
35. Space Afrika – Honest Labour
36. Shirley Collins – Crowlink
37. Skee Mask – Pool
38. Shackleton – Departing Like Rivers
39. Grouper – Shade
40. Ed Dowie – The Obvious I
41. Dry Cleaning – New Long Leg
42. ---__--___ – The Heart Pumps Kool-Aid
43. Godspeed You! Black Emperor – G_d's Pee At STATE'S END!
44. Erika de Casier – Sensational
45. Hawthonn – Earth Mirror
46. Rufus Isabel Elliot – A/am/ams (come ashore, turn over)
47. Japanese Breakfast – Jubilee
48. Ruth Goller – Skylla
49. Succumb – XXI
50. Melvins – Working With God
51. Frog Of Earth – Frog Of Earth
52. Oliver Leith – 'Me Hollywood'
53. Andy Stott – Never The Right Time
54. Goodbye World – At Death's Door
55. Slikback – MELT
56. Max Syedtollan / Plus-Minus Ensemble – Four Assignments
57. Time Binding Ensemble – Nothing New Under The Sun
58. William Parker – Mayan Space Station
59. NONEXISTENT – NONEXISTENT
60. Årabrot – Norwegian Gothic
61. Sylvie Courvoisier & Mary Halvorson – Searching For The Disappeared Hour
62. Manic Street Preachers – The Ultra Vivid Lament
63. Claire Rousay – a softer focus
64. Helm – Axis
65. Clairo – Sling
66. Aging ~ Land Trance – Embassy Nocturnes
67. Rien Virgule – La Consolation Des Violettes
68. Jane Weaver – Flock
69. Jeff Parker – Forfolks
70. Vapour Theories – Celestial Scuzz
71. At The Gates – The Nightmare Of Being
72. GNOD – La Mort Du Sens
73. Ursula Sereghy – OK Box
74. Bloody Head – The Temple Pillars Dissolve Into The Clouds
75. Jorja Chalmers – Midnight Train
76. Leather Rats – No Live 'Til Leather '98
77. Koreless – Agor
78. Snapped Ankles – Forest Of Your Problems
79. Hedvig Mollestad – Tempest Revisited
80. Richard Youngs – CXXI
81. Squid – Bright Green Field
82. Mirage – Mirage
83. Laura Cannell & Kate Ellis – May Sounds
84. My Bloody Sex Party – Vol. 2
85. Taqbir – Victory Belongs To Those Who Fight For A Right Cause
86. The Altered Hours – Convertible
87. Perkins & Federwisch – One Dazzling Moment
88. Converge & Chelsea Wolfe – Bloodmoon. I
89. Fluisteraars – Gegrepen Door De Geest Der Zielsontluiking
90. Angharad Davies – gwneud a gwneud eto / Do And Do Again
91. Vanishing Twin – Ookii Gekkou
92. Antonina Nowacka – Vocal Sketches From Oaxaca
93. Turnstile – GLOW ON
94. Mdou Moctar – Afrique Victime
95. Senyawa – Alkisah
96. Ruth Mascelli – A Night At The Baths
97. LoneLady – Former Things
98. Low – HEY WHAT
99. Marco Shuttle – Cobalt Desert Oasis
100. Celestial – I Had Too Much To Dream Last Night
...
Rough Trade UK's Albums of the Year 2021
1. Dry Cleaning - New Long Leg
2. Arlo Parks - Collapsed In Sunbeams
3. Little Simz - Sometimes I Might Be Introvert
4. Black Country, New Road - For the first time
5. Idles - CRAWLER
6. Squid - Bright Green Field
7. Jane Weaver - Flock
8. Wolf Alice - Blue Weekend
9. Cassandra Jenkins - An Overview On Phenomenal Nature
10. Madlib - Sound Ancestors
11. The Weather Station - Ignorance
12. black midi - Cavalcade
13. For Those I Love - For Those I Love
14. Bicep - Isles
15. Japanese Breakfast - Jubilee
16. St Vincent - Daddy's Home
17. Courtney Barnett - Things Take Time, Take Time
18. Floating Points, Pharoah Sanders & The London Symphony Orchestra - Promises
19. Mdou Moctar - Afrique Victime
20. 박 혜진 [Park Hye Jin] - Before I Die
21. Leon Vynehall - Rare, Forever
22. L'Rain - Fatigue
23. Koreless - Agor
24. Alfa Mist - Bring Backs
25. Vanishing Twin - Ookii Gekkou
26. Viagra Boys - Welfare Jazz
27. Snapped Ankles - Forest of Your Problems
28. Pip Blom - Welcome Break
29. Jungle - Loving In Stereo
30. Damon Albarn - The Nearer the Fountain, More Pure the Stream Flows
31. shame - Drunk Tank Pink
32. Godspeed You! Black Emperor - G_d's Pee AT STATE'S END!
33. Lady Blackbird - Black Acid Soul
34. Amyl & The Sniffers - Comfort to Me
35. Sleaford Mods - Spare Ribs
36. Altın Gün - Yol
37. Nick Cave & Warren Ellis - CARNAGE
38. Marina Allen - Candlepower
39. Clairo - Sling
40. Tindersticks - Distractions
41. Tirzah - Colourgrade
42. Saint Etienne - I've Been Trying To Tell You
43. LUMP - Animal
44. Durand Jones & The Indications - Private Space
45. Joy Orbison - still slipping vol
46. Sunroof - Electronic Music Improvisations Vol
47. Sufjan Stevens & Angelo De Augustine - A Beginner’s Mind
48. Desire Marea - Desire
49. Mogwai - As the Love Continues
50. Lingua Ignota - Sinner Get Ready
51. SAULT - Nine
52. Public Service Broadcasting - Bright Magic
53. Martha Wainwright - Love Will Be Reborn
54. Julien Baker - Little Oblivions
55. Orla Gartland - Woman on the Internet
56. Low - Hey What
57. FUR - When You Walk Away
58. Nao - And Then Life Was Beautiful
59. Goat Girl - On All Fours
60. Drug Store Romeos - The world within our bedrooms
61. Jordan Rakei - What We Call Life
62. Portico Quartet - Terrain
63. Sedibus - The Heavens
64. Elder Island - Swimming Static
65. Sons of Kemet - Black To The Future
66. dodie - Build a Problem
67. Paul Weller - Fat Pop (Volume 1)
68. Greentea Peng - MAN MADE
69. Manic Street Preachers - The Ultra Vivid Lament
70. The Joy Formidable - Into the Blue
71. Bobby Gillespie & Jehnny Beth - Utopian Ashes
72. Parquet Courts - Sympathy for Life
73. Olivia Rodrigo - SOUR
74. John Grant - Boy from Michigan
75. TORRES - Thirstier
76. Django Django - Glowing in the Dark
77. Faye Webster - I Know I'm Funny haha
78. The Goon Sax - Mirror II
79. Tot Taylor - Frisbee
80. Pom Pom Squad - Death of a Cheerleader
81. Yann Tiersen - Kerber
82. Squirrel Flower - Planet (i)
83. Spencer Cullum - Spencer Cullum's Coin Collection
84. Hannah Peel - Fir Wave
85. Berwyn - DEMOTAPE/VEGA
86. Skee Mask - Pool
87. slowthai - TYRON
88. Kojaque - Town’s Dead
89. Pearl Charles - Magic Mirror
90. Stephen Fretwell - Busy Guy
91.Steve Earle - J.T.
92. Flock of Dimes - Head of Roses
93. Geese - Projector
94. Nation of Language - A Way Forward
95. Rostam - Changephobia
96. Villagers - Fever Dreams
97. Gruff Rhys - Seeking New Gods
98. Sleater-Kinney - Path of Wellness
99. Chubby and The Gang - The Mutt's Nuts
100. serpentwithfeet - DEACON
...
Gorilla vs Bear’s Top 50 Albums of 2021
1. Magdalena Bay - Mercurial World
2. Tirzah - Colourgrade
3. HTRK - Rhinestones
4. Grouper - Shade
5. Mach-Hommy - Pray For Haiti
6. Dean Blunt - Dean Blunt
7. Space Afrika - Honest Labour
8. Wet - Letter Blue
9. Dorothea Paas - Anything Can't Happen
10. Karima Walker - Waking the Dreaming Body
11. Enumclaw - Jimbo Demo
12. Doss - 4 New Hit Songs
13. Jessy Lanza - DJ-Kicks
14. Mr Twin Sister - Al Mundo Azul
15. Armand Hammer & The Alchemist - Haram
16. Erika de Casier - Sensational
17. Men I Trust - Untourable Album
18. Wednesday - Twin Plagues
19. Loraine James - Reflection
20. Small Black - Cheap Dreams
21. Hildegard - Hildegard
22. Ada Lea - one hand on the steering wheel the other sewing a garden
23. Sun June - Somewhere
24. Nana Yamato - Before Sunrise
25. Rosie Lowe & Duval Timothy - Son
26. DJ Sabrina The Teenage DJ - The Makin' Magick II Album
27. Madlib - Sound Ancestors
28. Buzzy Lee - Spoiled Love
29. Tyler, The Creator - Call Me If You Get Lost
30. Sangre Nueva - Goteo
31. Indigo Sparke - echo
32. harvey_dug - Nu Grip
33. Snail Mail - Valentine
34. Cassandra Jenkins - An Overview on Phenomenal Nature
35. Nite Jewel - No Sun
36. Skee Mask - Pool
37. Renée Reed - Renée Reed / J’ai rêvé
38. Cleo Sol - Mother
39. Low - Hey What
40. JPEGMAFIA - LP! (OFFLINE)
41. Lana Del Rey - Blue Banisters
42. Hand Habits - Fun House
43. Holy Other - Lieve
44. Sloppy Jane - Madison
45. VA - I can't complain but sometimes I still do
46. Navy Blue - Navy’s Reprise
47. Arooj Aftab - Vulture Prince
48. Equiknoxx - Basic Tools
49. You’ll Never Get to Heaven - Wave Your Moonlight Hat for the Snowfall Train
50. Wau Wau Collectif - Yaral Sa Doom
...
Mojo's 75 Best Albums of 2021
1. Floating Points, Pharoah Sanders & The London Symphony Orchestra - Promises
2. St Vincent - Daddy's Home
3. Lana Del Rey - Chemtrails Over the Country Club
4. Low - Hey What
5. Nick Cave & Warren Ellis - CARNAGE
6. Paul Weller - Fat Pop (Volume 1)
7. The Coral - Coral Island
8. Sons of Kemet - Black To The Future
9. Robert Plant and Alison Krauss - Raise The Roof
10. Villagers - Fever Dreams
11. John Grant - Boy from Michigan
12. The Weather Station - Ignorance
13. Sleaford Mods - Spare Ribs
14. Black Country, New Road - For the first time
15. Dry Cleaning - New Long Leg
16. Manic Street Preachers - The Ultra Vivid Lament
17. The War on Drugs - I Don't Live Here Anymore
18. Idles - CRAWLER
19. David Crosby - For Free
20. Mdou Moctar - Afrique Victime
21. The Bug - Fire
22. Amyl & The Sniffers - Comfort to Me
23. Teenage Fanclub - Endless Arcade
24. SAULT - Nine
25. The Black Keys - Delta Kream
26. Mogwai - As the Love Continues
27. Lindsey Buckingham - Lindsey Buckingham
28. Little Simz - Sometimes I Might Be Introvert
29. Field Music - Flat White Moon
30. Yola - Stand for Myself
31. King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard - L.W.
32. Paul McCartney - McCartney III
33. Endless Boogie - Admonitions
34. Greentea Peng - MAN MADE
35. The Stranglers - Dark Matters
36. Wolf Alice - Blue Weekend
37. Sturgill Simpson - Cuttin' Grass - Vol. 2 (Cowboy Arms Sessions)
38. Saint Etienne - I've Been Trying To Tell You
39. Jane Weaver - Flock
40. Chrissie Hynde - Standing in the Doorway: Chrissie Hynde Sings Dylan
41. Nala Sinephro - Space 1.8
42. Durand Jones & The Indications - Private Space
43. Damon Albarn - The Nearer the Fountain, More Pure the Stream Flows
44. Arab Strap - As Days Get Dark
45. Jungle - Loving In Stereo
46. Faye Webster - I Know I'm Funny haha
47. Tyler, the Creator - CALL ME IF YOU GET LOST
48. Squid - Bright Green Field
49. Public Service Broadcasting - Bright Magic
50. Bonnie 'Prince' Billy & Matt Sweeney - Superwolves
51. Dean Blunt - Black Metal 2
52. Nathan Salsburg - Psalms
53. Angel Bat Dawid & Tha Brothahood - LIVE
54. Tony Joe White - Smoke from the Chimney
55. BADBADNOTGOOD - Talk Memory
56. Lorde - Solar Power
57. Reigning Sound - A Little More Time with Reigning Sound
58. Ryley Walker - Course In Fable
59. Billy F Gibbons - Hardware
60. Cedric Burnside - I Be Trying
61. Steve Gunn - Other You
62. Parquet Courts - Sympathy for Life
63. Howlin' Rain - The Dharma Wheel
64. Tony Allen - There Is No End
65. Godspeed You! Black Emperor - G_d's Pee AT STATE'S END!
66. Lucy Dacus - Home Video
67. AC/DC - Power Up
68. Loretta Lynn - Still Woman Enough
69. Dinosaur Jr. - Sweep It Into Space
70. black midi - Cavalcade
71. Emma-Jean Thackray - Yellow
72. Hiss Golden Messenger - Quietly Blowing It
73. Stephen Fretwell - Busy Guy
74. Gruff Rhys - Seeking New Gods
75. BLK JKS - Abantu/Before Humans
...
Rolling Stone's 50 Best Albums of 2021
1. Olivia Rodrigo - SOUR
2. Adele - 30
3. Rauw Alejandro - VICE VERSA
4. Tyler, the Creator - CALL ME IF YOU GET LOST
5. Lucy Dacus - Home Video
6. Lil Nas X - MONTERO
7. Jazmine Sullivan - Heaux Tales
8. Turnstile - GLOW ON
9. C. Tangana - El Madrileño
10. Japanese Breakfast - Jubilee
11. Playboi Carti - Whole Lotta Red
12. He has never been more enigmatic
13. PinkPantheress - to hell with it
14. Morgan Wade - Reckless
15. Polo G - Hall Of Fame
16. Billie Eilish - Happier Than Ever
17. Low - Hey What
18. Tems - If Orange Was A Place
19. Halsey - If I Can't Have Love, I Want Power
20. Arlo Parks - Collapsed In Sunbeams
21. Leon Bridges - Gold-Diggers Sound
22. Doja Cat - Planet Her
23. Dawn Richard - Second Line
24. Cimafunk - El Alimento
25. Dry Cleaning - New Long Leg
26. Carly Pearce - 29
27. Mdou Moctar - Afrique Victime
28. This is how free rock & roll should sound
29. The Weather Station - Ignorance
30. Mabiland - Niñxs Rotxs
31. Young Thug - Punk
32. Mustafa - When Smoke Rises
33. Madlib - Sound Ancestors
34. Snail Mail - Valentine
35. Summer Walker - STILL OVER IT
36. Adult Mom - Driver
37. Silk Sonic - An Evening with Silk Sonic
38. Little Simz - Sometimes I Might Be Introvert
39. Pooh Shiesty - Shiesty Season
40. Yola - Stand for Myself
41. Topaz Jones - Don't Go Tellin' Your Momma
42. Foo Fighters - Medicine at Midnight
43. Mickey Guyton - Remember Her Name
44. illuminati hotties - Let Me Do One More
45. Myke Towers - LYKE MIKE
46. Iron Maiden - Senjutsu
47. Boldy James & The Alchemist - Bo Jackson
48. TOMORROW X TOGETHER - The Chaos Chapter: FIGHT OR ESCAPE
49. Jhay Cortez - Timelezz
50. Drake - Certified Lover Boy
...
Louder Than War Albums of the Year 2021
1. Amyl & The Sniffers - Comfort to Me
2. JOHN - Nocturnal Manoeuvres
3. Little Simz - Sometimes I Might Be Introvert
4. The Courettes - Back in Mono
5. Mogwai - As the Love Continues
6. The Stranglers - Dark Matters
7. Sleaford Mods - Spare Ribs
8. Self Esteem - Prioritise Pleasure
9. Cold Water Swimmers - Holiday At The Secret Lake
10. Squid - Bright Green Field
11. Dry Cleaning - New Long Leg
12. Gazelle Twin & NYX - Deep England
13. King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard - L.W.
14. Sons of Kemet - Black To The Future
15. Carol Hodge - The Crippling Space Between
16. Hello Cosmos - Golden Dirt
17. Nick Cave & Warren Ellis - CARNAGE
18. Idles - CRAWLER
19. CHIHUAHUA - Violent Architecture
20. Greentea Peng - MAN MADE
21. Rats On Rafts - Excerpts From Chapter 3: The Mind Runs A Net Of Rabbit Paths
22. The Mudd Club - Bottle Blonde
23. Arab Strap - As Days Get Dark
24.St. Vincent - Daddy's Home
25. black midi - Cavalcade
26. Matt Berry - The Blue Elephant
27. Mad Daddy - Mad Daddy
28. Private Function - Whose Line Is It Anyway?
29. Stephen Fretwell - Busy Guy
30. Pink Suits - Political Child
31. Blue Orchids - Speed The Day
32. Jane Weaver - Flock
33. Wolf Alice - Blue Weekend
34. ZoZo Ginzburg - Blue Mountains
35. Steve Conte - Bronx Cheer
36. James - All the Colours of You
37. 24/7 Diva Heaven - Stress
38. Deathretro - Deathretro
39. The William Loveday Intention - Will There Ever Be A Day That You’re Hung Like A Thief?
40. Damon Albarn - The Nearer the Fountain, More Pure the Stream Flows
41. Marissa Nadler - The Path of the Clouds
42. Lola In Slacks - Moon Moth
43. Neighborhood Brats - Confines of Life
44. The Catenary Wires - Birling Gap
45. Sam Fender - Seventeen Going Under
46. Turner - Daydreams & Stars
47. LUMP - Animal
48. Reigning Sound - A Little More Time with Reigning Sound
49. Slow Down, Molasses - Minor Deaths
50. The Stan Laurels - There is No Light Without the Dark
51. Low - Hey What
52. La Luz - La Luz
53. Gojira - Fortitude
54. Viagra Boys - Welfare Jazz
55. Kiwi Jr
56. Manic Street Preachers - The Ultra Vivid Lament
57. Dark Mark & Skeleton Joe - Dark Mark Vs Skeleton Joe
58. The Bug - Fire
59. The Shadracks - From Human Like Forms
60. Amigo the Devil - Born Against
61. shame - Drunk Tank Pink
62. LoneLady - Former Things
63. Night Beats - Outlaw R&B
64. Fightmilk - Contender
65. Johnny Mafia - Sentimental
66. Jim Bob - Who Do We Hate Today
67. The Coral - Coral Island
68. Field Music - Flat White Moon
69. Jim McCulloch - When I Mean What I Say
70. Alan Vega - Mutator
71. Kiss Me, Killer - 2020 Vision
72. John Grant - Boy from Michigan
73. Lou Barlow - Reason To Live
74. Parquet Courts - Sympathy for Life
75. Snapped Ankles - Forest of Your Problems
76. Sonny Vincent - Snake Pit Therapy
77. The Chills - Scatterbrain
78. Sister John - I Am By Day
79. Du Blonde - Homecoming
80. Hooveriii - Water for the Frogs
81. Erica Nockalls - Dark Music From a Warm Place
82. Piroshka - Love Drips And Gathers
83. Amy MacDonald - The Human Demands
84. Francis Lung - Miracle
85. Cult Figures - Deritend
86. ANTHRAX - Serfs Out
87. VEX - Average Minds Think Alike
88. Freya Beer - Beast
89. Digital Resistance - Alternative Facts
90. Divide And Dissolve - Gas Lit
91. Mush - Lines Redacted
92. Filthydirty - The Rise And Fall Of Blasphemouth
93. Gary Numan - Intruder
94. Godspeed You! Black Emperor - G_d's Pee AT STATE'S END!
95. Rutger Hoedemaekers - The Age of Oddities
96. The Bevis Frond - Little Eden
97. Blowers - Blowers
98. The Brothers Steve - Dose
99. Delilah Bon - Delilah Bon
100. Primitive Knot - A New Ontology of Evil
101. TV Priest - Uppers
...
Stereogum's 50 Best Albums of 2021
1. The War on Drugs - I Don't Live Here Anymore
2. Snail Mail - Valentine
3. Turnstile - GLOW ON
4. Low - Hey What
5. Japanese Breakfast - Jubilee
6. serpentwithfeet - DEACON
7. Bonnie 'Prince' Billy & Matt Sweeney - Superwolves
8. The Weather Station - Ignorance
9. Polo G - Hall Of Fame
10. Cassandra Jenkins - An Overview On Phenomenal Nature
11. Wednesday - Twin Plagues
12. Floating Points, Pharoah Sanders & The London Symphony Orchestra - Promises
13. Olivia Rodrigo - SOUR
14. Lucy Dacus - Home Video
15. Nick Cave & Warren Ellis - CARNAGE
16. Tyler, the Creator - CALL ME IF YOU GET LOST
17. Arab Strap - As Days Get Dark
18. Tirzah - Colourgrade
19. Clairo - Sling
20. Fiddlehead - Between The Richness
21. Water From Your Eyes - Structure
22. KA - A Martyr's Reward
23. Julien Baker - Little Oblivions
24. The Armed - Ultrapop
25. Nation of Language - A Way Forward
26. Halsey - If I Can't Have Love, I Want Power
27. SPIRIT OF THE BEEHIVE - ENTERTAINMENT, DEATH
28. Kacey Musgraves - star-crossed
29. Squid - Bright Green Field
30. 파란노을 [Parannoul] - To See the Next Part of the Dream
31. Boldy James & The Alchemist - Bo Jackson
32. One Step Closer - This Place You Know
33. Xenia Rubinos - Una Rosa
34. Madlib - Sound Ancestors
35. Sons of Kemet - Black To The Future
36. Men I Trust - Untourable Album
37. Armand Hammer & The Alchemist - HARAM
38. Summer Walker - STILL OVER IT
39. Home Is Where - I Became Birds
40. Erika De Casier - Sensational
41. Ada Lea - one hand on the steering wheel the other sewing a garden
42. Portrayal of Guilt - We Are Always Alone
43. Loraine James - Reflection
44. Chris Corsano & Bill Orcutt - Made Out Of Sound
45. Iceage - Seek Shelter
46. CHVRCHES - Screen Violence
47. Mach-Hommy - Pray For Haiti
48. Flock of Dimes - Head of Roses
49. Brandi Carlile - In These Silent Days
50. Closer - Within One Stem
...
Billboard's 50 Best Albums of 2021
1. Olivia Rodrigo - SOUR
2. Tyler, the Creator - CALL ME IF YOU GET LOST
3. Lil Nas X - MONTERO
4. Adele - 30
5. Doja Cat - Planet Her
6. Halsey - If I Can't Have Love, I Want Power
7. Silk Sonic - An Evening with Silk Sonic
8. Billie Eilish - Happier Than Ever
9. Jazmine Sullivan - Heaux Tales
10. C. Tangana - El Madrileño
11. Baby Keem - The Melodic Blue
12. Bo Burnham - Inside (The Songs)
13. Kacey Musgraves - star-crossed
14. PinkPantheress - to hell with it
15. Arlo Parks - Collapsed In Sunbeams
16. Japanese Breakfast - Jubilee
17. Summer Walker - STILL OVER IT
18. Drake - Certified Lover Boy
19. Little Simz - Sometimes I Might Be Introvert
20. Snail Mail - Valentine
21. Isaiah Rashad - The House Is Burning
22. Giveon - When It's All Said And Done
23. Brandi Carlile - In These Silent Days
24. Karol G - KG0516
25. Taylor Swift - Red (Taylor's Version)
26. girl in red - if i could make it go quiet
27. Turnstile - GLOW ON
28. Lucky Daye - Table For Two
29. Elton John - The Lockdown Sessions
30. Porter Robinson - Nurture
31. Carín León - Inédito
32.J. Cole - The Off-Season
33. Mon Laferte - SEIS
34. Vince Staples - Vince Staples
35. Carly Pearce - 29: Written In Stone
36. Justin Bieber - Justice
37. Rauw Alejandro - VICE VERSA
38. Joy Oladokun - In Defense of My Own Happiness
39. Kanye West - Donda
40. The War on Drugs - I Don't Live Here Anymore
41. Willow - lately i feel EVERYTHING
42. Tems - If Orange Was A Place
43. Don Toliver - Life of a DON
44. Fred Again
45. Myke Towers - LYKE MIKE
46. Julien Baker - Little Oblivions
47. SG Lewis - times
48. Young Dolph & Key Glock - Dum and Dummer 2
49. Jack Ingram, Miranda Lambert & Jon Randall - The Marfa Tapes
50. Clairo - Sling
...
AllMusic's Best of 2021 (alphabetic)
Adele - 30
Aimee Mann - Queens Of The Summer Hotel
Allison Russell - Outside Child
Amyl & The Sniffers - Comfort to Me
BADBADNOTGOOD - Talk Memory
Ben LaMar Gay - Open Arms to Open Us
Billie Eilish - Happier Than Ever
Billy F Gibbons - Hardware
Bo Burnham - Inside (The Songs)
Bomba Estéreo - Deja
Brandi Carlile - In These Silent Days
C. Tangana - El Madrileño
Cadence Weapon - Parallel World
Cassandra Jenkins - An Overview On Phenomenal Nature
Chelsea Carmichael - The River Doesn’t Like Strangers
CHVRCHES - Screen Violence
Clark - Playground in a Lake
Cleo Sol - Mother
Cola Boyy - Prosthetic Boombox
Colleen - The Tunnel and the Clearing
Converge & Chelsea Wolfe - Bloodmoon: I
Curtis Harding - If Words Were Flowers
Damon Albarn - The Nearer the Fountain, More Pure the Stream Flows
Dry Cleaning - New Long Leg
Ed Dowie - The Obvious I
Eivind Aarset - Phantasmagoria or a Different Kind of Journey
Eric Bibb - Dear America
Field Music - Flat White Moon
Foo Fighters - Medicine at Midnight
Geoffrey O'Connor - For As Long As I Can Remember
Grouper - Shade
Halsey - If I Can't Have Love, I Want Power
Helado Negro - Far In
Helsinki Chamber Choir / Nils Schweckendiek - Pärt: Passio
Hiatus Kaiyote - Mood Valiant
Jack Ingram, Miranda Lambert & Jon Randall - The Marfa Tapes
James McMurtry - The Horses and the Hounds
Japanese Breakfast - Jubilee
Jazzmeia Horn And Her Noble Force - Dear Love
Jean-Efflam Bavouzet - Haydn: Piano Sonatas, Vol. 9
Jerry Cantrell - Brighten
John Carroll Kirby - Septet
Jon Batiste - WE ARE
Jorge Elbrecht - Presentable Corpse 002
Karol G - KG0516
Kenneth Whalum - Broken Land 2
King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard - Butterfly 3000
Klenke Quartett, Nicola Jürgensen & Stephan Katte - Mozart: Clarinet Quintet; Horn Quintet
L'Rain - Fatigue
Laura Mvula - Pink Noise
Lil Nas X - MONTERO
Lindsey Buckingham - Lindsey Buckingham
Little Simz - Sometimes I Might Be Introvert
Liz Phair - Soberish
LoneLady - Former Things
Los Lobos - Native Sons
Makthaverskan - För Allting
Manfred Honeck & Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra - Beethoven: Symphony No. 9
Marisa Monte - Portas
Marissa Nadler - The Path of the Clouds
Mastodon - Hushed and Grim
Matthias Goerne / Seong-Jin Cho - Im Abendrot: Wagner, Pfitzner, Strauss
Mdou Moctar - Afrique Victime
Mocky - Overtones for the Omniverse
Mogwai - As the Love Continues
Mouse on Mars - AAI
Nala Sinephro - Space 1.8
Olivia Rodrigo - SOUR
Olivier Latry - Liszt: Inspirations
PinkPantheress - to hell with it
Playboi Carti - Whole Lotta Red
Polo & Pan - Cyclorama
René Jacobs - Beethoven: Missa Solemnis
Robert Finley - Sharecropper's Son
Robert Plant and Alison Krauss - Raise The Roof
Rochelle Jordan - Play with the Changes
Roxana Amed - Ontology
Saint Etienne - I've Been Trying To Tell You
Smile Machine - Bye For Now
Sons of Kemet - Black To The Future
Squid - Bright Green Field
Steve Gunn - Other You
TEKE::TEKE - Shirushi
Terrace Martin - DRONES
The Armed - Ultrapop
The Coral - Coral Island
The Hold Steady - Open Door Policy
The Mountain Goats - Dark in Here
The Reds, Pinks & Purples - Uncommon Weather
...
Consequence of Sound's Top 50 Albums of 2021
1. Tyler, the Creator - CALL ME IF YOU GET LOST
2. Japanese Breakfast - Jubilee
3. Arlo Parks - Collapsed In Sunbeams
4. Turnstile - GLOW ON
5. Little Simz - Sometimes I Might Be Introvert
6. Lucy Dacus - Home Video
7. CHVRCHES - Screen Violence
8. Lil Nas X - MONTERO
9. Armand Hammer & The Alchemist - HARAM
10. illuminati hotties - Let Me Do One More
11. serpentwithfeet - DEACON
12. Snail Mail - Valentine
13. Doja Cat - Planet Her
14. Manchester Orchestra - The Million Masks Of God
15. Julien Baker - Little Oblivions
16. Idles - CRAWLER
17. Dry Cleaning - New Long Leg
18. Boldy James & The Alchemist - Bo Jackson
19. Geese - Projector
20. Adele - 30
21. Pom Pom Squad - Death of a Cheerleader
22. Olivia Rodrigo - SOUR
23. McKinley Dixon - For My Mama and Anyone Who Look Like Her
24. Nick Cave & Warren Ellis - CARNAGE
25. Hovvdy - True Love
26. Billie Eilish - Happier Than Ever
27. SAULT - Nine
28. Indigo De Souza - Any Shape You Take
29. Remi Wolf - Juno
30. Bo Burnham - Inside (The Songs)
31. Taylor Swift - Red (Taylor's Version)
32. The War on Drugs - I Don't Live Here Anymore
33. Isaiah Rashad - The House Is Burning
34. Jon Batiste - WE ARE
35. Mdou Moctar - Afrique Victime
36. Mach-Hommy - Pray For Haiti
37. Black Country, New Road - For the first time
38. The Armed - Ultrapop
39. Amigo the Devil - Born Against
40. Halsey - If I Can't Have Love, I Want Power
41. Injury Reserve - By the Time I Get to Phoenix
42. The Weather Station - Ignorance
43. Squid - Bright Green Field
44. Haviah Mighty - Stock Exchange
45. Courtney Barnett - Things Take Time, Take Time
46. BROCKHAMPTON - ROADRUNNER: NEW LIGHT, NEW MACHINE
47. Yola - Stand for Myself
48. Amyl & The Sniffers - Comfort to Me
49. Katy Kirby - Cool Dry Place
50. St. Vincent - Daddy's Home
...
Pitchfork's 50 Best Albums of 2021
1. Jazmine Sullivan - Heaux Tales
2. L'Rain - Fatigue
3. Tyler, the Creator - CALL ME IF YOU GET LOST
4. Floating Points, Pharoah Sanders & The London Symphony Orchestra - Promises
5. Low - Hey What
6. Turnstile - GLOW ON
7. The Weather Station - Ignorance
8. Mdou Moctar - Afrique Victime
9. Playboi Carti - Whole Lotta Red
10. Dry Cleaning - New Long Leg
11. Faye Webster - I Know I'm Funny haha
12. Arooj Aftab - Vulture Prince
13. Tirzah - Colourgrade
14. Japanese Breakfast - Jubilee
15. Snail Mail - Valentine
16. MIKE - Disco!
17. Cassandra Jenkins - An Overview On Phenomenal Nature
18. Grouper - Shade
19. Dean Blunt - Black Metal 2
20. Mach-Hommy - Pray For Haiti
21. Olivia Rodrigo - SOUR
22. Dawn Richard - Second Line
23. black midi - Cavalcade
24. Nala Sinephro - Space 1.8
25. Indigo De Souza - Any Shape You Take
26. Armand Hammer & The Alchemist - HARAM
27. Moor Mother - Black Encyclopedia of the Air
28. Spirit Of The Beehive - Entertainment, Death
29. Little Simz - Sometimes I Might Be Introvert
30. Claire Rousay - A Softer Focus
31. Wiki - Half God
32. Adele - 30
33. Xenia Rubinos - Una Rosa
34. The War on Drugs - I Don't Live Here Anymore
35. illuminati hotties - Let Me Do One More
36. Lost Girls - Menneskekollektivet
37. RP Boo - Established!
38. Navy Blue - Navy's Reprise / Song of Sage: Post Panic!
39. Loraine James - Reflection
40. Erika De Casier - Sensational
41. Lingua Ignota - Sinner Get Ready
42. Vijay Iyer, Linda May Han Oh & Tyshawn Sorey - Uneasy
43. Hand Habits - Fun House
44. Sofia Kourtesis - Fresia Magdalena
45. aya - im hole
46. Helado Negro - Far In
47. dltzk - Frailty
48. KA - A Martyr's Reward
49. Magdalena Bay - Mercurial World
50. Yasmin Williams - Urban Driftwood
...
NME's 50 Best Albums of 2021
1. Sam Fender - Seventeen Going Under
2. Little Simz - Sometimes I Might Be Introvert
3. Wolf Alice - Blue Weekend
4. Self Esteem - Prioritise Pleasure
5. Tyler, the Creator - CALL ME IF YOU GET LOST
6. Nick Cave & Warren Ellis - CARNAGE
7. Arlo Parks - Collapsed In Sunbeams
8. Halsey - If I Can't Have Love, I Want Power
9. Turnstile - GLOW ON
10. Olivia Rodrigo - SOUR
11. For Those I Love - For Those I Love
12. The War on Drugs - I Don't Live Here Anymore
13. Ghetts - Conflict Of Interest
14. Clairo - Sling
15. Billie Eilish - Happier Than Ever
16. Sleaford Mods - Spare Ribs
17. Lana Del Rey - Blue Banisters
18. Dave - We're All Alone In This Together
19. Lorde - Solar Power
20. Lil Nas X - MONTERO
21. London Grammar - Californian Soil
22. Silk Sonic - An Evening with Silk Sonic
23. Bicep - Isles
24. Snail Mail - Valentine
25. Royal Blood - Typhoons
26. CHVRCHES - Screen Violence
27. Summer Walker - STILL OVER IT
28. Idles - CRAWLER
29. Genesis Owusu - Smiling With No Teeth
30. The Killers - Pressure Machine
31. slowthai - TYRON
32. Laura Mvula - Pink Noise
33. AJ Tracey - Flu Game
34. Remi Wolf - Juno
35. Big Red Machine - How Long Do You Think It's Gonna Last?
36. girl in red - if i could make it go quiet
37. Ray BLK - Access Denied
38. TOMORROW X TOGETHER - The Chaos Chapter: FREEZE
39. Easy Life - Life's a Beach
40. Black Country, New Road - For the first time
41. Joy Crookes - Skin
42. Vince Staples - Vince Staples
43. Dry Cleaning - New Long Leg
44. Bleachers - Take The Sadness Out of Saturday Night
45. Young Thug - Punk
46. Nao - And Then Life Was Beautiful
47. SAULT - Nine
48. Kacey Musgraves - star-crossed
49. Inhaler - It Won't Always Be Like This
50. Doja Cat - Planet Her
...
Slant Magazine's 50 Best Albums of 2021
1. Japanese Breakfast - Jubilee
2. St. Vincent - Daddy's Home
3. Lana Del Rey - Blue Banisters
4. Lana Del Rey - Chemtrails Over the Country Club
5. Low - Hey What
6. Billie Eilish - Happier Than Ever
7. Nick Cave & Warren Ellis - CARNAGE
8. serpentwithfeet - DEACON
9. PinkPantheress - to hell with it
10. Courtney Barnett - Things Take Time, Take Time
11. Suzanne Santo - Yard Sale
12. Taylor Swift - Red (Taylor's Version)
13. Lucy Dacus - Home Video
14. Tyler, the Creator - CALL ME IF YOU GET LOST
15. Cassandra Jenkins - An Overview On Phenomenal Nature
16. Lost Girls - Menneskekollektivet
17. TORRES - Thirstier
18. Erika De Casier - Sensational
19. Spellling - The Turning Wheel
20. Halsey - If I Can't Have Love, I Want Power
21. Loraine James - Reflection
22. Mdou Moctar - Afrique Victime
23. Little Simz - Sometimes I Might Be Introvert
24. Snail Mail - Valentine
25. The Killers - Pressure Machine
26. Sufjan Stevens & Angelo De Augustine - A Beginner’s Mind
27. James McMurtry - The Horses and the Hounds
28. Hiatus Kaiyote - Mood Valiant
29. Doja Cat - Planet Her
30. Porter Robinson - Nurture
31. Kanye West - Donda
32. The War on Drugs - I Don't Live Here Anymore
33. DJ Seinfeld - Mirrors
34. Helado Negro - Far In
35. Tinashe - 333
36. LSDXOXO - Dedicated 2 Disrespect
37. For Those I Love - For Those I Love
38. Dry Cleaning - New Long Leg
39. Lingua Ignota - Sinner Get Ready
40. Valerie June - The Moon And Stars: Prescriptions For Dreamers
41. Julien Baker - Little Oblivions
42. Olivia Rodrigo - SOUR
43. Squid - Bright Green Field
44. Young Stoner Life, Young Thug & Gunna - Slime Language 2 (Deluxe)
45. Vince Staples - Vince Staples
46. Lightning Bug - A Color of the Sky
47. Armand Hammer & The Alchemist - HARAM
48. Black Country, New Road - For the first time
49. Jazmine Sullivan - Heaux Tales
50. MARINA - Ancient Dreams In A Modern Land
...
NPR Music's 50 Best Albums of 2021
1. Jazmine Sullivan - Heaux Tales
2. Little Simz - Sometimes I Might Be Introvert
3. Lucy Dacus - Home Video
4. Allison Russell - Outside Child
5. C. Tangana - El Madrileño
6. Floating Points, Pharoah Sanders & The London Symphony Orchestra - Promises
7. Arooj Aftab - Vulture Prince
8. Arlo Parks - Collapsed In Sunbeams
9. Vince Staples - Vince Staples
10. Wild Up & Christopher Rountree - Julius Eastman, Vol. 1: Femenine
11. Japanese Breakfast - Jubilee
12. Helado Negro - Far In
13. Tyler, the Creator - CALL ME IF YOU GET LOST
14. Adele - 30
15. Tems - If Orange Was A Place
16. Baby Keem - The Melodic Blue
17. Willow - lately i feel EVERYTHING
18. Mach-Hommy - Pray For Haiti
19. illuminati hotties - Let Me Do One More
20. Injury Reserve - By the Time I Get to Phoenix
21. Low - Hey What
22. PinkPantheress - to hell with it
23. Mickey Guyton - Remember Her Name
24. Turnstile - GLOW ON
25. Eris Drew - Quivering in Time
26. Cleo Sol - Mother
27. Toumani Diabaté & The London Symphony Orchestra - Kôrôlén
28. Summer Walker - STILL OVER IT
29. Lukah - When The Black Hand Touches You
30. Lil Nas X - MONTERO
31. Doja Cat - Planet Her
32. Hiatus Kaiyote - Mood Valiant
33. James Brandon Lewis - Jesup Wagon
34. Emily D'Angelo - enargeia
35. Moor Mother - Black Encyclopedia of the Air
36. Spellling - The Turning Wheel
37. Amythyst Kiah - Wary + Strange
38. Mon Laferte - SEIS
39. MIKE - Disco!
40. Yasmin Williams - Urban Driftwood
41. Susana Baca - Palabras Urgentes
42. Kenny Garrett - Sounds from the Ancestors
43. Yebba - Dawn
44. Adia Victoria - A Southern Gothic
45. Rodrigo Amarante - Drama
46. Vadim Repin, Gewandhausorchester Leipzig & Andris Nelsons - Sofia Gubaidulina: Dialog: Ich und Du; The Wrath of God; The Light of the End
47. Artifacts - ...and then there's this
48. Pink Siifu - GUMBO'!
49. Circuit Des Yeux - -io
50. Silk Sonic - An Evening with Silk Sonic
...
PopMatters' 75 Best Albums of 2021
1. Little Simz - Sometimes I Might Be Introvert
2. Floating Points, Pharoah Sanders & The London Symphony Orchestra - Promises
3. Sam Fender - Seventeen Going Under
4. Arlo Parks - Collapsed In Sunbeams
5. Dawn Richard - Second Line
6. Sleaford Mods - Spare Ribs
7. Kacey Musgraves - star-crossed
8. Dave - We're All Alone In This Together
9. Lil Nas X - MONTERO
10. Rochelle Jordan - Play with the Changes
11. Injury Reserve - By the Time I Get to Phoenix
12. Deafheaven - Infinite Granite
13. Mdou Moctar - Afrique Victime
14. Black Country, New Road - For the first time
15. Olivia Rodrigo - SOUR
16. St. Vincent - Daddy's Home
17.Pepe Deluxé - Phantom Cabinet, Vol. 1
18. Brandi Carlile - In These Silent Days
19. The Bug - Fire
20. Magdalena Bay - Mercurial World
21. Loraine James - Reflection
22. Wolf Alice - Blue Weekend
23. Lingua Ignota - Sinner Get Ready
24. Damon Albarn - The Nearer the Fountain, More Pure the Stream Flows
25. Public Service Broadcasting - Bright Magic
26. Snail Mail - Valentine
27. Valerie June - The Moon And Stars: Prescriptions For Dreamers
28. The Weather Station - Ignorance
29. Genesis Owusu - Smiling With No Teeth
30. Japanese Breakfast - Jubilee
31. Elbow - Flying Dream 1
32. Moor Mother - Black Encyclopedia of the Air
33. Headie One - Too Loyal for My Own Good
34. Lana Del Rey - Chemtrails Over the Country Club
35. Yasmin Williams - Urban Driftwood
36. Rhiannon Giddens With Francesco Turrisi - They're Calling Me Home
37. Amythyst Kiah - Wary + Strange
38. Julien Baker - Little Oblivions
39. Helado Negro - Far In
40. Sierra Ferrell - Long Time Coming
41. Backxwash - I Lie Here Buried With My Rings and My Dresses
42. Lucy Dacus - Home Video
43. Self Esteem - Prioritise Pleasure
44. Yola - Stand for Myself
45. Billie Eilish - Happier Than Ever
46. The War on Drugs - I Don't Live Here Anymore
47. Maisie Peters - You Signed Up For This
48. Cassandra Jenkins - An Overview On Phenomenal Nature
49. Godspeed You! Black Emperor - G_d's Pee AT STATE'S END!
50. CHVRCHES - Screen Violence
51. Goat Girl - On All Fours
52. Hayes Carll - You Get It All
53. Vince Staples - Vince Staples
54. Hiatus Kaiyote - Mood Valiant
55. Jungle - Loving In Stereo
56. Turnstile - GLOW ON
57. Jane Weaver - Flock
58. Between the Buried and Me - Colors II
59. John Grant - Boy from Michigan
60. Courtney Barnett - Things Take Time, Take Time
61. Anz - All Hours
62. Mastodon - Hushed and Grim
63. Alessia Cara - In The Meantime
64. Bremer/McCoy - Natten
65. King Woman - Celestial Blues
66. John Hiatt With The Jerry Douglas Band - Leftover Feelings
67. Jon Hopkins - Music for Psychedelic Therapy
68. Low Cut Connie - Tough Cookies: Best of the Quarantine Broadcasts
69. Aaron Lee Tasjan - Tasjan! Tasjan! Tasjan!
70. Iron Maiden - Senjutsu
71. Halsey - If I Can't Have Love, I Want Power
72. Portico Quartet - Terrain
73. black midi - Cavalcade
74. Altın Gün - Yol
75. Mogwai - As the Love Continues
...
Gigwise's 51 Best Albums of 2021
1. Self Esteem - Prioritise Pleasure
2. Sleaford Mods - Spare Ribs
3. Amyl & The Sniffers - Comfort to Me
4. Sons of Kemet - Black To The Future
5. PinkPantheress - to hell with it
6. McKinley Dixon - For My Mama and Anyone Who Look Like Her
7. For Those I Love - For Those I Love
8. Little Simz - Sometimes I Might Be Introvert
9. Arab Strap - As Days Get Dark
10. Du Blonde - Homecoming
11. Sam Fender - Seventeen Going Under
12. Emma-Jean Thackray - Yellow
13. Charli Adams - Bullseye
14. Billie Eilish - Happier Than Ever
15. Olivia Rodrigo - SOUR
16. Silk Sonic - An Evening with Silk Sonic
17. Mogwai - As the Love Continues
18. Jazmine Sullivan - Heaux Tales
19. Idles - CRAWLER
20. Surfbort - Keep On Truckin'
21. Dry Cleaning - New Long Leg
22. Drug Store Romeos - The world within our bedrooms
23. Mdou Moctar - Afrique Victime
24. Lil Nas X - MONTERO
25. Wolf Alice - Blue Weekend
26. Tyler, the Creator - CALL ME IF YOU GET LOST
27. Tommy Genesis - goldilocks x
28. The Vaccines - Back In Love City
29. Summer Walker - STILL OVER IT
30. Indigo De Souza - Any Shape You Take
31. Arlo Parks - Collapsed In Sunbeams
32. Clairo - Sling
33. The War on Drugs - I Don't Live Here Anymore
34. Nick Cave & Warren Ellis - CARNAGE
35. JPEGMAFIA - LP!
36. St. Vincent - Daddy's Home
37. Laura Mvula - Pink Noise
38. Bicep - Isles
39. CHAI - WINK
40. Paris Texas - BOY ANONYMOUS
41. Low Hummer - Modern Tricks For Living
42. Nation of Language - A Way Forward
43. Parquet Courts - Sympathy for Life
44. James Blake - Friends That Break Your Heart
45. Doja Cat - Planet Her
46. Joe & The Shitboys - The Reson for Hardcore Vibes Again
47. Iceage - Seek Shelter
48. Royal Blood - Typhoons
49. Bull - Discover Effortless Living
50. Ashnikko - DEMIDEVIL
51. Remi Wolf - Juno
...
The Guardian's 50 Best Albums of 2021
1. Self Esteem - Prioritise Pleasure
2. Wolf Alice - Blue Weekend
3. Little Simz - Sometimes I Might Be Introvert
4. The Weather Station - Ignorance
5. Tyler, the Creator - CALL ME IF YOU GET LOST
6. SAULT - Nine
7. Dry Cleaning - New Long Leg
8. Olivia Rodrigo - SOUR
9. Arlo Parks - Collapsed In Sunbeams
10. Mdou Moctar - Afrique Victime
11. Sam Fender - Seventeen Going Under
12. Jazmine Sullivan - Heaux Tales
13. Japanese Breakfast - Jubilee
14. Lil Nas X - MONTERO
15. Nick Cave & Warren Ellis - CARNAGE
16. Deafheaven - Infinite Granite
17. Tirzah - Colourgrade
18. Turnstile - GLOW ON
19. Dave - We're All Alone In This Together
20. Arooj Aftab - Vulture Prince
21. The Coral - Coral Island
22. Laura Mvula - Pink Noise
23. Floating Points, Pharoah Sanders & The London Symphony Orchestra - Promises
24. Billie Eilish - Happier Than Ever
25. Madlib - Sound Ancestors
26. Mogwai - As the Love Continues
27. St. Vincent - Daddy's Home
28. Kacey Musgraves - star-crossed
29. Clairo - Sling
30. Greentea Peng - MAN MADE
31. Low - Hey What
32. Cassandra Jenkins - An Overview On Phenomenal Nature
33. PinkPantheress - to hell with it
34. The War on Drugs - I Don't Live Here Anymore
35. Aly & AJ - a touch of the beat gets you up on your feet...
36. aya - im hole
37. Erika De Casier - Sensational
38. Goat Girl - On All Fours
39. Hayley Williams - FLOWERS for VASES / descansos
40. Lana Del Rey - Chemtrails Over the Country Club
41. Eris Drew - Quivering in Time
42. Gojira - Fortitude
43. Chris Corsano & Bill Orcutt - Made Out Of Sound
44. Black Country, New Road - For the first time
45. For Those I Love - For Those I Love
46. Stephen Fretwell - Busy Guy
47. CHAI - WINK
48. Lucy Dacus - Home Video
49. Møl - Diorama
50. Agnes - Magic Still Exists
...
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Title in other languages:
English: Plane trees at Alphons-Silbermann-Weg close to the University of Cologne, Germany
Nederlands: Plataanen aan Alphons-Silbermann-Weg bij de universiteit te Keulen (Duitsland)
English:
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The Postcard
A postally unused postkarte that was published by Ottmar Zieher of Munich. The card has a divided back.
Richard Wagner
Wilhelm Richard Wagner, who was born on the 22nd. May 1813, was a German composer, theatre director, polemicist, and conductor who is chiefly known for his operas (or, as some of his mature works were later known, "music dramas"). Unlike most opera composers, Wagner wrote both the libretto and the music for each of his stage works.
Initially establishing his reputation as a composer of works in the romantic vein of Carl Maria von Weber and Giacomo Meyerbeer, Wagner revolutionised opera through his concept of the Gesamtkunstwerk ("total work of art"), by which he sought to synthesise the poetic, visual, musical and dramatic arts, with music subsidiary to the drama.
He described this vision in a series of essays published between 1849 and 1852. Wagner realised these ideas most fully in the first half of the four-opera cycle Der Ring des Nibelungen.
Richard's compositions, particularly those of his later period, are notable for their complex textures, rich harmonies and orchestration. He also used leitmotifs—musical phrases associated with individual characters, places, ideas, or plot elements.
His advances in musical language, such as extreme chromaticism and quickly shifting tonal centres, greatly influenced the development of classical music.
Richard's Tristan und Isolde is sometimes described as marking the start of modern music.
Wagner had his own opera house built, the Bayreuth Festspielhaus, which embodied many novel design features. Bayreuth is a town on the Red Main river in Bavaria. At its center is the Richard Wagner Museum in the composer's former home, Villa Wahnfried.
The Ring and Parsifal were premiered at the Festspielhaus, and Wagner's most important stage works continue to be performed at the annual Bayreuth Festival, run by his descendants.
Richard's thoughts on the relative contributions of music and drama in opera were to change again, and he reintroduced some traditional forms into his last few stage works, including Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg.
Until his final years, Wagner's life was characterised by political exile, turbulent love affairs, poverty and repeated flight from his creditors.
His controversial writings on music, drama and politics have attracted extensive comment – particularly since the late 20th. century, where they express antisemitic sentiments.
The effect of his ideas can be traced in many of the arts throughout the 20th. century; his influence spread beyond composition into conducting, philosophy, literature, the visual arts and theatre.
Richard Wagner - The Early Years
Richard Wagner was born to an ethnic German family in Leipzig, who lived at No 3, the Brühl (The House of the Red and White Lions) in the Jewish quarter on the 22nd. May 1813.
He was baptized at St. Thomas Church. He was the ninth child of Carl Friedrich Wagner, who was a clerk in the Leipzig police service, and his wife, Johanna Rosine (née Paetz), the daughter of a baker.
Wagner's father Carl died of typhoid fever six months after Richard's birth. Afterwards, his mother Johanna lived with Carl's friend, the actor and playwright Ludwig Geyer. In August 1814 Johanna and Geyer probably married—although no documentation of this has been found in the Leipzig church registers.
Johanna and her family moved to Geyer's residence in Dresden, and until he was fourteen, Wagner was known as Wilhelm Richard Geyer. He almost certainly thought that Geyer was his biological father.
Geyer's love of the theatre came to be shared by his stepson, and Wagner took part in his performances. In his autobiography Mein Leben, Wagner recalled once playing the part of an angel.
In late 1820, Wagner was enrolled at Pastor Wetzel's school at Possendorf, near Dresden, where he received piano instruction from his Latin teacher. However Richard struggled to play a proper scale at the keyboard, and preferred playing theatre overtures by ear.
Following Geyer's death in 1821, Richard was sent to the Kreuzschule, the boarding school of the Dresdner Kreuzchor, at the expense of Geyer's brother.
At the age of nine he was hugely impressed by the Gothic elements of Carl Maria von Weber's opera Der Freischütz, which he saw Weber conduct.
During this period, Wagner entertained ambitions as a playwright. His first creative effort was a tragedy called Leubald. Begun when he was at school in 1826, the play was strongly influenced by Shakespeare and Goethe.
Wagner was determined to set it to music, and persuaded his family to allow him music lessons.
By 1827, the family had returned to Leipzig. Wagner's first lessons in harmony were taken during 1828–1831 with Christian Gottlieb Müller.
In January 1828 he first heard Beethoven's 7th. Symphony and then, in March, the same composer's 9th. Symphony. Beethoven became a major inspiration, and Wagner wrote a piano transcription of the 9th. Symphony.
Richard was also greatly impressed by a performance of Mozart's Requiem.
Wagner's early piano sonatas and his first attempts at orchestral overtures date from this period.
In 1829 Richard saw a performance by dramatic soprano Wilhelmine Schröder-Devrient, and she became his ideal of the fusion of drama and music in opera. In Mein Leben, Wagner wrote:
"When I look back across my entire life
I find no event to place beside this in
the impression it produced on me.
The profoundly human and ecstatic
performance of this incomparable artist
kindled in me an almost demonic fire."
In 1831, Wagner enrolled at Leipzig University, where he became a member of the Saxon student fraternity. He took composition lessons with the Thomaskantor Theodor Weinlig.
Weinlig was so impressed with Wagner's musical ability that he refused any payment for his lessons. He arranged for his pupil's Piano Sonata in B-flat major (which was consequently dedicated to him) to be published as Wagner's Op. 1.
A year later, Wagner composed his Symphony in C major, a Beethovenesque work performed in Prague in 1832 and at the Leipzig Gewandhaus in 1833.
He then began to work on an opera, Die Hochzeit (The Wedding), which he never completed.
Richard Wagner's Early Career and Marriage (1833–1842)
In 1833, Wagner's brother Albert managed to obtain for him a position as choirmaster at the theatre in Würzburg. In the same year, at the age of 20, Wagner composed his first complete opera, Die Feen (The Fairies).
This work, which imitated the style of Weber, went unproduced until half a century later, when it premiered in Munich shortly after the composer's death in 1883.
Having returned to Leipzig in 1834, Wagner held a brief appointment as musical director at the opera house in Magdeburg during which he wrote Das Liebesverbot (The Ban on Love), based on Shakespeare's Measure for Measure.
The work was staged at Magdeburg in 1836, but closed before the second performance. This, together with the financial collapse of the theatre company employing him, left Richard bankrupt.
Wagner had fallen for one of the leading ladies at Magdeburg, the actress Christine Wilhelmine "Minna" Planer, and after the disaster of Das Liebesverbot he followed her to Königsberg, where she helped him to get an engagement at the theatre.
They married in Tragheim Church on the 24th. November 1836, although In May 1837, Minna left Wagner for another man. This was however only the first débâcle of a tempestuous marriage.
In June 1837, Wagner moved to Riga (then part of the Russian Empire), where he became music director of the local opera; having in this capacity engaged Minna's sister Amalie (also a singer) for the theatre, he resumed relations with Minna during 1838.
By 1839, the couple had amassed such large debts that they fled Riga on the run from creditors. In fact, debts plagued Wagner for most of his life.
Initially they took a stormy sea passage to London, from which Wagner drew the inspiration for his opera Der Fliegende Holländer (The Flying Dutchman), with a plot based on a sketch by Heinrich Heine.
The Wagners settled in Paris in September 1839 and stayed there until 1842. Wagner made a scant living by writing articles and short novelettes such as A pilgrimage to Beethoven, which sketched his growing concept of "music drama", and An end in Paris, where he depicts his own miseries as a German musician in the French metropolis.
Richard also provided arrangements of operas by other composers, largely on behalf of the Schlesinger publishing house. During this stay he completed his third and fourth operas Rienzi and Der Fliegende Holländer.
Richard Wagner in Dresden (1842–1849)
Wagner had completed Rienzi in 1840. With the strong support of Giacomo Meyerbeer, it was accepted for performance by the Dresden Court Theatre (Hofoper) in the Kingdom of Saxony.
In 1842, Wagner moved to Dresden. His relief at returning to Germany was recorded in his "Autobiographic Sketch" of 1842, where he wrote that, en route from Paris:
"For the first time I saw the Rhine—
with hot tears in my eyes, I, poor
artist, swore eternal fidelity to my
German fatherland."
Rienzi was staged to considerable acclaim on the 20th. October 1842.
Wagner lived in Dresden for the next six years, eventually being appointed the Royal Saxon Court Conductor. During this period, he staged there Der Fliegende Holländer (2nd. January 1843) and Tannhäuser (19th. October 1845), the first two of his three middle-period operas.
Wagner also mixed with artistic circles in Dresden, including the composer Ferdinand Hiller and the architect Gottfried Semper.
Wagner's involvement in left-wing politics abruptly ended his welcome in Dresden. Wagner was active among socialist German nationalists there, regularly receiving such guests as the conductor and radical editor August Röckel and the Russian anarchist Mikhail Bakunin.
Richard was also influenced by the ideas of Pierre-Joseph Proudhon and Ludwig Feuerbach. Widespread discontent came to a head in 1849, when the unsuccessful May Uprising in Dresden broke out, in which Wagner played a minor supporting role.
A warrant for the arrest of Richard Wagner was issued on the 16th. May 1849, along with warrants for other revolutionaries.
Wagner had to flee, first visiting Paris and then settling in Zürich where he at first took refuge with a friend, Alexander Müller.
Richard Wagner In Exile: Switzerland (1849–1858)
Wagner spent the next twelve years in exile from Germany. He had completed Lohengrin, the last of his middle-period operas, before the Dresden uprising, and now wrote desperately to his friend Franz Liszt to have it staged in his absence. Liszt conducted the premiere in Weimar in August 1850.
Wagner was in grim personal straits, isolated from the German musical world and without any regular income. In 1850, Julie, the wife of his friend Karl Ritter, began to pay him a small pension which she maintained until 1859.
With help from her friend Jessie Laussot, this was to have been augmented to an annual sum of 3,000 thalers per year, but the plan was abandoned when Wagner began an affair with Mme. Laussot.
Wagner even plotted an elopement with her in 1850, which her husband prevented. Meanwhile, Wagner's wife Minna, who had disliked the operas he had written after Rienzi, was falling into a deepening depression. Wagner fell victim to ill-health, according to Ernest Newman "Largely a matter of overwrought nerves", which made it difficult for him to continue writing.
Wagner's primary published output during his first years in Zürich was a set of essays. In "The Artwork of the Future" (1849), he described a vision of opera as Gesamtkunstwerk (total work of art), in which music, song, dance, poetry, visual arts and stagecraft were unified.
"Judaism in Music" (1850) was the first of Wagner's writings to feature antisemitic views. In this polemic Wagner argued, frequently using traditional antisemitic abuse, that Jews had no connection to the German spirit, and were thus capable of producing only shallow and artificial music.
According to him, they composed music to achieve popularity and, thereby, financial success, as opposed to creating genuine works of art.
In "Opera and Drama" (1851), Wagner described the aesthetics of music drama that he was using to create the Ring cycle. Before leaving Dresden, Wagner had drafted a scenario that eventually became Der Ring des Nibelungen.
He initially wrote the libretto for a single opera, Siegfrieds Tod (Siegfried's Death), in 1848. After arriving in Zürich, he expanded the story with Der junge Siegfried (Young Siegfried), which explored the hero's background.
He completed the text of the cycle by writing the libretti for Die Walküre (The Valkyrie) and Das Rheingold (The Rhine Gold) and revising the other libretti to conform to his new concept, completing them in 1852.
The concept of opera expressed in "Opera and Drama" and in other essays effectively renounced all the operas he had previously written through Lohengrin. Partly in an attempt to explain his change of views, Wagner published in 1851 the autobiographical "A Communication to My Friends".
This included his first public announcement of what was to become the Ring cycle:
"I shall never write an Opera more. As I have
no wish to invent an arbitrary title for my works,
I will call them Dramas ... I propose to produce
my myth in three complete dramas, preceded
by a lengthy Prelude (Vorspiel).
At a specially-appointed Festival, I propose,
at some future time, to produce those three
Dramas with their Prelude, in the course of
three days and a fore-evening."
Wagner began composing the music for Das Rheingold between November 1853 and September 1854, following it immediately with Die Walküre (written between June 1854 and March 1856).
He began work on the third Ring drama, which he now called simply Siegfried, probably in September 1856, but by June 1857 he had completed only the first two acts.
He decided to put the work aside in order to concentrate on a new idea: Tristan und Isolde, based on the Arthurian love story Tristan and Iseult.
One source of inspiration for Tristan und Isolde was the philosophy of Arthur Schopenhauer, notably his The World as Will and Representation, to which Wagner had been introduced in 1854 by his poet friend Georg Herwegh.
Wagner later called this the most important event of his life. His personal circumstances certainly made him an easy convert to what he understood to be Schopenhauer's philosophy, a deeply pessimistic view of the human condition. He remained an adherent of Schopenhauer for the rest of his life.
One of Schopenhauer's doctrines was that music held a supreme role in the arts as a direct expression of the world's essence, namely, blind, impulsive will.
This doctrine contradicted Wagner's view, expressed in "Opera and Drama", that the music in opera had to be subservient to the drama. Wagner scholars have argued that Schopenhauer's influence caused Wagner to assign a more commanding role to music in his later operas, including the latter half of the Ring cycle, which he had yet to compose.
Aspects of Schopenhauerian doctrine found their way into Wagner's subsequent libretti.
A second source of inspiration was Wagner's infatuation with the poet-writer Mathilde Wesendonck, the wife of the silk merchant Otto Wesendonck. Wagner met the Wesendoncks, who were both great admirers of his music, in Zürich in 1852.
From May 1853 onwards Wesendonck made several loans to Wagner to finance his household expenses in Zürich, and in 1857 placed a cottage on his estate at Wagner's disposal, which became known as the Asyl ("asylum" or "place of rest").
During this period, Wagner's growing passion for his patron's wife inspired him to put aside work on the Ring cycle (which was not resumed for the next twelve years) and begin work on Tristan.
While planning the opera, Wagner composed the Wesendonck Lieder, five songs for voice and piano, setting poems by Mathilde. Two of these settings are explicitly subtitled by Wagner as "Studies for Tristan und Isolde".
Among the conducting engagements that Wagner undertook for revenue during this period, he gave several concerts in 1855 with the Philharmonic Society of London, including one before Queen Victoria. The Queen enjoyed his Tannhäuser overture and spoke with Wagner after the concert, writing in her diary that:
"Wagner was short, very quiet, wears
spectacles & has a very finely-developed
forehead, a hooked nose & projecting
chin."
Richard Wagner in Exile: Venice and Paris (1858–1862)
Wagner's uneasy affair with Mathilde collapsed in 1858, when Minna intercepted a letter to Mathilde from him. After the resulting confrontation with Minna, Wagner left Zürich alone, bound for Venice, where he rented an apartment in the Palazzo Giustinian, while Minna returned to Germany.
Wagner's attitude to Minna had changed; the editor of his correspondence with her, John Burk, has said that:
"She was to him an invalid, to be treated
with kindness and consideration, but,
except at a distance, was a menace to
his peace of mind."
Wagner continued his correspondence with Mathilde and his friendship with her husband Otto, who maintained his financial support. In an 1859 letter to Mathilde, Wagner wrote, half-satirically, of Tristan:
"Child! This Tristan is turning into something
terrible. This final act!!!—I fear the opera will
be banned ... only mediocre performances
can save me!
Perfectly good ones will be bound to drive
people mad."
In November 1859, Wagner once again moved to Paris to oversee production of a new revision of Tannhäuser, staged thanks to the efforts of Princess Pauline von Metternich, whose husband was the Austrian ambassador in Paris.
The performances of the Paris Tannhäuser in 1861 were a notable fiasco. This was partly a consequence of the conservative tastes of the Jockey Club, which organised demonstrations in the theatre to protest at the presentation of the ballet feature in act 1 (instead of its traditional location in the second act).
The opportunity was also exploited by those who wanted to use the occasion as a veiled political protest against the pro-Austrian policies of Napoleon III. It was during this visit that Wagner met the French poet Charles Baudelaire, who wrote an appreciative brochure, "Richard Wagner et Tannhäuser à Paris".
The opera was withdrawn after the third performance, and Wagner left Paris soon after. He had sought a reconciliation with Minna during this Paris visit, and although she joined him there, the reunion was not successful, and they again parted from each other when Wagner left.
Richard Wagner's Return and Resurgence (1862–1871)
The political ban that had been placed on Wagner in Germany after he had fled Dresden was fully lifted in 1862. The composer settled in Biebrich, on the Rhine near Wiesbaden.
Here Minna visited him for the last time: they parted irrevocably, though Wagner continued to give financial support to her while she lived in Dresden until her death in 1866.
In Biebrich, Wagner at last began work on Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, his only mature comedy. Wagner wrote a first draft of the libretto in 1845, and he had resolved to develop it during a visit he had made to Venice with the Wesendoncks in 1860, where he was inspired by Titian's painting The Assumption of the Virgin.
Throughout this period (1862–1864) Wagner sought to have Tristan und Isolde produced in Vienna. Despite many rehearsals, the opera remained unperformed, and gained a reputation as being "impossible" to sing, which added to Wagner's financial problems.
Wagner's fortunes took a dramatic upturn in 1864, when King Ludwig II succeeded to the throne of Bavaria at the age of 18. The young king, an ardent admirer of Wagner's operas, had the composer brought to Munich.
The King, who was homosexual, expressed in his correspondence a passionate personal adoration for the composer, and Wagner in his responses had no scruples about feigning reciprocal feelings.
Ludwig settled Wagner's considerable debts, and proposed to stage Tristan, Die Meistersinger, the Ring, and the other operas Wagner planned.
Wagner also began to dictate his autobiography, Mein Leben, at the King's request. Wagner noted that his rescue by Ludwig coincided with news of the death of his earlier mentor (but later supposed enemy) Giacomo Meyerbeer. Wagner wrote:
"I regretted that this operatic master,
who had done me so much harm,
should not have lived to see this day."
After grave difficulties in rehearsal, Tristan und Isolde premiered at the National Theatre Munich on the 10th. June 1865, the first Wagner opera premiere in almost 15 years. (The premiere had been scheduled for the 15th. May, but was delayed by bailiffs acting for Wagner's creditors, and also because the Isolde, Malvina Schnorr von Carolsfeld, was hoarse and needed time to recover.)
The conductor of this premiere was Hans von Bülow, whose wife, Cosima, had given birth in April that year to a daughter, named Isolde, a child not of Bülow but of Wagner.
Cosima was 24 years younger than Wagner and was herself illegitimate, the daughter of the Countess Marie d'Agoult, who had left her husband for Franz Liszt.
Liszt initially disapproved of his daughter's involvement with Wagner, though nevertheless, the two men were friends. The indiscreet affair scandalised Munich, and Wagner also fell into disfavour with many leading members of the court, who were suspicious of his influence on the King.
In December 1865, Ludwig was finally forced to ask the composer to leave Munich. He apparently also toyed with the idea of abdicating to follow his hero into exile, but Wagner quickly dissuaded him.
Ludwig installed Wagner at the Villa Tribschen, beside Switzerland's Lake Lucerne. Die Meistersinger was completed at Tribschen in 1867, and premiered in Munich on the 21st. June the following year.
At Ludwig's insistence, "special previews" of the first two works of the Ring, Das Rheingold and Die Walküre, were performed at Munich in 1869 and 1870. However Wagner retained his dream, first expressed in "A Communication to My Friends", of presenting the first complete cycle at a special festival in a new, dedicated, opera house.
Not everyone was impressed by Wagner's work at the time; on the cover of the 18th. April 1869 edition of L'Éclipse, André Gill suggested that Wagner's music was ear-splitting. He produced a cartoon showing a misshapen figure of a man with a tiny body below a head with prominent nose and chin standing on the lobe of a human ear. The figure is hammering the sharp end of a crochet symbol into the inner part of the ear as blood pours out.
Minna died of a heart attack on the 25th. January 1866 in Dresden. Wagner did not attend the funeral. Following Minna's death Cosima wrote to Hans von Bülow several times asking him to grant her a divorce, but Bülow refused to concede this.
He consented only after she had two more children with Wagner; another daughter, named Eva, after the heroine of Meistersinger, and a son Siegfried, named for the hero of the Ring.
The divorce was finally sanctioned, after delays in the legal process, by a Berlin court on the 18th. July 1870. Richard and Cosima's wedding took place on the 25th. August 1870.
On Christmas Day of that year, Wagner arranged a surprise performance (its premiere) of the Siegfried Idyll for Cosima's birthday. The marriage to Cosima lasted to the end of Wagner's life.
Wagner, settled into his new-found domesticity, turned his energies towards completing the Ring cycle. However he had not abandoned polemics: he republished his 1850 pamphlet "Judaism in Music", originally issued under a pseudonym, under his own name in 1869.
He extended the introduction, and wrote a lengthy additional final section. The publication led to several public protests at early performances of Die Meistersinger in Vienna and Mannheim.
Richard Wagner in Bayreuth (1871–1876)
In 1871, Wagner decided to move to Bayreuth, which was to be the location of his new opera house. The town council donated a large plot of land—the "Green Hill"—as a site for the theatre.
The Wagners moved to the town the following year, and the foundation stone for the Bayreuth Festspielhaus ("Festival Theatre") was laid.
Wagner initially announced the first Bayreuth Festival, at which for the first time the Ring cycle would be presented complete, for 1873, but since Ludwig had declined to finance the project, the start of building was delayed, and the proposed date for the festival was deferred.
To raise funds for the construction, "Wagner societies" were formed in several cities, and Wagner began touring Germany conducting concerts. By the spring of 1873, only a third of the required funds had been raised; further pleas to Ludwig were initially ignored, but early in 1874, with the project on the verge of collapse, the King relented and provided a loan.
The full building programme included the family home, "Wahnfried", into which Wagner, with Cosima and the children, moved from their temporary accommodation on the 18th. April 1874. Wagner was ultimately laid to rest in the Wahnfried garden; in 1977 Cosima's ashes were placed alongside Wagner's body. The grave is shown in the photograph.
The theatre was completed in 1875, and the festival scheduled for the following year. Commenting on the struggle to finish the building, Wagner remarked to Cosima:
"Each stone is red with
my blood and yours".
For the design of the Festspielhaus, Wagner appropriated some of the ideas of his former colleague, Gottfried Semper, which he had previously solicited for a proposed new opera house at Munich.
Wagner was responsible for several theatrical innovations at Bayreuth; these included darkening the auditorium during performances, and placing the orchestra in a pit out of view of the audience.
The Festspielhaus finally opened on the 13th. August 1876 with Das Rheingold, at last taking its place as the first evening of the complete Ring cycle. The 1876 Bayreuth Festival therefore saw the premiere of the complete cycle, performed as a sequence as the composer had intended.
The 1876 Festival consisted of three full Ring cycles (under the baton of Hans Richter). At the end, critical reactions ranged between that of the Norwegian composer Edvard Grieg, who thought the work "divinely composed", and that of the French newspaper Le Figaro, which called the music "The dream of a lunatic".
The disillusioned included Wagner's friend and disciple Friedrich Nietzsche, who, having published his eulogistic essay "Richard Wagner in Bayreuth" before the festival as part of his Untimely Meditations, was bitterly disappointed by what he saw as Wagner's pandering to increasingly exclusivist German nationalism; his breach with Wagner began at this time.
The festival firmly established Wagner as an artist of European, and indeed world, importance: attendees included Kaiser Wilhelm I, the Emperor Pedro II of Brazil, Anton Bruckner, Camille Saint-Saëns and Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky.
Wagner was far from satisfied with the Festival; Cosima recorded that months later, his attitude towards the productions was:
"Never again, never again!"
Moreover, the festival finished with a deficit of about 150,000 marks. The expenses of Bayreuth and of Wahnfried meant that Wagner still sought further sources of income by conducting or taking on commissions such as the Centennial March for America, for which he received $5000.
Richard Wagner - The Final Years (1876–1883)
Following the first Bayreuth Festival, Wagner began work on Parsifal, his final opera. The composition took four years, much of which Wagner spent in Italy for health reasons.
From 1876 to 1878 Wagner also embarked on the last of his documented emotional liaisons, this time with Judith Gautier, whom he had met at the 1876 Festival.
Wagner was also much troubled by problems of financing Parsifal, and by the prospect of the work being performed by other theatres than Bayreuth. He was once again assisted by the liberality of King Ludwig, but was still forced by his personal financial situation in 1877 to sell the rights of several of his unpublished works (including the Siegfried Idyll) to the publisher Schott.
Wagner wrote several articles in his later years, often on political topics, and often reactionary in tone, repudiating some of his earlier, more liberal, views.
These include "Religion and Art" (1880) and "Heroism and Christianity" (1881), which were printed in the journal Bayreuther Blätter, published by his supporter Hans von Wolzogen.
Wagner's sudden interest in Christianity at this period, which infuses Parsifal, was contemporary with his increasing alignment with German nationalism, and required on his part, and the part of his associates, "the rewriting of some recent Wagnerian history", so as to represent, for example, the Ring as a work reflecting Christian ideals.
Many of these later articles, including "What is German?" (1878, but based on a draft written in the 1860's), repeated Wagner's antisemitic preoccupations.
Wagner completed Parsifal in January 1882, and a second Bayreuth Festival was held for the new opera, which premiered on the 26th. May.
Wagner was by this time extremely ill, having suffered a series of increasingly severe angina attacks.
During the sixteenth and final performance of Parsifal on the 29th. August, he entered the pit unseen during act 3, took the baton from conductor Hermann Levi, and led the performance to its conclusion.
After the festival, the Wagner family journeyed to Venice for the winter. Wagner died of a heart attack at the age of 69 on the 13th. February 1883 at Ca' Vendramin Calergi, a 16th.-century palazzo on the Grand Canal.
The legend that the attack was prompted by argument with Cosima over Wagner's supposedly amorous interest in the singer Carrie Pringle, who had been a Flower-maiden in Parsifal at Bayreuth, is without credible evidence.
After a funerary gondola bore Wagner's remains across the Grand Canal, his body was taken to Germany where it was buried in the garden of the Villa Wahnfried.
Richard Wagner's Works
Wagner's musical output is listed by the Wagner-Werk-Verzeichnis (WWV) as comprising 113 works, including fragments and projects.
The first complete scholarly edition of his musical works in print was commenced in 1970 under the aegis of the Bavarian Academy of Fine Arts and the Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur of Mainz, and is presently (2023) under the editorship of Egon Voss.
It will consist of 21 volumes (57 books) of music and 10 volumes (13 books) of relevant documents and texts.
Richard Wagner's Early Works (to 1842)
Wagner's earliest attempts at opera were often uncompleted. Abandoned works include a pastoral opera based on Goethe's Die Laune des Verliebten (The Infatuated Lover's Caprice), written at the age of 17, Die Hochzeit (The Wedding), on which Wagner worked in 1832, and the singspiel Männerlist Größer als Frauenlist (Men are More Cunning than Women, 1837–1838).
Die Feen (The Fairies, 1833) was not performed in the composer's lifetime and Das Liebesverbot (The Ban on Love, 1836) was withdrawn after its first performance.
Rienzi (1842) was Wagner's first opera to be successfully staged.
The compositional style of these early works was conventional— the relatively more sophisticated Rienzi showing the clear influence of Grand Opera à la Spontini and Meyerbeer — and did not exhibit the innovations that would mark Wagner's place in musical history.
Later in life, Wagner said that he did not consider these works to be part of his oeuvre; and they have been performed only rarely in the last hundred years, although the overture to Rienzi is an occasional concert-hall piece.
Die Feen, Das Liebesverbot, and Rienzi were performed at both Leipzig and Bayreuth in 2013 to mark the composer's bicentenary.
Richard Wagner's Romantic Operas (1843–1851)
Wagner's middle stage output began with Der Fliegende Holländer (1843), followed by Tannhäuser (1845) and Lohengrin (1850).
These three operas are referred to as Wagner's "romantic operas". They reinforced the reputation, among the public in Germany and beyond, that Wagner had begun to establish with Rienzi.
Although distancing himself from the style of these operas from 1849 onwards, he nevertheless reworked both Der Fliegende Holländer and Tannhäuser on several occasions.
The three operas are considered to represent a significant developmental stage in Wagner's musical and operatic maturity as regards thematic handling, portrayal of emotions and orchestration.
They are the earliest works included in the Bayreuth canon, the mature operas that Cosima staged at the Bayreuth Festival after Wagner's death in accordance with his wishes.
All three (including the differing versions of Der Fliegende Holländer and Tannhäuser) continue to be regularly performed throughout the world, and have been frequently recorded.
They were also the operas by which his fame spread during his lifetime.
Richard Wagner's Music Dramas (1851–1882)
Wagner's late dramas are considered his masterpieces. Der Ring des Nibelungen, commonly referred to as the Ring or "Ring Cycle", is a set of four operas based loosely on figures and elements of Germanic mythology—particularly from the later Norse mythology—notably the Old Norse Poetic Edda and Volsunga Saga, and the Middle High German Nibelungenlied.
Wagner specifically developed the libretti for these operas according to his interpretation of Stabreim, highly alliterative rhyming verse-pairs used in old Germanic poetry.
They were also influenced by Wagner's concepts of ancient Greek drama, in which tetralogies were a component of Athenian festivals, and which he had amply discussed in his essay "Oper und Drama".
The first two components of the Ring cycle were Das Rheingold, which was completed in 1854, and Die Walküre, which was finished in 1856.
In Das Rheingold, with its "relentlessly talky 'realism' and the absence of lyrical 'numbers'", Wagner came very close to the musical ideals of his 1849–1851 essays.
Die Walküre, which contains what is virtually a traditional aria (Siegmund's Winterstürme in the first act), and the quasi-choral appearance of the Valkyries themselves, shows more "operatic" traits, but has been assessed by Barry Millington as:
"The music drama that most satisfactorily
embodies the theoretical principles of
'Oper und Drama'... A thoroughgoing
synthesis of poetry and music is achieved
without any notable sacrifice in musical
expression."
While composing the opera Siegfried, the third part of the Ring cycle, Wagner interrupted work on it, and between 1857 and 1864 wrote the tragic love story Tristan und Isolde and his only mature comedy Die Meistersinger von Nürnberg, two works that are also part of the regular operatic canon.
Tristan is often granted a special place in musical history; many see it as the beginning of the move away from conventional harmony and tonality, and consider that it lays the groundwork for the direction of classical music in the 20th. century.
Wagner felt that his musico-dramatical theories were most perfectly realised in this work with its use of "the art of transition" between dramatic elements and the balance achieved between vocal and orchestral lines. Completed in 1859, the work was given its first performance in Munich, conducted by Bülow, in June 1865.
Die Meistersinger was originally conceived by Wagner in 1845 as a sort of comic pendant to Tannhäuser. Like Tristan, it was premiered in Munich under the baton of Bülow, on the 21st. June 1868, and became an immediate success.
Millington describes Meistersinger as:
"A rich, perceptive music drama
widely admired for its warm
humanity."
However its strong German nationalist overtones have led some to cite it as an example of Wagner's reactionary politics and antisemitism.
Completing the Ring
When Wagner returned to writing the music for the last act of Siegfried and for Götterdämmerung (Twilight of the Gods), as the final part of the Ring, his style had changed once more to something more recognisable as "operatic" than the aural world of Rheingold and Walküre, though it was still thoroughly stamped with his own originality as a composer and suffused with leitmotifs.
This was in part because the libretti of the four Ring operas had been written in reverse order, so that the book for Götterdämmerung was conceived more "traditionally" than that of Rheingold; still, the self-imposed strictures of the Gesamtkunstwerk had become relaxed.
The differences also result from Wagner's development as a composer during the period in which he wrote Tristan, Meistersinger and the Paris version of Tannhäuser. From act 3 of Siegfried onwards, the Ring becomes more chromatic melodically, more complex harmonically, and more developmental in its treatment of leitmotifs.
Wagner took 26 years from writing the first draft of a libretto in 1848 until he completed Götterdämmerung in 1874.
The Ring takes about 15 hours to perform, and is the only undertaking of such size to be regularly presented on the world's stages.
Parsifal
Wagner's final opera, Parsifal (1882), which was his only work written especially for his Bayreuth Festspielhaus and which is described in the score as a "Bühnenweihfestspiel" ("Festival Play for the Consecration of the Stage"), has a storyline suggested by elements of the legend of the Holy Grail.
It also carries elements of Buddhist renunciation suggested by Wagner's readings of Schopenhauer. Wagner described it to Cosima as his "last card".
Parsifal remains controversial because of its treatment of Christianity, its eroticism, and its expression, as perceived by some commentators, of German nationalism and antisemitism.
Despite the composer's own description of the opera to King Ludwig as "this most Christian of works", Ulrike Kienzle has commented that:
"Wagner's turn to Christian mythology,
upon which the imagery and spiritual
contents of Parsifal rest, is idiosyncratic,
and contradicts Christian dogma in
many ways."
Musically, the opera has been held to represent a continuing development of the composer's style, and Millington describes it as:
"A diaphanous score of unearthly
beauty and refinement".
Richard Wagner's Non-Operatic Music
Apart from his operas, Wagner composed relatively few pieces of music. These include a symphony in C major (written at the age of 19), the Faust Overture (the only completed part of an intended symphony on the subject), some concert overtures, and choral and piano pieces.
Richard's most commonly performed work that is not an extract from an opera is the Siegfried Idyll for chamber orchestra, which has several motifs in common with the Ring cycle.
The Wesendonck Lieder are also often performed, either in the original piano version, or with orchestral accompaniment.
More rarely performed are the American Centennial March (1876), and Das Liebesmahl der Apostel (The Love Feast of the Apostles), a piece for male choruses and orchestra composed in 1843 for the city of Dresden.
After completing Parsifal, Wagner expressed his intention to turn to the writing of symphonies, and several sketches dating from the late 1870's and early 1880's have been identified as work towards this end.
The overtures and certain orchestral passages from Wagner's middle and late-stage operas are commonly played as concert pieces. For most of these, Wagner wrote or re-wrote short passages to ensure musical coherence.
The "Bridal Chorus" from Lohengrin is frequently played as the bride's processional wedding march in English-speaking countries.
Richard Wagner's Prose Writings
Wagner was an extremely prolific writer, authoring many books, poems, and articles, as well as voluminous correspondence. His writings covered a wide range of topics, including autobiography, politics, philosophy, and detailed analyses of his own operas.
Wagner planned for a collected edition of his publications as early as 1865; he believed that such a work would help the world to understand his intellectual development and artistic aims.
The first such edition was published between 1871 and 1883, but was doctored to suppress or alter articles that were an embarrassment to him (e.g. those praising Meyerbeer), or by altering dates on some articles to reinforce Wagner's own account of his progress.
Wagner's autobiography Mein Leben was originally published for close friends only in a very small edition (15–18 copies per volume) in four volumes between 1870 and 1880.
The first public edition (with many passages suppressed by Cosima) appeared in 1911; the first attempt at a full edition (in German) appeared in 1963.
There have been modern complete or partial editions of Wagner's writings, including a centennial edition in German edited by Dieter Borchmeyer (which, however, omitted the essay "Das Judenthum in der Musik" and Mein Leben).
The English translations of Wagner's prose in eight volumes by William Ashton Ellis (1892–1899) are still in print, and commonly used, despite their deficiencies.
The first complete historical and critical edition of Wagner's prose works was launched in 2013 at the Institute for Music Research at the University of Würzburg; this will result in at least eight volumes of text and several volumes of commentary, totalling over 5,000 pages.
It was originally anticipated that the Würzburg project will be completed by 2030, although this time frame may need to be extended.
A complete edition of Wagner's correspondence, estimated to amount to between 10,000 and 12,000 items, is under way under the supervision of the University of Würzburg. As of January 2021, 25 volumes have appeared, covering the period up to 1873.
Richard Wagner's Influence on Music
Wagner's later musical style introduced new ideas in harmony, melodic process (leitmotif) and operatic structure.
Notably from Tristan und Isolde onwards, he explored the limits of the traditional tonal system, which gave keys and chords their identity, pointing the way to atonality in the 20th. century.
Some music historians date the beginning of modern classical music to the first notes of Tristan, which include the so-called Tristan chord.
Wagner inspired great devotion. For a long period, many composers were inclined to align themselves with or against Wagner's music. Anton Bruckner and Hugo Wolf were greatly indebted to him, as were César Franck, Henri Duparc, Ernest Chausson, Jules Massenet, Richard Strauss, Alexander von Zemlinsky, Hans Pfitzner and many others.
Gustav Mahler was devoted to Wagner and his music; at the age of 15, he sought Wagner out on his 1875 visit to Vienna. Mahler became a renowned Wagner conductor, and Richard Taruskin has claimed that:
"Mahler's compositions extend
Wagner's maximalization of the
temporal and the sonorous in
music to the world of the
symphony."
The harmonic revolutions of Claude Debussy and Arnold Schoenberg (both of whose oeuvres contain examples of tonal and atonal modernism) have often been traced back to Tristan and Parsifal.
The Italian form of operatic realism known as verismo owed much to the Wagnerian concept of musical form.
Wagner also made a major contribution to the principles and practice of conducting. His essay "About Conducting" (1869) advanced Hector Berlioz's technique of conducting, and claimed that conducting was a means by which a musical work could be re-interpreted, rather than simply a mechanism for achieving orchestral unison.
He exemplified this approach in his own conducting, which was significantly more flexible than the disciplined approach of Felix Mendelssohn; in Wagner's view this also justified practices that would today be frowned upon, such as the rewriting of scores.
Wilhelm Furtwängler felt that Wagner and Bülow, through their interpretative approach, inspired a whole new generation of conductors (including Furtwängler himself).
Among those claiming inspiration from Wagner's music are the German band Rammstein, Jim Steinman, who wrote songs for Meat Loaf, Bonnie Tyler, Air Supply, Celine Dion and others.
Wagner also influenced the electronic composer Klaus Schulze, whose 1975 album Timewind consists of two 30-minute tracks, Bayreuth Return and Wahnfried 1883.
Joey DeMaio of the band Manowar has described Wagner as:
"The father of heavy metal".
The Slovenian group Laibach created the 2009 suite VolksWagner, using material from Wagner's operas.
Phil Spector's Wall of Sound recording technique was, it has been claimed, heavily influenced by Wagner.
Richard Wagner's Influence on Literature, Philosophy and the Visual Arts
Wagner's influence on literature and philosophy is significant. Millington has commented:
"Wagner's protean abundance meant that
he could inspire the use of literary motif in
many a novel employing interior monologue;
the Symbolists saw him as a mystic hierophant;
the Decadents found many a frisson in his work."
Friedrich Nietzsche was a member of Wagner's inner circle during the early 1870's, and his first published work, The Birth of Tragedy, proposed Wagner's music as the Dionysian "rebirth" of European culture in opposition to Apollonian rationalist "decadence".
Nietzsche however broke with Wagner following the first Bayreuth Festival, believing that Wagner's final phase represented a pandering to Christian pieties, and a surrender to the new German Reich.
Nietzsche expressed his displeasure with the later Wagner in "The Case of Wagner" and "Nietzsche Contra Wagner".
The poets Charles Baudelaire, Stéphane Mallarmé and Paul Verlaine worshipped Wagner.
Édouard Dujardin, whose influential novel Les Lauriers Sont Coupés is in the form of an interior monologue inspired by Wagnerian music, founded a journal dedicated to Wagner, La Revue Wagnérienne.
In a list of major cultural figures influenced by Wagner, Bryan Magee includes D. H. Lawrence, Aubrey Beardsley, Romain Rolland, Gérard de Nerval, Pierre-Auguste Renoir, Rainer Maria Rilke and several others.
In the 20th century, W. H. Auden once called Wagner:
"Perhaps the greatest
genius that ever lived."
Thomas Mann and Marcel Proust were heavily influenced by him, and discussed Wagner in their novels. He is also discussed in some of the works of James Joyce, as well as W. E. B. Du Bois, who featured Lohengrin in The Souls of Black Folk.
Wagnerian themes inhabit T. S. Eliot's The Waste Land, which contains lines from Tristan und Isolde and Götterdämmerung, and Verlaine's poem on Parsifal.
Many of Wagner's concepts, including his speculation about dreams, predated their investigation by Sigmund Freud. Wagner had publicly analysed the Oedipus myth before Freud was born in terms of its psychological significance, insisting that incestuous desires are natural and normal, and perceptively exhibiting the relationship between sexuality and anxiety. Georg Groddeck considered the Ring as the first manual of psychoanalysis.
Richard Wagner's Influence on the Cinema
Wagner's concept of the use of leitmotifs and the integrated musical expression which they can enable has influenced many 20th. and 21st. century film scores.
The critic Theodor Adorno has noted that:
"The Wagnerian leitmotif leads directly to
cinema music where the sole function of
the leitmotif is to announce heroes or
situations so as to allow the audience to
orient itself more easily".
Film scores citing Wagnerian themes include Francis Ford Coppola's Apocalypse Now, which features a version of the Ride of the Valkyries, Trevor Jones's soundtrack to John Boorman's film Excalibur, and the 2011 films A Dangerous Method (dir. David Cronenberg) and Melancholia (dir. Lars von Trier).
Hans-Jürgen Syberberg's 1977 film Hitler has a visual style and set design that are strongly inspired by Der Ring des Nibelungen, musical excerpts from which are frequently used in the film's soundtrack.
Richard Wagner's Opponents and Supporters
Not all reaction to Wagner was positive. For a time, German musical life divided into two factions, supporters of Wagner and supporters of Johannes Brahms; the latter, with the support of the powerful critic Eduard Hanslick (of whom Beckmesser in Meistersinger is in part a caricature) championed traditional forms, and led the conservative front against Wagnerian innovations.
They were supported by the conservative leanings of some German music schools, including the conservatories at Leipzig under Ignaz Moscheles and at Cologne under the direction of Ferdinand Hiller.
Another Wagner detractor was the French composer Charles-Valentin Alkan, who wrote to Hiller after attending Wagner's Paris concert on the 25th. January 1860. At this concert Wagner conducted the overtures to Der Fliegende Holländer and Tannhäuser, the preludes to Lohengrin and Tristan und Isolde, and six other extracts from Tannhäuser and Lohengrin.
Alkan noted:
"I had imagined that I was going
to meet music of an innovative
kind, but was astonished to find
a pale imitation of Berlioz.
I do not like all the music of Berlioz
while appreciating his marvellous
understanding of certain instrumental
effects ... but here he was imitated
and caricatured ... Wagner is not a
musician, he is a disease."
Even those who, like Debussy, opposed Wagner ("this old poisoner") could not deny his influence. Indeed, Debussy was one of many composers, including Tchaikovsky, who felt the need to break with Wagner precisely because his influence was so unmistakable and overwhelming.
"Golliwogg's Cakewalk" from Debussy's Children's Corner piano suite contains a deliberately tongue-in-cheek quotation from the opening bars of Tristan.
Others who proved resistant to Wagner's operas included Gioachino Rossini, who said:
"Wagner has wonderful moments,
and dreadful quarters of an hour."
In the 20th. century Wagner's music was parodied by Paul Hindemith and Hanns Eisler, among others.
Wagner's followers (known as Wagnerians or Wagnerites) have formed many societies dedicated to Wagner's life and work.
Film and Stage Portrayals of Richard Wagner
Wagner has been the subject of many biographical films. The earliest was a silent film made by Carl Froelich in 1913. It featured in the title role the composer Giuseppe Becce, who also wrote the score for the film (as Wagner's music, still in copyright, was not available).
Other film portrayals of Wagner include:
-- Richard Burton in Wagner (1983).
-- Paul Nicholas in Lisztomania (1975)
-- Trevor Howard in Ludwig (1972)
-- Lyndon Brook in Song Without End (1960)
-- Alan Badel in Magic Fire (1955)
Jonathan Harvey's opera Wagner Dream (2007) intertwines the events surrounding Wagner's death with the story of Wagner's uncompleted opera outline Die Sieger (The Victors).
The Bayreuth Festival
Since Wagner's death, the Bayreuth Festival, which has become an annual event, has been successively directed by his widow, his son Siegfried, the latter's widow Winifred Wagner, their two sons Wieland and Wolfgang Wagner, and, presently, two of the composer's great-granddaughters, Eva Wagner-Pasquier and Katharina Wagner.
Since 1973, the festival has been overseen by the Richard-Wagner-Stiftung (Richard Wagner Foundation), the members of which include some of Wagner's descendants.
Controversies Associated With Richard Wagner
Wagner's operas, writings, politics, beliefs and unorthodox lifestyle made him a controversial figure during his lifetime.
Following his death, debate about his ideas and their interpretation, particularly in Germany during the 20th. century, has continued.
Racism and Antisemitism
A caricature of Wagner by Karl Clic was published in 1873 in the Viennese satirical magazine, Humoristische Blätter. It shows a cartoon figure holding a baton, standing next to a music stand in front of some musicians.
The figure has a large nose and prominent forehead. His sideburns turn into a wispy beard under his chin. The exaggerated features refer to rumours of Wagner's Jewish ancestry.
Wagner's hostile writings on Jews, including Jewishness in Music, correspond to some existing trends of thought in Germany during the 19th century.
Despite his very public views on this topic, throughout his life Wagner had Jewish friends, colleagues and supporters. There have been frequent suggestions that antisemitic stereotypes are represented in Wagner's operas. The characters of Alberich and Mime in the Ring, Sixtus Beckmesser in Die Meistersinger, and Klingsor in Parsifal are sometimes claimed as Jewish representations, though they are not identified as such in the librettos of these operas.
The topic is further complicated by claims, which may have been credited by Wagner, that he himself was of Jewish ancestry, via his supposed father Geyer. However, there is no evidence that Geyer had Jewish ancestors.
Some biographers have noted that Wagner in his final years developed interest in the racialist philosophy of Arthur de Gobineau, notably Gobineau's belief that Western society was doomed because of miscegenation between "superior" and "inferior" races.
According to Robert Gutman, this theme is reflected in the opera Parsifal.
Other biographers however (including Lucy Beckett) believe that this is not true, as the original drafts of the story date back to 1857 and Wagner had completed the libretto for Parsifal by 1877, but he displayed no significant interest in Gobineau until 1880.
Other Interpretations
Wagner's ideas are amenable to socialist interpretations; many of his ideas on art were being formulated at the time of his revolutionary inclinations in the 1840's. Thus, for example, George Bernard Shaw wrote in The Perfect Wagnerite (1883):
"Wagner's picture of Niblunghome under the
reign of Alberic is a poetic vision of unregulated
industrial capitalism as it was made known in
Germany in the middle of the 19th. century by
Engels's book 'The Condition of the Working
Class in England."
Left-wing interpretations of Wagner also inform the writings of Theodor Adorno among other Wagner critics.
Walter Benjamin gave Wagner as an example of "bourgeois false consciousness", alienating art from its social context.
György Lukács contended that the ideas of the early Wagner represented the ideology of the "true socialists" (wahre Sozialisten), a movement referenced in Karl Marx's "Communist Manifesto" as belonging to the left-wing of German bourgeois radicalism.
Anatoly Lunacharsky said about the later Wagner:
"The circle is complete. The revolutionary
has become a reactionary. The rebellious
petty bourgeois now kisses the slipper of
the Pope, the keeper of order."
The writer Robert Donington has produced a detailed, if controversial, Jungian interpretation of the Ring cycle, described as "an approach to Wagner by way of his symbols", which, for example, sees the character of the goddess Fricka as part of her husband Wotan's "inner femininity".
Millington notes that Jean-Jacques Nattiez has also applied psychoanalytical techniques in an evaluation of Wagner's life and works.
Nazi Appropriation of Richard Wagner's Work
Adolf Hitler was an admirer of Wagner's music, and saw in his operas an embodiment of his own vision of the German nation; in a 1922 speech he claimed that:
"Wagner's works glorify the heroic
Teutonic nature ... Greatness lies in
the heroic."
Hitler visited Bayreuth frequently from 1923 onwards, and attended productions at the theatre.
There continues to be debate about the extent to which Wagner's views might have influenced Nazi thinking. Houston Stewart Chamberlain (1855–1927), who married Wagner's daughter Eva in 1908 but never met Wagner, was the author of the racist book The Foundations of the Nineteenth Century, approved by the Nazi movement.
Chamberlain met Hitler several times between 1923 and 1927 in Bayreuth, but cannot credibly be regarded as a conduit of Wagner's own views.
The Nazis used those parts of Wagner's thought that were useful for propaganda, and ignored or suppressed the rest.
While Bayreuth presented a useful front for Nazi culture, and Wagner's music was used at many Nazi events, the Nazi hierarchy as a whole did not share Hitler's enthusiasm for Wagner's operas, and resented attending these lengthy epics at Hitler's insistence.
Guido Fackler has researched evidence that indicates that it is possible that Wagner's music was used at the Dachau concentration camp in 1933–1934 to "re-educate" political prisoners by exposure to "national music".
There has been no evidence to support claims, sometimes made, that his music was played at Nazi death camps during the Second World War, and Pamela Potter has noted that Wagner's music was explicitly off-limits in the camps.
Because of the associations of Wagner with antisemitism and Nazism, the performance of his music in the State of Israel has been a source of controversy.
My emotions for today
°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°
Language of flowers -
here: carnaitions, pinks - the symbol of undying love.
All Hallows (or All Saints)
Festum Omnium Sanctorum
Hochfest Allerheiligen
Allerheiligen ein sogenannter stiller Feiertag.
Die Blütenpracht der Nelken - im botanischen Namen Dianthus, d. h. Gottes-Blume, Zeus-Blume (altgriechisch Διόσ Díos für „Gott“, „Zeus“ und altgriechisch ἄνθος anthos für „Blume“, „Blüte“) bezieht sich auf die Schönheit und den Duft.
symbol
Die in vielen Spielarten vorkommenden Gartenblumen sind die 'Näglein', die uns helfen, über etwas hinwegzukommen, das uns möglicherweise den Schlaf raubte.
Liedtext:
('mit Näglein besteckt, schlupf unter die Deck')
NELKEN ... carnations, pinks
The formal name for carnation, dianthus, comes from Greek for "heavenly flower", or the flower of Jove.
According to a Christian legend, carnations first appeared on Earth as Jesus carried the Cross. The Virgin Mary shed tears at Jesus' plight, and carnations sprang up from where her tears fell.
Thus the carnation (pinks) became the symbol of ( a mother's) undying love.
Nelken haben eine enorme symbolische und historische Bedeutung.
Nach einer christliche Legende erschienen Nelken erstmals, auf Erden als Jesus das Kreuz getragen hat..
Die Jungfrau Maria litt mit Jesus und weinte bittere Tränen. Frische Nelken sprangen dort aus dem Erdboden, wohin ihre Tränen fielen.
So wurde die Nelke das Symbol unsterblicher Liebe (einer Mutter).
süddeutsch / bz.w schweizerisch
"Näägele" bzw. "Näg(ch)ili"
"Guten Abend, gut Nacht,
mit Rosen bedacht,
mit Näglein besteckt
schlupf unter die Deck.
Morgen früh, wenn Gott will,
wirst du wieder geweckt"
1. Strophe: altes Volkslied aus
"Des Knaben Wunderhorn" (1808).
Weise: Johannes Brahms,op.49, Nr 4 (1868)
oder auch:
Bei den Nägelein handelt es sich um die uns heute bekannten Gewürznelken. Sie wurden früher an die Wiege gesteckt um Krankheiten und Insekten fern zu halten.
Good evening, good night,
Greeted with roses,
Covered with carnations,
Slip under the covers'.
Tomorrow morning, if God wills,
Will you wake.
WITHOUT YOU.....BY DENIS LEGENDRE AND TROPIC OF CANCER WITH SPECIAL GUEST FABIEN MELANSON ON VOCALS !
The Kikuyu are the country's largest ethnic group (22%). They live on the whole territory of Kenya. However, the highest concentration can be found in Central Province, known as the traditional Kikuyu homeland. The Kikuyu were formerly hunters, and meat was the prerogative of men. But from now on, Kenyan laws prohibit them from hunting, and meat is served only on special occasions (circumcision, new visitor etc.). The Kikuyu are also traditionally an agricultural people. Nevertheless, many are involved in all kinds of businesses and a lot have moved into cities. Since they speak a Bantu language, they are culturally related to other Bantu-speaking peoples of East Africa, in particular the Kamba, the Meru, the Embu, and the Chuka.Most of their culture has been communicated through very rich oral traditions. Their oral literature consists of original poems, stories, fables, myths, enigmas, and proverbs containing the principles of their philosophy and moral codes. The Gicandi for example is an ancient poem of enigmas, which is sung in public markets and accompanied by musical instruments made from gourds. According to tradition, the founder of the tribe is a man named Gikuyu. His nine daughters are supposed to be on the origin of the nine sub-groups. Each member of the subclan (mbari) knows from which ancestor, or which daughter of Gikuyu, he or she originates. The transition from one life stage to another in the Kikuyu society used to be marked by rites of passage, both for males and females. Were included in the main stages : the birth of a newborn, the stage of infant, the one of children before circumcision or excision, and after circumcision or excision, the period of mariage without and then with children, and old age. The concept of age-sets (mariika) is still of the utmost importance in their society. Each one of the circumcision groups (generations) is given a name. Members of the same age-set are given a rank in the groups. This rank determines the behavior of the members within a age-set and their behavior towards members of other age groups. More respect is given to the elder. Relationships are very strong between members of the same age-set and continue throughout their lives, even if it is less true today. Traditionally the Kikuyu worship their ancestors and their unique God called Ngai, name borrowed to the Maasai. In the past, they used to offer to Ngai sacrifices of animals on sacred places. Mount Kenya for instance is considered the home of God. The Kikuyu still gather sometimes on these places for religious or political meetings. Traditionaly, the medicine man is a powerful person who forecasts the future, heals, or frees people from ill omens. His main attribute is a gourd. It contains river's pebbles collected during his initiation, as well as small bones and sticks, marbles, old coins and pieces of glass, among other things. Conversion to Christianity was slow because they didn't want to give up their own culture. Even now, many have become Christian but their customs are still very strong. Many Kikuyu firmly opposed to the abolishment of excision. However, because of the influence of Christianity and Western education, they tend to be monogam. And though the main religion is now Christianity, some still have their traditional beliefs and others are muslim.
Les Kikuyu sont le groupe ethnique le plus large du pays (22%).Ils vivent sur l’ensemble du territoire du Kenya. Toutefois, la plus grande concentration se trouve dans la Province Centrale, connue comme la terre traditionnelle des Kikuyu.Les Kikuyu étaient auparavant des chasseurs, et la viande était la prérogative des hommes. Mais désormais, les lois kenyanes leur interdisent de chasser, et la viande est servie uniquement pour les occasions spéciales (circoncision, nouveau venu etc.). Les Kikuyu sont aussi traditionnellement un peuple d’agriculteurs. Néanmoins, beaucoup se sont engagés dans tout type de commerces et un grand nombre est parti dans les villes. Comme ils parlent une langue Bantu, ils sont culturellement liés aux autres peuples de langue Bantu d’Afrique de l’Est, en particulier les Kamba, Meru, Embu et Chuka.La majorité de leur culture a été communiquée par des traditions orales très riches. La littérature orale est composée de poèmes originaux, histoires, fables, mythes, énigmes, et proverbes qui contiennent les principes de leur philosophie et codes moraux. Le Gicandi par exemple est un ancien poème d’énigmes qui est chanté sur les marchés publics et accompagné par des instruments de musique faits à partir de gourdes. Selon la tradition, le fondateur de la tribu est un homme nommé Gikuyu. Ses neuf filles sont censées être à l’origine des neuf sous-groupes. Chaque membre du sous-clan (mbari) sait de quel ancêtre, ou se quelle fille de Gikuyu, il provient. La transition d’une étape de la vie à une autre dans la société Kikuyu était autrefois marquée par des rites de passage, pour les hommes comme pour les femmes. Faisaient partie des étapes principales: la naissance du nouveau-né, l’étape du petit enfant, celle des enfants avant la circoncision ou l’excision, celle après la circoncision ou l’excision, la période du mariage sans puis avec enfants, et la vieillesse. Le concept de classes d’âge (mariika) est encore de la plus grande importance dans leur société. Un nom est attribué à chacun des groupes de circoncision (c’est-à-dire chacune des générations). Un rang est donné aux membres d’une même classe d’âge. Ce rang détermine la conduite des membres au sein d’une classe d’âge et celle envers les membres des autres groupes d’âge. Les aînés ont droit à davantage de respect. Les relations sont très solides entre les membres d’une même classe d’âge et continuent tout au long de leur vie, même si cela est moins vrai aujourd’hui. Traditionnellement, les Kikuyu vouent un culte à leurs ancêtres et leur Dieu unique appelé Ngai, nom emprunté aux Maasai. Dans le passé, ils avaient l’habitude d’offrir à Ngai des sacrifices d’animaux dans des endroits sacrés. Le Mont Kenya par exemple est considéré comme la maison de Dieu. Les Kikuyu se rassemblent encore quelques fois dans ces lieux pour des réunions religieuses et politiques. Traditionnellement, l’homme sorcier est une personne puissante qui prédit le futur, soigne, et libère les gens des mauvais augures. Son principal attribut est une gourde. Celle-ci contient des galets de rivière ramassés lors de son initiation, ainsi que des petits os et bâtonnets, des billes, des vieilles pièces et morceaux de verre, parmi d’autres choses. La conversion au Christianisme a été lente car ils ne voulaient pas abandonner leur propre culture. Encore de nos jours, beaucoup sont devenus chrétiens mais leurs coutumes sont encore très présentes. De nombreux Kukuyu s’opposent fermement à l’abolition de l’excision. Toutefois, à cause de l’influence du Christiansme et de l’éducation occidentale, ils ont de plus en plus tendance à être monogames. Et malgré le fait que la principale religion soit maintenant le Christianisme, certains ont conservé leurs croyances tandis que d’autres sont musulmans.
© Eric Lafforgue
Floriography noun : the language of flowers, Communication through the use of flowers.
textures thanks to Kim Klassen and Skeletalmess
Title in other languages:
English: Castle pond of Bad Bentheim, Germany
Nederlands: Kasteelvijver van Bad Bentheim in Duitsland
English:
Welcome and thank you for being here! This image forms part of a collection of photographs of moments on Planet Earth.
If you enjoy this work and want to support me financially, I’m glad to receive your donation via Paypal: paypal.me/jankohoener
If you intend to use this picture for your own purposes, please credit me with the following attribution line: Janko Hoener / CC-BY-SA-4.0. This is required by the license terms. A link back to this page and informing me about your usage via FlickrMail is appreciated.
Deutsch:
Willkommen und vielen Dank, dass Sie hier sind! Dieses Bild stellt Teil einer Sammlung von Fotografien von Augenblicken auf dem Planet Erde dar.
Wenn Ihnen diese Arbeit zusagt und Sie mich finanziell dabei unterstützen möchten, so freue ich mich über Ihre Spende via Paypal: paypal.me/jankohoener
Wenn Sie dieses Foto für eigene Zwecke nutzen möchten, geben Sie bitte Janko Hoener / CC-BY-SA-4.0 in der Bildunterschrift an. Dies ist per Lizenz gefordert. Über einen Link auf diese Seite und eine Benachrichtigung über die Nutzung via FlickrMail freue ich mich.
Although the Chinese sense of practicality can sometimes be quite humorous, i am posting this photo to demonstrate the mixture of cultures (Turkic Uighur with their turkic language and arabic script and Chinese Han with their Mandarin language and script) in Xinjiang. The English, of course, is added, as needed for tourists; this sign indicated the best place to stand to take a photo of a palace. Most signs in Xinjiang are in the two scripts.
Kashgar, China
The eyes are the 'windows of the soul' ♥
The Eyes Language is the most honest Language ♥
so , tell me
What you read in these eyes ?
---
say mashallah please ♥
Resting - even then it looks like communication. Are these 2 letters? A 'C' from Taj and a very long 'M' from Kita? Or.... I've been puzzling to read this message for a whlie now. Do you any ideas or clues?
Luke now knows sign language for equal. Using sign language to explain human rights to a four year old well, that is another story.
Creature from the Black Lagoon, 1954
In Memory Of Ben Chapman (1925-2008)
By Ken Hulsey (From The Kensforce.com/Monster Island News Archives)
Having roared and clawed its way into the hearts of film fans around the world when it was first released in 1954, the Universal monster classic Creature From The Black Lagoon has endured for generation after generation, seeming to grow in popularity with every passing year. Filmed in glorious black and white, the tale of the ancient half-man, half-fish—better known as the Gillman—cleverly uses the unique aspects of the colorless medium to effectively create a creepy atmosphere, particularly with the manipulation of shadows and lighting. Believable cast interaction, a monstrous musical score, and above all a great story make Creature From The Black Lagoon a picture to remember—and it’s clear from the multitude of collectibles, video releases, actor appearances and screening events that faithful fans have done just that.
The iconic and intricately designed Gillman suit was brought to life in the scenes above water by the late Ben Chapman, who gave the character a sympathetic feel through his body language and natural motions—a feat that no modern CG effect could hope to recreate.
Chapman, who passed away last year at the age of 79, visited San Francisco in October of 2006 for a special event at the Castro Theater celebrating Creature From The Black Lagoon, meeting fans and sharing memories with the audience.
(Chapman)
“They were thinking about bringing back the tropical movies, about the islands, and they were going to groom me for it. I used to come into the studio when I wasn’t working, and say hello to everybody. I came in one day and there was a casting director for cowboys and stuntmen-type people, and she asked me if anyone had talked to me about an Amazon picture. I didn’t know what she was talking about, but she made a few phone calls, and told me to come back the next day.”
The following afternoon Chapman returned, and he was taken to a meeting of studio executives, who simply asked him to stand up and turn around so they could get a look at him. After doing so, they thanked him and asked him to come back again the following morning.
“I came back the next day and she had a contract waiting for me for $300 a week, and that’s how I got the part—a lot of people think there must have been a big audition and this and that—but no, there was no big thing about it.”
“I’ve always been very lucky in my life of being in the right place at the right time—the same thing happened in combat, when I was in the Marine Corp in Korea, there were a few times I should have gotten killed, but I was just in the right place at the right time.”
When Chapman joined the production of Creature From The Black Lagoon, director Jack Arnold was scouting locations to shoot in southern California, but couldn’t find any place with clear enough water for what was needed for the underwater sequences, so he went to Florida, and found an ideal spot in Wakulla Springs. To save time and money, the studio decided to shoot all of the underwater parts in Florida with a second unit and stunt doubles, while the main actors filmed their scenes at the Universal Studios back lot.
How To Make A Monster.
The Gillman is one of the most recognizable creature creations of the silver screen, the result of clever imaginations and hard work at the Universal Studios makeup department. But it was the six foot five inch tall Chapman who wore the costume and truly brought him to life for generations of fans.
“It was foam rubber, it was very light, and it was very pliable; it was like an outer layer of skin. They took a Plaster of Paris impression of my body and then they sculpted all the different pieces, and they simply glued them right on to this costume. To get into it would take two to three hours; you had to fit it just right, so that there were no wrinkles. I couldn’t gain weight or lose weight,” remembered Chapman.
“It was extremely hot though—if we were working where there was water, that was no problem, I would just jump in the lake or the pool, but if we were on a sound stage, I had a guy over in the corner with a hose, and I’d go up to him and ask him to hose me down, until I could feel my body temperature going down.”
The hands and feet of the creature were worn like gloves and boots, while the iconic mask slipped over his head, and sealed with a hidden zipper in the back. Some days’ shooting schedules required that Chapman keep the costume on for long periods at a time—the longest stretch being 14 hours straight.
Although the suit was very light when dry, there were several scenes that called for the Gillman to come out of the water, and when fully soaked, the foam rubber outfit would absorb liquid like a sponge, greatly increasing the overall weight, and making it difficult for the actor to move about.
“There’s that one scene at night where I climb up the side of the boat, and then I get up so far and there’s a lantern, and I hit the lantern, and dive back into the water. When we were filming on the soundstage, I swam over there and I tried to pull myself up, and Jack [Arnold] said, ‘Come on Benny, pull yourself up!’ and I said, ‘I can’t!’”
The water there was about 7 feet deep, so they got a ladder and put it under the surface, so as Chapman was pulling himself up on the rope, he could climb step by step at the same time, assisting him with the ascent, while still giving the appearance that he was only using the rope. If one looks carefully at the end of that scene, however, it’s easy to notice that when the Gillman falls back into the water, he doesn’t fall straight down—lands on something below, and then dives off to the side—a blooper that Chapman laughed about when revealing it.
The bulkiness of the suit in the water didn’t stop the young actor from playing around on the set, however—Rock Hudson would sometimes visit and bring various studio guests to see the location on the back lot, and one day Chapman told him that he would have a surprise waiting for them. As the guests arrived on the shores of the manmade lake, he swam out to the middle in full Gillman costume and submerged except for the very top of his head. He slowly moved in closer and closer, until the depth was only a few feet, and he leapt straight up out of the water and roared at the shocked people getting a tour.
“Word came up that I couldn’t do that anymore—they said the studio was afraid someone was going to die of a heart attack,” Chapman laughed.
Another behind the scenes story that he liked to tell was regarding the poor vision he had to deal with while wearing the costume—the makeup department had designed different sets of eyeballs to go in the mask for varying shots; some had larger holes for Chapman to see out if, others, for close-ups, had no openings at all, and a crew member would have to shine a flashlight at the actor so that he would know what direction he was supposed to be walking in.
In the famous scene where he was carrying Julie Adams through the caves of his underwater lair, he couldn’t see clearly in the dimly lit surroundings, and he accidently bumped her head into one of the fake rocks.
“I couldn’t see, I had no idea what was going on, then there was this kicking, and people yelling, and I was going, ‘What? What’s going on?’ and they grabbed Julie out of my arms. But she was a trooper, we patched her up, and we got that shot.”
Another challenge that Chapman was faced with was how to give the Gillman a personality—the actors portraying the other monsters in the classic Universal canon could use dialogue and (underneath their makeup) facial expressions to convey a sense of their characters. The Gillman costume completely obscured all of Chapman’s features, even his eyes, so he had to find a way to bring the creature to life.
“It’s very tough for an actor if he can’t use his face, so what I had to do was use body language to get what we wanted—a sympathetic view. He was the good guy, they were the bad people. The black lagoon was his home, and they invaded his home by coming in there with the boat. If you went home tonight and found a bunch of people in your living room having a party, how would you feel?”
Chapman pointed to the Marilyn Monroe movie The Seven Year Itch as proof that audiences had the sympathetic reaction to the Gillman right away.
“That famous scene where her dress blows up in front of the theatre—if you look just ten seconds before that dress blows up, when the scene opens it shows them walking out of movie theater, and above them in huge letters was Creature From The Black Lagoon. She says, ‘I feel so sorry for the creature.’”
Chapman was friends with Peter Lawford, known for being a member of “The Rat Pack,” and one day he was over at Lawford’s house for a party. Monroe was also there, and the two began talking.
“We were sitting there, but I didn’t want to say, ‘Well, you know, I played the creature,’ so I thought, ‘How can I get her to know?’ I started talking about The Seven Year Itch and said ‘There’s that one scene where you and Tom come out from the theater—what was that movie that you saw?’ and she replied, ‘Creature From The Black Lagoon.’ Peter was walking by, and said, ‘Oh, by the way, Marilyn, you know Benny here played the creature.’ She looked at me and said, ‘You did!?’—that just made my night, I floated away.”
A Universal Legacy
“When people ask me what made Creature From The Black Lagoon so successful, I go on and on,” said Chapman. “First of all it was a perfect cast; everybody was perfect for the role that they portrayed. The story still holds up today, because the story is of those scientists trying to figure out where man comes from.”
The classic cinematic techniques that were used in the film were another factor that Chapman attributed to the movie’s longevity.
“We left a lot of it to your imagination. In that movie, I kill several people, but you don’t see it. You don’t see blood and gore, you don’t see me kill a person, and you don’t see that person die. We leave it to your imagination, and that’s the way movies were made. In my day we made real movies with real stories and real people.”
Chapman fully embraced the Creature From The Black Lagoon phenomenon, and attended fan conventions and screenings throughout the globe, meeting his fans that grew up watching the movie.
“We enjoy sitting there and talking with them, and making ourselves accessible, having pictures taken. I enjoy people, I’ve always liked working with an audience—I love my fans, it’s simple as that,” said Chapman. “I feel very blessed that I was able to live and work in that era, I wouldn’t trade it for all the money in the world.”
Coreoleans - The Silence As language by Daniel Arrhakis (2026)
The Order of the Coreoleans dates back to the times of the Ancients. Ancient kingdoms ruled by immortal entities, gods, kings and queens such as Krunth or Ahrghylla. The Order was founded by a guardian whose mystical powers were powerful, but inconvenient to despotic entities.
They take a vow of silence for the outside world and even among their members communication is minimal, although sources say some developed telepathic gifts.
During my weekend to Cambridge in Summer last year I took a trip out to see the community of Eddington on the outskirts and the RIBA award winning buildings, including Storey's Fields community centre with its unusual design patterns and mediterranean influenced architecture and design.
A breeding Greater Yellowlegs has a word with itself in a tidal pool on the Pacific Ocean beach at Grayland Washington.
I think this is a good source for learning several languages at one time. Seriously, you can look at the word "sugar", for example.
There are English, French, German, Spanish, Portguese, Italian, Dutch, Swedish, Norwegian, Danish, Finnish (mmm, difficult), Russian (this is very difficult), Greek (very difficult), Polish (difficult), Chech (difficult), Arabic (you'll need at least 30 days to learn the letters), Japanese (my native tongue so no problem for me), and Chinese (the characters are the same so I can guess to some extent).
In this picture, there are Norwegian (blurred), Danish, Finnish, Russian, Greek, Polish, Chech, Arabic, Japanese, and Chinese (blurred).
The poetical language of flowers, or, The pilgrimage of love /
London :Charles Griffin and Company,n.d. [1869]
Title in other languages:
Deutsch: Häuser und Zacken
English: Houses and jags
English:
Welcome and thank you for being here! This image forms part of a collection of photographs of moments on Planet Earth.
If you enjoy this work and want to support me financially, I’m glad to receive your donation via Paypal: paypal.me/jankohoener
If you intend to use this picture for your own purposes, please credit me with the following attribution line: Janko Hoener / CC-BY-SA-4.0. This is required by the license terms. A link back to this page and informing me about your usage via FlickrMail is appreciated.
Deutsch:
Willkommen und vielen Dank, dass Sie hier sind! Dieses Bild stellt Teil einer Sammlung von Fotografien von Augenblicken auf dem Planet Erde dar.
Wenn Ihnen diese Arbeit zusagt und Sie mich finanziell dabei unterstützen möchten, so freue ich mich über Ihre Spende via Paypal: paypal.me/jankohoener
Wenn Sie dieses Foto für eigene Zwecke nutzen möchten, geben Sie bitte Janko Hoener / CC-BY-SA-4.0 in der Bildunterschrift an. Dies ist per Lizenz gefordert. Über einen Link auf diese Seite und eine Benachrichtigung über die Nutzung via FlickrMail freue ich mich.
The Afrikaans Language Monument symbolises the contributions of Africa, Europe, and the Malayo-Indonesian world to the development of the language. Unfortunately, I didn't get a great shot of the wall on the stairway of the monument represents the influence of Malay-Indonesian languages on the development of Afrikaans. This is the wall on the stairway of the monument, the top of which is just poking up here, centre of shot. The rising trio of obelisks on the right represents Europe; the domes representing Africa aren't visible in this shot. I'll try better next time!
The Afrikaans Language Monument (Afrikaans: Afrikaanse Taalmonument) is located on a hill overlooking Paarl, Western Cape Province, South Africa. Officially opened on 10 October 1975, it commemorates the semicentenary of Afrikaans being declared an official language of South Africa separate from Dutch. Also, it was erected on the 100th anniversary of the founding of Genootskap van Regte Afrikaners (the Society of Real Afrikaners) in Paarl, the organisation that helped strengthen Afrikaners' identity and pride in their language.
The monument, surprisingly post-modern for the product of an authoritarian right-wing state, consists of various tapering structures of a convex and concave nature, symbolising the influences of different languages and cultures on Afrikaans itself, as well as political developments in South Africa, as follows:
* three columns symbolise the European heritage of the language. The columns are from high to low to illustrate Europe’s diminishing influence on Afrikaans.
* three convex mounds on a podium symbolise the African influences on the language
* a wall on the stairway symbolises the influence of the Malay language and culture, placed between the curves of Western Europe and Africa as a separate entity. Yet it forms a unity with the two forces of Western Europe and Africa that merge to form the bridge that symbolically depicts the roots of Afrikaans.
* the highest column (about 57m high) symbolises the growth of Afrikaans and is open at the top. The other writer that inspired the architect, CJ Langenhoven, wrote that Afrikaans grows like a “fast-rising arch”; the second very high column represents South Africa and the declaration of the Republic of South Africa in 1960.
There is also an open stadium at the bottom of the structure where concerts and events are held.
This description incorporates text from the English Wikipedia and the official Afrikaanse Taalmuseum & -monument website.
Photoshoot at a Pokot village.
The Pokot people are categorized under the larger Kalenjin tribes grouping of Kenyan Nilotic speakers because they have oral traditions of a similar origin. They speak the Pokot language. The Pokot people live in the Baringo and Western Pokot districts of Kenya and also in the Eastern Karamoja region of Uganda. The Pokots are dived into two main sub-groups depending of their location and way of life. The two groups are the Hill Pokot who practice both farming and pastoralism, and live in the rainy highlands in the west and in the central south. The second group is made up of the Plains Pokot who living in dry and infertile plains, herd cows, goats and sheep.
As a result of their nomadic lifestyle, adopted by most of the Pokot, they have interacted with different peoples in their history and therefore incorporated social customs of neighbors into their life. The Turkana and the Karamojong of Uganda, who they neighbor, appear to have had the most influence on the Pokot. Those who are cultivators mainly grow corn/maize. Nevertheless, whether a pastoralist or a farmer, wealth among the Pokot is measured by the number of cattle one has. The other major uses of cows are in bride price and barter trade. As long as a Pokot man has enough wealth in terms of cows to offer, marrying more than one wife is allowed.
Dairy products like milk are an important part of the diet of the Pokot. Porridge made from wild fruits boiled with a mixture of milk and blood, a repast rich in nutrients and iron is the staple of the Pokot diet. Using a special arrow, it's shot into the neck of a cow to drain blood without permanently causing harm to the animal.
The Tororot being the utmost god according to the Pokot, prayers and sacrifices are made to him during ethnic festivals and dances that are organized by their elders. Also, the Pokot have diviners who are in charge for maintaining the spiritual balance within their society. Being superstitious and believing in sorcery and sometimes calling on various forms of shielding lucky charms to ward off the ill will of any sorcerers is a part of their tradition. They also worship other deities like the sun, moon and believe in the spirit of death.
Governing within the Pokot community, is through a number of age-sets and association with any particular set is be determined by the age during which a Pokot goes through their initiation into that set group or society. It is typically between the ages of fifteen and twenty for the men while, it is around twelve, for the women. Matrimonial binds for the youngsters are allowed, once the initiation has been accomplished. As well, they begin taking part in the local economic functions. The bonds formed within the initiation groups, are close and are functional in future political ties as they progress through the positions in the tribal organization. At old age, they get a certain degree of status and the esteem that goes with it. Presiding over important tribal decisions, festivals and religious celebrations are the duties among others that elders are in charge of.
The Pokot are quite proud of their culture are bound to hold on to it in the future. Generally, Pokot women wear colorful necklaces and beaded headgears, brass jewelry and big loop type earrings whereas men wear just a few wrap garments and cowhide capes and shirts. They use beaded skirts to distinguish those females who have been initiated from those who haven't. Pokot warriors wear red clay on their hair, special headgears of feathers. Dances are an important aspect of their culture especially during social-cultural events.