Wagner American Centennial March

 Day 67

Wagner Centennial March

London Symphony Orchestra

Marek Janowski

In my younger days I was an ardent Wagnerian. While I was still at school I used to listen to the annual broadcast of the Ring cycle from Bayreuth on a little transistor radio and my party piece (not that I went to many parties....) was narrating the story of the Ring from beginning to end in excruciating detail. My tastes have changed completely since then and although I enjoyed the Opera North semi-staged Ring cycle when it came to Nottingham a few years ago I hard ever listen to Wagner now. Indeed my youthful self would be amazed if he came to look at my CD collection - lots of complete operas from the Baroque era and a good collection of French classical and romantic operas but not a single Wagner opera- indeed only a few bits and pieces on except records.

But this project is about music I have not heard before and I have heard all of the Wagner operas, even the obscure early ones. But there are few very minor freestanding orchestral works to go at and this march is one of them. It was written to celebrate the centenary of the American Declaration of Independence and was first performed in Philadelphia in1876. 

I didn't expect much from the piece, but it all honest it can only be described as awful. It spends an ordinate amount of time playing about with a 4 note motive and everytime you think it is going to reach a big tune it seems to wander off again. Indeed there is no big tune to think off at all. It is scored for a very large orchestra and probably sounded impressive in its way when being performed at a festival occasion but it is mere hack work and should only ever be performed to show that even great composers are capable of writing rubbish. Wagner himself said that the best thing about the overture was the $5,000 fee he received for writing it. That says it all.