The Wagner Caveat

Summary and links to the series of Wagner character posts:

I believe that Richard Wagner has been the victim of character assassination, which was started in his era but has come to full fruition in our own. While certainly Wagner does have character flaws, he is accused—casually, ubiquitously, and with no or little supporting evidence—of a whole host of faults, most of them exaggerated, and rarely counterbalanced with any sense of his goodness beyond musical genius. The result is that his true personality and character have been buried under an avalanche of mud. This is my introduction to that topic. A short introduction to his personality and character so that you can better understand the various charges is here. I cover these traits: megalomania here; sexist, womanizer and wife-stealer part 1 here, part 2 here; his problems with money and, consequently, friendship is here; the charges that he was amoral or immoral, hypocritical and a liar here; the issue of anti-Semitism is here; the first part of how his reputation got into the mess it is can be found here and the second here. The series concludes here with some thoughts about biography and a selected bibliography.

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Over the past several decades, in virtually everything written about Wagner (except, bless them, Wikipedia), there is a caveat about his character, no matter what the subject matter. Usually the caveat comes at the very beginning. Here is a example, par for the course unfortunately, from a book called Classical Music: The 50 Greatest Composers and Their 1,000 Greatest Works by Phil Goulding. Now, the book is intended for the general audience and is not academic in nature. This is the beginning of the generally positive review of Wagner's music (ranked 4^th on his list by the way): 

Richard Wagner was a dreadful human being. He was a liar, a cheat, a wife-stealer, a home-wrecker, and a betrayer of friends. He was anti-Semitic, anti-Catholic and anti-French. He was immoral and dis-honorable. No one in music had a bigger ego, and he properly belongs high on the list of the World's Most Unpleasant men.

Or here is another one from another introductory book, Opera for Dummies by David Pogue and Scott Speck :

How do you assess a person like Richard Wagner? He was an arrogant, dishonest, jealous, hypocritical, racist, sexist, and passionately anti-Semitic human being.

Ok, just one more from The Rough Guide to Opera by Matthew Boyden and Nick Kimberley (who to their credit start with some positive things unlike the latter two, but their attacks are the most vicious and unhinged):

By most accounts, the man who did all this was a monster. Analyzing Wagner from a safe distance in 1872, Theodor Puschmann, a Munich psychiatrist, concluded that the composer suffered from “chronic megalomania, paranoia... and moral derangement.” He was a vicious racist and an infamous womanizer, fathering countless illegitimate children. He tyrannized his first wife then stole another man's wife, finding in her an echo of his limitless self-adoration (he habitually referred to himself in the third person). He was an animal-loving vegetarian (like Hitler), but behaved abominably to anyone who treated him with less than unquestioning devotion, and he seemed oblivious to the welfare of his family, cultivating an obsession for silks and other luxuries that kept them in perpetual debt.

What is a reader, new to opera, who is glancing through these books to think? Well, obviously, I think I will pass on this guy. And thus, the audience for Wagner is greatly suppressed from what his music deserves, truly. This sort of ad hominem attack of Wagner is ubiquitous. I've checked out dozens of introductory music books, looking for ones that didn't do this, and they are very rare.

Try it yourself in a bookstore sometime. I could give further, multiple examples, but it seems silly as the usual attacks are supplied in the three examples set forth above. Though tempted to rebut the absolute falsehoods here, I need to be patient and make the case more systematically. Which I will do, as the Wicked Witch of the West said, “all in good time.”

Of course, none of the books supply any footnotes to prove—or at least support in any way— their multi-front attacks. They just assert it. You don't have to prove the case because, the assumption is, this stuff must have come from somewhere and therefore must be true. Except that much of it is clearly untrue or twisted beyond recognition (the Rough Guide stuff is particularly nuts if you know the true story). Some, yes, is partially true and some, while true, deserves to be put in context and is much more complicated, compelling and interesting than these sentences imply. It is impossible to counter this character assassination quickly. They dump this crap all over him, and it will take quite a bit of work to clean it up.

What is missing with these mindless, lazy catalogs of faults is the real human being—only a botched caricature remains. Lost to history is any real sense of his personality and his humanity, or that he even had good traits at all (beyond musical genius, which everyone acknowledges). Let me do a full reverse and just give you an introductory paragraph with only mentioning things I consider positive (and all this is true, unlike some of the items in the quotes above):

Wagner was a well-read intellectual, profoundly interested in the world of ideas and the arts. Beyond being a composer, he was an activist, an author of multiple essays and books, an influential conductor and theatrical director. He was a passionate and charismatic man, with extraordinary vitality. Wagner was fun-loving and possessed a keen sense of humor, particularly reveling in word play and black humor. His tremendous love of nature led to an on-going concern for the degradation of the environment brought about through the excesses of capitalism, which was one of the most important themes of his monumental work, Der Ring des Nibelungen. He loved animals and crusaded against their mistreatment throughout his life. His greatest gift to humanity, no doubt, is that he was a focused and organized visionary; a man, beyond all else, true to himself and his ideals, and willing to risk all—fame and fortune, health and potential wealth—for his beliefs and his art.

(I drew this summary portrait from many sources but see this, pages 13-15, 23-24, 56-64, 76, 186-190, 263-237; this, pages 79, 85, 86, 138-143; and this.)

I do want to make this general point now: if you read from primary sources (his and others’ letters to or about him, his writings, contemporaries writing about him), Wagner comes off so much better, so much more likable and real, and so much more well-rounded than in virtually all short accounts, even the relatively fair ones (of which the Wikipedia entry is the only example I have found). This monster they have constructed is just not the authentic person. If you want to know the real guy, there is a great book that does that called Wagner Remembered (also cited above). It is excerpts from letters or memoires from a number people who knew or met him, the gamut of voices runs from Queen Victoria to one of Wagner servants. You get a real idea of his strengths and his weaknesses like no where else.

Of course, many people do not care at all about any composer’s character when they listen to his or her music. It’s irrelevant to them. In most cases, I share that feeling. But with Wagner, I do think it is relevant. First, many people do not divorce his character from his music. If I say I like Wagner, they often respond with something inane like this, “How can you like him? Wasn’t he a Nazi?” But if I say, “I love Richard Rogers' music” no one says, “but wasn’t he a rather cold man who was a depressed alcoholic and often unfaithful to his wife?”  (All of that was true but I really don't care, of course.) The rules are different for Wagner, so the character question must be addressed.

A significant reason that the rules are different for Wagner is that he was different from other composers, and so there is some logic that he be treated differently. For Wagner, his music was political. He absolutely believed that art should be—his art was intended to be— a means for social change, setting down his views in a series of essays such as Art and Revolution, Opera and Drama, and The Artwork of the Future. His art sprang from his deeply held convictions, and it is virtually impossible to divide his character from his work. So, he himself invited the character discussion.

Consider this the introduction to the section of this blog about his character. I will be covering the good, the bad and the ugly of Wagner’s temperament and political views in a number of subsequent posts. Plus, I will be addressing how Wagner’s reputation got into the fix it is. I think the next post will be on the first thing you would notice if you were at a cocktail party with him: his remarkable megalomania.

Wagner's Musical Effects 4: Loud, Long, and Boring?

The title of this post is the reputation of Wagner's music, and if you change the middle phrase to longwinded, of the composer himself. I will leave the latter to the posts about his character, but I will take up the issues of his music here.

His reputation in one graphic by André Gill, 1869:
his music assaults the ear.

Loud

At this point in time, this reputation is a quite silly on the musical front. In the age of rock and roll, his music cannot be considered particularly loud. And, unlike rock, the musical peaks in orchestral music—including Wagner—are relatively short compared to the consistently high decibel levels at a rock concert. I always use ear plugs at rock concerts and have never felt the need at Wagner operas.  (Though for orchestral players, there is a real problem with the decibel level of the modern orchestras, and Wagner is but one who contributes to that problem.)

The most salient fact is that his music has, like most orchestral music, a very wide dynamic range. Anyone who thinks Wagner is just boomingly loud ought to listen to him in a car, where his music is often maddeningly soft and impossible to hear. It's true that compared to many earlier composers, Wagner's orchestra is much bigger, ergo louder, when he writes a forte. That said, it was Beethoven who expanded the orchestra greatly, and Wagner just followed in that path, as did the vast majority of composers after Beethoven. In fact, the modern orchestra has continued to expanded past Wagner's peaks. So, yes, he and many others can, indeed, be fortississimo. To say that he is particularly so is just nonsense if you base your comparison on composers who came after him.

I think a perfect example of Wagner's musical dynamic range is Siegfried's Funeral March. He may have crescendos that go as loud, but surely none louder (from 6:19-6:40 in the excerpt).  The piece—and this pattern is typical for Wagner's music— starts very quietly, builds and creates a small, but booming, peak, then pulls back. This is repeated until he finally builds to a towering climax, and then resolves quietly. You be the judge if it is “too loud.”  Personally, I love it!

All that said, many do feel that Wagner's music, particularly the singing, assaults their ears, even if it isn't related to decibel level. In a truly wonderful Mark Twain essay from 1891 entitled “The Shrine of St. Wagner”—the shrine being Bayreuth, Wagner's summer music festival— he makes that case, with Parsifal as the object of derision:

The entire overture, long as it was, was played to a dark house with the curtain down. It was exquisite; it was delicious. But straightway thereafter, of course, came the singing, and it does seem to me that nothing can make a Wagner opera absolutely perfect and satisfactory to the untutored but to leave out the vocal parts.

Later Twain goes into some depth on the subject of the singing:

I trust that I know as well as anybody that singing is one of the most entrancing and bewitching and moving and eloquent of all the vehicles invented by man for the conveying of feeling; but it seems to me that the chief virtue in song is melody, air, tune, rhythm, or what you please to call it, and that when this feature is absent what remains is a picture with the color left out. I was not able to detect in the vocal parts of ‘Parsifal’ anything that might with confidence be called rhythm or tune or melody; one person performed at a time—and a long time, too—often in a noble, and always in a high-toned, voice; but he only pulled out long notes, then some short notes, then another long one, then a sharp, quick, peremptory bark or two—and so on and on...If two of them would but put in a duet occasionally and blend the voices; but no, they don't do that. The great master, who knew so well how to make a hundred instruments rejoice in unison and pour out their souls in mingled and melodious tides of delicious sound, deals only in barren solos when he puts in the vocal parts.

What Twain doesn't appreciate is that Wagner uses the voice as a part of the orchestra, much as when a jazz singer scats, her voice becomes part of the ensemble. Twain clearly heard and loved the orchestral music underneath the singing, but was not comfortable with this use of the voice on that initial hearing of the opera. However, he changed his tune by the end of the week at Bayreuth:

I have seen my last two operas... I was supposing that my musical regeneration was accomplished and perfected, because I enjoyed both of these operas, singing and all, and, moreover, one of them was ‘Parsifal.’

Twain, of course, lived in an era in which their were no subtitles, so much of the drama was lost on him. As well, this sort of opera, with continuous music and without the set-pieces de rigueur in opera to this point, was still quite foreign. The reaction to Wagner's music then is much like the reaction of many—my parents for instance— to rock n' roll: it's just noise, and there is no melody. Clearly, with any musical development, to enjoy it one must have an open mind, and gain an ear. I think it is clear that Twain was well on his way to becoming a Wagnerian.

Long

The reputation of Wagner's operas as being long is but an extension of the belief that operas in general are long. However, since operatic lengths vary widely, this is clearly not always the case. Many operas, including Wagner's two shortest (both about 2 ½ hours), The Flying Dutchman and Das Rhinegold are, in fact, shorter than many theatrical productions, concerts and sporting events and, increasingly, movies. For instance, this year, The Hobbit, Les Misérables and Zero Dark 30 were all longer than many operas, including those two by Wagner.

However, the fact is that, in general, Wagner wrote longer operas than most composers, so they are long relative to the standard opera, and long relative to most events with audiences. His longest opera, which is also the longest in the standard opera repertoire, is Die Meistersinger, which is about 4 ½ hours without intermissions.

So, objectively, I concur that they are long. But the feeling of time is subjective. And, to me, when absorbed by Wagner's music dramas, time seems to stand still as I am completely in the moment, and yet when it is over, hours have gone by and I have barely noticed. The conductor Daniel Barenboim makes the same point here about music:

If you are really able to concentrate totally on it, to grab the sound and hold onto it...and if you stay fully attached to the sounds as they develop, as they unfold, you are basically coming out of time. You must be able to do it with all your faculties, physical and psychic, with total concentration. And suddenly, Beethoven's Fifth Symphony takes 33 minutes, and for those 33 minutes you are out of physical reality. Music gives you the physical and metaphysical possibility of totally detaching yourself from the world.

This is why, in 1986, I happily stood to see Die Meistersinger two times in San Francisco, and then flew across the country to see it—again standing—two more times in New York that season. I was entranced all four times, and my feet didn't even notice. However, I remember going to the Mozart opera, Cosi Fan Tutte (three hours with intermissions), around the same time and feeling it was interminable. I kept busily shifting my feet from side to side to create more physical comfort, and was thrilled when the ordeal was over.

When enthralled by one's passion, it is a common experience for time to seem to fly. Did fans of The Lord of the Rings resist the extended version? No, they did not. They were thrilled by more of it! That's the way I think of Wagner's music. Could I hear the extended version, maestro? That said, I don't think you need to be enthralled to be perfectly content at Wagner's operas. You just need to watch, listen and be open to it as a music drama. And eat a snack and use the restroom between acts. I would suggest a matinée.

Boring

[Parsifal] is an opera that begins at five-thirty. Three hours later you look at your watch. And it's only twenty to six. (Attributed to critic George Jean Nathan here, page 377.)

Of course, time crawls when something is considered a drudge. Like factory work.  Like a hated class.  Clearly this is completely subjective, and certainly can be related to the length, but also to expectation. If you are sure you won't like something, then that is much more likely to be the case. And the longer the thing goes on, the more boring you are apt to find it. So if you are dragged to a Wagner opera with such expectations, the chances are your expectations will come true: it will be boring.

There are three sorts of Wagner listeners:

1. Those who think, or assume, he is loud, long and boring and avoid his works. Many of those people, of course, have barely listened, knowing his work only through popular culture. If they are convinced to try a opera of his, trust me, they will not like it.
2. Those who have listened and do appreciate him in limited amounts. Rossini speaks for these people with his famous quote: “Monsieur Wagner a de beaux moments, mais de mauvais quart d'heures.” (English translation: Monsieur Wagner has some good moments, but some bad quarter of hours. By the way, it is usually translated as “awful quarter of hours!”, which is the translator inserting editorial content via a word change and added exclamation point.  My French professor—and Leslie's sister—confirms that this isn't a translation that should be made.) Those “bad quarter of hours” were in reference to the Wagner monologues—or, occasionally, duologues—that are at the emotional heart of his music dramas, as I described in my three musical effects posts, particularly this one.
3. The folks who love Wagner’s rich and beautiful orchestration—“the good moments”—but also the deep emotions that come only from opening your heart to those “bad quarter of hours.” The conductor James Levine was asked about these monologues: “I'm crazy about them. I can always feel, as the orchestra settles down and Woton begins the monologue in the second act of Walküre, you can hear all the people who were dragged to the performances turning off and all the Wagnerites turning on.”

In sum: for Wagner’s music, whether you consider the music assaultive or enriching, whether time crawls or flies, whether you are enthralled or bored, it’s all about your perspective. Obviously, to me, it is none of those.

Wagner's Musical Effects, Part 3: Ecstasy

Below is a picture capturing the moment Phil Mickelson–after a decade of trying–finally broke through and won a major at the 2004 Master's tournament. 

I love this picture as it clearly captures not only the ecstasy Phil felt, but also that of the entire crowd. They were feeling exactly what Phil was feeling at that moment in time—magnificent relief and pure unadulterated joy. It was such a wonderful moment. I'm not even a fan, but I did at home exactly what everyone else did at the tournament—which was to throw up my arms and yell “yes!”—because he had been denied this victory for such a long time.

His moniker, until this defining moment, was “the best golfer to never win a major.”  I am quite sure that everyone in Boston did the exact same thing when the Red Sox finally broke the curse—also in 2004—and won the World Series after 86 years. 

The euphoric payoff is certainly one of the big reasons, if not the key reason, people love to watch sports. The payoff is particularly sweet coming after a long streak of denial, after agony. If Phil had won a major much earlier in his career, he might have looked the same in the photo, but the audience wouldn't have. There would have been disappointed fans of Ernie Els, for instance, whom he defeated by a stroke. Some might have shrugged, or clapped politely, but not everyone would have been united in joy as they were here.

So what does this have to do with Wagner? As I described in my last post, Wagner has a unique ability to create an empathetic connection to his characters. While true of agonized grief (like in my King Marke example last post) and a myriad of other emotions, it is particularly true of ecstasy. He is a master at developing the feeling of bliss. In my initial chapter on Wagner's musical effects, I quoted various people saying they felt “uplifted,” “besotted” and “enraptured” by listening to his music. This effect is the reason; when a character feels euphoria, we Wagnerians do also. While we politely stay in our seats during Wagner's many rapturous moments, in our heads we are throwing up our hands up and soaring into the heavens. This is the crack that makes people come back repeatedly to Wagner.

I will give excerpts, but I must warn you that without the build-up, the release doesn't really work the same, anymore than Mickelson's putt in the 2004 Master's would have worked to create the crowd euphoria without build up of frustration. True ecstasy needs agony or it just doesn't have that feeling of divine relief and release.

Wagner had a masterful ability to slowly build a drama, sustaining and intensifying suspense, towards a rapturous climax, or multiple climaxes, as is evident in Tristan and Isolde—the supreme example of this being the finale of the opera, “The Liebestod.”  (Here with Birget Nillson.) This ability to build towards an ecstatic release is striking in all of his mature works.

I don't want to imply that the build-up to the climax is somehow simply in service to this effect, and not extraordinary itself. For instance, at the beginning of Die Walkure, Siegmund meets Sieglinde and they fall in love. A universal story, but the manner in which is is done is “a masterpiece of rhapsodic melody joined to a tight plan of steadily rising tension released in successive climaxes as the two are drawn to each other and reveal their pasts.” (Quoted from here.) Exactly so. The journey to the moment of them proclaiming their love is enthralling in and of itself, the various peaks just making it more so. Here is Sieglinde (sung by Jessye Norman) declaring her love for Siegmund, which comes about an hour after the gorgeous orchestral music has already made us feel what is in her heart.

Of course, one of the reasons he was successful in creating his emotional effects is that he had the ability to write melodies perfect for the emotional moment, and that is particularly true of euphoria. As an example, listen to this music from Die Walküre that begins at 1:25. Build-up or no, it always sends ripples of elation through me. (The subtitles are in German so, without recapitulating too much of the story, the gist is that Brünnhilde, who has just saved Sieglinde from the wrath of Woton, is telling her that she is pregnant with the destined-for-heroic Siegfried. Sieglinde responds by singing of her tremendous veneration of and gratitude to Brünnhilde. This clip is with Hildegard Behrens and Jessye Norman.)

Wagnerians have been trying for over 150 years to explain the whys and the hows, as well as the mere fact of the incredible feelings one can get from listening to Wagner's music. This and the two posts before were my stab at it, and quite inadequate I am sure. Truly, it is ineffable.  But let me summarize by quoting my favorite Wagner author, Bryan Magee, from his outstanding book, The Tristan Chord:

Music of this greatness is a directly felt experience as profound as any that it is possible for us to have.

That's it in a nutshell.

I can guess what some may be thinking at this point: If Wagner is so damn good, how come his reputation is that his music is loud, long and boring? That's the subject of the next post.

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End notes

I always have things to say that are off-point. So I am going to add this section to my posts to round those up.

• I hope Phil Mickelson loses badly from now on. I hate whiny, rich guys.  As a Californian, all I can say is good riddance. 
  
  
• Our dog, Ziggy, is named after Sieglinde from Die Walküre and does respond to her full name. We didn't spell it Siegy because no one would know how to pronounce it.
  
  
• I had found my musical examples for this post by just trolling through Youtube, seeing who had a version I liked. I had never heard Jessye Norman sing any Wagner, but thought she did a great job with these musical moments. While I was working on this post, Leslie was shopping. About an hour after I found those clips, she came home with a VHS collection of a New York Met Der Ring des Nibelungen for $8 from the Goodwill with Jessye Norman as Sieglinde (the same one as the two clips). Cool happenstance.

Musical Effects, part 2: Mind-meld

All operas aim to give expression to profound human emotions and feelings. Traditionally, the emotions of opera were primarily contained in the musical set-pieces, such as the aria. Typically, arias expressed just one or, sometimes, two central emotions, as in most popular song. If two emotions were displayed, the singer would generally go from, say, love to anger and back again, with different music for the love and anger portions. If the musical set-piece was multi-part, such as a trio or quintet, then each character would sing their particular point of view and emotion, and in that way conflicting emotions could be overlapped. These set-pieces often seemed to virtually stop time and forward momentum to give a chance for the singer or singers to (emotionally) comment on what was going on.

Wagner, on the other hand, by using completely different dramatic and musical techniques, is able to show human emotion in a more natural and complex way. Essentially, he uses a musical stream of consciousness, via ever forward, developing melody. (The literary stream of consciousness movement came directly from Wagner, but that will be a much later post.) Through both the voice and the orchestra, he is able to really pierce the emotional mind of his characters, and so the listener experiences their thoughts in a way that feels extraordinarily true to life. To create the most compelling and moving effects, he put his characters repeatedly in highly charged emotional situations, often on one of the most pivotal days of that person's life—often a wretched day, sometimes a peak moment, occasionally both. At its best, it can feel like a veritable mind-meld, a kind of super empathy. (This effect is particularly accentuated and strengthen by hallucinogens, as the ego is weakened in this state so the boundaries of me/other are much more fluid.) To me, this aspect of Wagner is just as important, maybe even more so, than the leitmotif technique.

Here is a concrete example from Tristan and Isolde of “King Marke's lament.” (Please ignore the set and costumes; that is what is known as "eurotrash.") Or, for another version but with Spanish subtitles, King Marke is sung by the great Rene Papé: part 1 and part 2.

To set the scene of this example: Tristan has brought Isolde—at Tristan's insistence—from Ireland  to marry his mentor and closest friend, King Marke of Cornwall. But soon after the voyage, Marke, through the machinations of Tristan's "friend," Melot, finds Tristan and Isolde in delicto flagrante. These alternate clips takes up at that point.

Marke is devastated by this betrayal and sings through his torment, expressing why it is so inexplicable to him. The orchestra underpins and emphasizes the emotional truth behind his lyrics, showing the changing tumult of feelings. He begins with utter shock and sadness and a hint of anger. Music of great tenderness plays underneath his words as he questions how this could possibly come about given what he and Tristan have meant to each other. When addressing the issue of the arranged marriage to Isolde, music of yearning and frustration along with woe develops. Eventually, his anguish turns to anger and bitterness and self-pity, even a touch of madness, but soon pulls back to incredulity and sadness. The tender music reemerges, showing the depth of his love for Tristan and, finally, a return to just utter disconsolation.

King Marke has feelings he simply does not know what to do with. Most people have had such feelings of agonized grief. It's that feeling that you just want to die; life feels unbearable at that moment in time. Wagner brings you to a place—for those who give him a chance—where you can actually feel Marke's pain as your own. True empathy.

I picked this example not because it is considered a celebrated excerpt; it is not. Rather, even some Wagnerians consider it fairly dull (particularly compared with the fireworks of most of Tristan and Isolde). I, however, cannot listen to this “boring” piece without crying, as it brings me emotionally back to moments of tormented grief when I was likewise hurt, seemingly inexplicably, by someone I loved.

This piece is Marke's first entry on the stage and it is very easy to understand his emotions but, also, to take the measure of the man. You understand that he is at the darkest moment of his life, and—though he has the power to exact revenge and is encouraged to do so by Melot—the only thing he truly seeks is understanding. Though he is angry, and for a few moments close to crazy, what really comes through is that he is a kind and compassionate man who is simply tormented by trying to make sense of “the deep reason” for Tristan's betrayal.

In those 15 minutes, I learn far more about King Marke than I ever learn about, say, Rodolfo in La Boheme or countless other opera characters. And so it goes for most Wagner characters—his techniques lead to much more complex character development, and much more empathy, than is possible in most of opera.

So why do I like this feeling of super-empathy? I believe the feeling of empathy is the bedrock of morality. An empathic connection to one individual leads directly to both understanding and compassion for all people in similar situations. It isn't quite, to quote Madame de Stael, savoir tout c'est tout pardonner ( to know all is to forgive all), but empathy opens one's heart and that leads to compassion, and often, forgiveness. In King Marke's case, if he could have understood what was in Tristan's heart, the empathy would have been healing to him. Instead, he is in torment. 

Okay, so King Marke had a very bad day. What about somebody who has had an extremely good day? That's the subject of the next blog: Wagner and ecstasy.

Musical effects, Part 1: Intro and leitmotifs

To me, music is the language of emotion, and Wagner was the master of that language. Other composers make me feel deeply, of course, but neither to the extent nor the degree that Wagner does. When I am one with his music—that is, really listening and feeling, and not worrying about anything but the moment—I regularly experience the deepest and most intimate emotions that I am capable of feeling, from the heights of ecstasy to the depths of seemingly unbearable pain.

I am certainly not the only one to feel intense emotions when listening to Wagner.

For instance, Baudelaire, in writing a fan letter to Wagner, said his music was "rapt and enthralling, something aspiring to mount higher, something excessive and superlative... the supreme utterance of a soul at its highest paroxysm."  (By the way, open that last link for a head scratcher.  I have no idea what bluegrass music has to do with that letter.  Speaking of links, I don't have some for things I quote here, but I can get you to the source material if anyone ever wants something.)

Galina Gorchavova, a current soprano, says this in Diva, the Next Generation: "I am besotted.... there's something heavenly in that music. When I listen to it I feel as if transformed, uplifted. I fly somewhere with it. And the experience is very difficult for me describe in words." 

Hugo Wolf upon hearing Parsifal said "my whole being reels in the perfect world of this wonderful work, as if some blissful ecstasy, becoming ever more enraptured and blessed."

Thomas Mann describes the effects of Wagner's music as: "delicious, sensual-pernicious, sensual-consuming, heavily intoxicating, hypnotically caressing."

Bryan Magee, in his excellent short book, Aspects of Wagner, has a chapter devoted to why Wagner has such a devoted following (and, equally, why some are repelled by the music). He sums up his thesis this way:

My central contention, then, is that Wagner's music expresses, as does no other art, repressed and highly charged contents of the psyche, and that this is the reason for its uniquely disturbing effect. To make a Freudian pun, it gets past the Censor. Some people are made to feel by it that they are in touch with the depths of their own personalities for the first time. The feeling of a wholeness yet unboundedness—hence, I suppose, its frequent comparison with mystical or religious experience. 

Others think listening to his music is like a drug experience. Susan Sontag in her essay "Wagner's Fluids" writes: “It was observed from the beginning that listening to Wagner had an effect similar to consuming psychotropic drug: opium, said Baudelaire; alcohol [ed note: and hashish] said Nietzsche.”

David Bullard, a former columnist for the Sunday Times of South Africa, put it this way: “the incredible power of [his] music to replicate some of the more pleasant effects of drugs or alcohol, but none of the side effects, is only really appreciated by those who have experienced it...Rather as some might pop a mood-enhancing pill, I am now able to select a piece [of Wagner's music] knowing it will have the desired effect, which is probably why I appear to be on a permanent high to many people.” [From his column, "Out to Lunch,"May 18, 2003.]

And, according to one well-known acidhead, Christian Rätsch, “Listening to the Der Ring des Niebelungen is the closest thing to being on acid when you are not on acid, but Richard Wagner is the greatest on acid.” 

Magee also notes that it is therapeutic to some:

This music does for some people what psychoanalysis claims to do for others; it releases radioactive material from the depths of the personality and confronts them with it and makes them feel it and live it through. It also relates all this inner feeling harmoniously to an outer reality. It can thus help people be at one with both their inner selves and the external world: so in a sense it the most whole-making, the most therapeutic art. 

So just what is it about Wagner's music?

Normally, operas were written to highlight the singers via their arias and other set-pieces like duets, trios, etc. In between these pieces, in earlier days, a harpsichord accompanied what is called recitative (which is sung, but patterned after every day speech). The set-pieces had the emotion and the beautiful singing; the recitative carried the plot.  By Wagner's day, orchestras had generally replaced the harpsichord, and there was more emphasis on the dramatic content throughout, but the focus on show-stopping "numbers" was still at the heart of opera. Wagner upended this relationship as he felt that the music must be in service to the drama and not that the drama existed for these numbers. To underscore that he was doing something very different, he termed his work "music drama." (Sorry, Richard, but I will refer to them interchangeably as operas or music dramas.)

Of his ten operas that are in the repertoire,  Wagner set all but one in a mythical context. Bryan Magee summarizes what he was attempting to do with his music drama:

It would be about the insides of the characters. It would be concerned with their emotions, not their motives. It would explore and articulate the ultimate reality of experience, what goes on in heart and soul... In this kind of drama the externals of plot and social relationships would be reduced to a minimum... Myth was ideal for this, because it dealt with archetypical situations and because its universal validity, regardless of time and place, meant that the dramatist could almost dispense with the social and political context and present, as it were 'pure', the inner drama. 

To achieve this, instead of music frequently interrupted by time-stopping arias or other set-pieces like duets, trios, and chorus numbers, Wagner generally wrote continuous, ever-changing and developing music with the aim to express the deep emotions of the characters. The voice served as the characters' conscious thoughts; the orchestra provided the deeper emotional underpinnings, the unconscious or the repressed. 

The music has no conventional structure, which made it quite revolutionary in its time. One of the leading critics of the day, Eduard Hanslick, said, “Wagner's most recent reform does not represent an enrichment...it is, on the contrary, a distortion, a perversion... One could say of this tone poetry: there is music in it, but it is not music.” [Quoted from the Wagner Companion, at 199.] To Hector Berlioz, it was “raucous noise, the abolition of melody, arias, duets, simple harmony, singable roles and so forth.”

There was a huge debate during his time, and it remains to this day, about Wagner's musical structure. Now, I don't give a damn about this debate:  If it is bad structure but I love it, then structure be damned. If there truly is a marvelous structure that just hasn't been appreciated by some musicologists, that's fine too. These sorts of academic debates seem very silly to me.

Anyway, Wagner defenders have landed principally on one of the key aspects of his “endless music,” the leitmotif, to explain the structure. This is, in essence, a short phrase of music associated with something. It could be a person, a thing, a concept or a feeling. Audiences from my generation likely know it at its most simple form from Peter and the Wolf, where each animal has a tune on an instrument. But people now know of leitmotifs in the Wagnerian mode principally from movie music, such as the Star Wars and Lord of the Rings soundtracks.

Wagner himself didn't like the term and called them “motifs of memory,” which works well. One of leading expert of Wagner's system, Derek Cooke, called them “melodic moments of feeling,” which also works.  Cooke put together this analysis (originally for the BBC) with musical examples on the principal motifs and their development. It is  both easy to listen to and yet extraordinarily complex if you are interested in Wagner's system. And here is a fun video from the '90s with Hugh Downs as the host that is a simple primer on Wagner's use of leitmotifs.  If you want to explore the motifs of The Ring, this is a good site. While they existed before Wagner, he certainly used them in a unprecedented, and much more thoroughgoing, way than anyone before him.

Generally, I pay no conscious attention to leitmotifs when I listen to his music (or, for that matter, when I watch Star Wars or The Lord of the Rings). I prefer to let the music wash over me and merely feel, and that works just fine. Wagner's intent, in fact, was that the music work on a non-conscious level, and indeed it does. While I now “know” several of his leitmotifs, they were just absorbed via listening in a emotional, not intellectual, way.  In a 1903 essay by Camille Saint-Saens on Wagner's music, “The Composer as Psychologist,” he describes Wagner's system like this:

Music takes up where speech leaves off, it utters the ineffable, makes us discover in ourselves depths we had not suspected, conveys impressions and states of beings that no words can render. With his ingenious system of leitmotivs (ugly word!), Wagner has extended still farther the reach of musical expressiveness by making clear the secret thoughts of his characters beneath and beyond the words they speak. Take a very simple example, chosen from among a thousand: Tristan asks, “Where are we?” Isolde replies, “Near the goal,” but the music is that which previously accompanied the words, “head destined for death,” which she whispered while gazing at Tristan. The listener understand at once what “goal” she has in mind.

If you read any primer on Wagner's music, you will note that people like Cooke have named his leitmotifs, principally so they can analyze and comment upon them.  Wagner didn't like the leitmotif labeling and refused to do it—his wife Cosima quotes him as saying it was “nonsense” (on 8/1/81).  Indeed, labeling does cause a problem. It tends to reify the music in a very unhelpful way. If you are actually trying to recognize them, or even more so trying to figure out why the one called, for example, "sword of manhood" is being played at a particular moment, that process removes your attention from feeling the music.  Since Wagner considered that the essence of drama was “knowing through feeling,” anything that detracted from that was a negative to him. 

It is very true that there is a Pavlovian dog quality to listening to Wagner's music repetitively, which is why people keep coming back for their treat. Listening to the “motifs of memory” that now have deep resonance to both the story and to my life is a short-cut to activating those intense emotions. Talk about mood music! If I want to feel euphoric or have a good cry or feel deep compassion, I know just which pieces would give me those rewards.

Just because a composer writes leitmotifs doesn't mean, of course, that they work as intended. But Wagner was extraordinarily good at writing music that created the emotions that he wanted his audience to feel.  As noted in the Saint-Saens example above, when that incident happens, the music—whether you remember it consciously or not—does tell you Isolde wants death. The motif itself is dark and ominous. You know immediately the "goal," not through intellect, but through emotional reaction to the music. Whether you consciously recognize it or not, the feeling will be there. The listener might feel more resonance if it—the earlier use of the motif—has already lodged in memory, whether conscious or not. Certainly, if a piece of music is particularly emotional to you and it is later woven into the score, that feeling does reemerge, and often very strongly. The emotional reaction to Wagner's music tends to increase over time as repeated listening reveal ever greater depths of feelings as you relive the musical memories and make seemingly endless connections, both within the story and, reaching out of the story, to your own life.

To continue the Pavlov analogy, here (at 4:48-5:30ish) is one of my favorite musical treats, which always affects me whenever the motif shows up through the rest of the Ring Cycle. It is the initial leitmotif of the music associated with the love of Sieglende (our dog Ziggy's namesake) and Siegmund, from the first act of Die Walküre. 

I have more to say about how Wagner achieves his musical effect, but right now I have to get back to building my roof. So let me just give a brief preview of the next post:

What is extraordinary to me about Wagner's music is that he really takes you inside a person's head emotionally for an extended length of time. I will write about how he achieves this, with an example from his opera Tristan and Islolde.

And, finally, just a note for those who have never listened to Wagner. It's an extraordinary gift he has, but it does require putting in the time to really listen to his music with attention and, to really get much out of it, listening several times to the same opera. For many people, this isn't what they want from music. They might want beautiful music to relax to or fun music to sing along with or rhythmic music to dance to, and on and on.  Wagner's operas are not a casual listening experience. (I have tried to put the operas on in the background but I find myself yelling to the CD:  "Would you just shut the hell up, Brunhilde!" Or the like...)  However, he did write beautiful orchestral music, and it is quite possible to listen much more casually to his music. For those people who are interested in hearing Wagner but really don't want the opera experience (at least yet), try an excerpt album, like this one.  For actually getting a feel for the full opera to see if it might be to your taste, there is a series by the Dutch conductor Edo de Waart, who essentially creates orchestra “suites” from four of Wagner's operas: The Ring, Parsifal, Meistersinger and, my favorite of the four "suites," Tristan and Isolde. (You must ignore the cover art on the CDs!) These are ways you can put on some Wagner in the background and get a sense of the music without commiting to a four or five hour opera.

Opera and LSD

A note about musical links: I will try to find a version with English subtitles for all my opera links. There may be versions I like better musically, but for someone new to opera, I think the words are very helpful. 

Brief personal history of how opera came into my life:

Neither my parents nor my peers listened to classical music or opera so I never really got a taste for it, until recently. The closest I got to opera is that my parents liked musicals and would take us kids to see them on occasion. I listened to rock n' roll and folk music, and that was pretty much it into my thirties, after which my partner Leslie added Frank, Ella and the like to broaden my tastes.

When our friend Lisa asked us if we wanted some tickets to the SF Opera, we said yes, but not with high expectations. Just for the experience of “going to the opera.” This was 1989, soon after our big earthquake. (A huge net that was strung from the ceiling at the opera house protected us from concrete dropping on our heads. And, yes, there were several chunks in the net.) The tickets were for Madame Butterfly, Puccini's tragic opera about—and this is my take, not the normal encapsulation—a delusional Japanese geisha who thinks that her married-her-only-for-sex American military husband, gone three years, will return for her. When she learns the truth, she kills herself.  This is the most famous (and beautiful) song from the opera, centered on her delusion. 

I had suspected that I would be bored during the opera, as I often was listening to classical music. And, in some parts, I was. Plus I couldn't really hear the soprano. But at the end, I cried. I like to cry, so that was a big plus. I wouldn't say I had become a big fan, but I was willing to do it again. 

Two years later, Lisa offered us tickets to Carmen. (Thanks, Lisa!!) It's the story of a passionate Gypsy woman who makes clear to men—like here—that she is both a free agent in love and not a good bet for long-term commitment. Because he can't keep her, one lover, Don Jose, kills her. (Yes, many operas end with deaths. "It's not over until the fat lady dies singing" should really be the saying.)

I truly enjoyed the opera, finding Carmen's fatalistic tragedy moving. Many of the arias were familiar—mostly because of their frequent use in commercials like this or in movies like this—and that was a plus, but I also liked the whole production, the story, and was never bored. (The date was October 20, 1991, which I can remember because, from the balcony at intermission we saw a far more devastating and real tragedy developing across the bay: the Oakland firestorm, which claimed the lives of 25 people.)

Leslie happened to have a excerpt album of Carmen, so I began to listen to it, a lot. I wasn't up for listening to the full opera, but I certainly liked listening to the “hits,” such as the Seguidilla.

Or the always fun Toreador song (here performed in a flashmob—there are no subtitles, but the singer is bragging about his skills as a matador. Bizet, the composer, made up the term toreador, because it scanned better with the music than the word matador).

Opera met acid sometime in 1994. We had some tabs that a friend had given us years before though we rarely dropped at this point in our lives. But I thought it would be fun to take LSD and listen to a variety of music. I was alone that day and totally enjoyed playing DJ for myself. The highlight of the day was the excerpt album of Carmen with the Jetson's theme song a distant second. "Meet George Jetson" was great fun, but the opera was awesome.

Several years later, I bought a full version of Carmen on LP (used, for $5) with Anna Moffo as the lead, and decided to listen to the entire opera while on LSD. OMG! It was a revelation and turned my life in a new direction. I had closed my eyes while listening to most of it, and through the power of the music and the drug, I went into a sort of super-empathic state enhanced by a process of personal and historical intertwining in my imagination. It was an all-consuming experience. To say it was the most satisfying artistic experience of my life is to vastly understate. Nothing ever had come close to this before. Wow. 

I wanted more.

Well, that started me down the path to find more operas and repeat this experience with different stories and composers. But I had no idea what I might like. I started buying up second-hand operas (Tosca, La Boheme, and La Traviata were the first three).

The next time I took acid, I listened to bits of those operas and a variety of classical music Leslie had on hand: Beethoven, Bach, Mozart and—the acid winner for me, by a long shot—Debussy. I immediately bought his one opera, Pelleas and Melisande, the first I purchased at retail prices. It's a great opera, but certainly not considered a beginner's opera as it is musically complex without arias. But acid is a short-cut to appreciation for musical complexity, so that was certainly not the case for me.

Since this blog is called Wagner Tripping, I guess it would be best to cut to the chase. Wagner entered my life via Opera for Dummies. The book came with a CD of excerpts of various operas with annotations. Track number nine was the Leibestod, from Wagner's Tristan and Isolde.  (I did not try to find a link with subtitles because I think it is far better to listen with your eyes closed, though the soprano here, Waltrud Meier, is riveting to watch.)  The first time I listened to this CD I was on acid. I had no idea what Isolde was singing about at the time, but it was clear she was becoming very aroused and then had an orgasm, and I was right there with her. My body responded involuntarily to this deeply erotic work.  And the music was simply gorgeous.  (I wrote about Wagner's Erotics here.)  

Once again, I wanted more. I rushed out to buy the full Tristan and Isolde, and planned my next opera trip around it. 

When I did listen: If Carmen was, on my personal Richter scale, a 7.5, Wagner's opera was a 9. Many say that Wagner isn't a good choice for the opera beginner, but I beg to differ.  It was love at first listen.

LSD Musical Effects (and why opera is a particularly good medium for experiencing them):

My instant infatuation with opera is similar to this psychotherapist's experience with his patients who used LSD with music as part of his therapy: 

A number of our patients, who were alcoholics and heroin addicts with poor educational background, developed such deep interest in classical music as a result of their one LSD session that they decided to use their meager financial resources for buying a stereo set and starting a record collection of their own.

I think it is quite obvious that music affects our emotions profoundly—just google “emotional response music” for ample scientific confirmation. Now add acid and, as one academic paper puts it, “the ability of music to release emotion is greatly amplified by the use of a psychedelic drug, which allows the listener to project his personal experiences and visual fantasies into the unfolding experience.” Exactly my experience.

Further, studies (like this one) have shown that closing your eyes and listening to music provides an increased emotion experience. And, indeed, I have found that to be the case on or off acid—it helps you narrow your focus and thus concentrate and really let the music in emotionally and intellectually.

If you open your eyes while listening on acid, the visual stimulation often overwhelms the listening experience; it's a distraction. However, it doesn't mean you won't have a visual experience if you close your eyes and listen to music on acid. In fact, it will be richly visual, but just internal. And it will be your imagination with far more vivid imagery than you normally experience. It's like you create your own highly personal movie to go with the soundtrack that you have put on.

All operas aim to give expression to profound human emotions and feelings—of love, rage, jealousy, resentment, envy, compassion, and so forth—through dramatic story-telling. (Even the “comedies” do this, as the main difference between an opera comedy and drama is that no one dies at the end of a comedy.) Other forms of story-telling, such as many novels, TV shows, films, theatre and ballet, also try to do this of course. But none of those other forms work well on acid. It is difficult to read or watch any visual story-telling during a LSD peak due to visual hallucinations and distortions. It's not that it can't be a fun experience, but it doesn't tend to tap the deep emotions that music does.

Listening to any beloved music with eyes closed on acid will be an intensely emotional experience, whether it be rock n' roll, classical, jazz or hip hop. What opera allows is to wed that intense emotional experience to a concrete story with resonance in your life. For me, I greatly prefer operas in which the orchestration is continuous and the music transitions fluidly so that my emotions flow as the music does. A sung-through musical such as Les Miserables would be similar to opera, of course, though for me the rich orchestration and the exquisite vocals of my favorite operas are preferable to most musicals. While I have listened to my favorite musical, West Side Story, on acid, the abrupt beginnings and endings of the soundtrack take me out of the story – "Tonight" followed by "Officer Krumpke" just doesn't cut it. It's just too abrupt and, therefore, emotionally jarring.

Speaking of abrupt, next post: I will finally focus on Wagner and his musical effects.

LSD and me

Background

Quite simply, I found my way to opera and, then, to Wagner through LSD.  And, through opera and Wagner, I found my way to a much greater appreciation and enjoyment of LSD.  Together and intertwined, they constitute the most profound, joyous and transcendent experiences of my life, which is why I am willing to “come out” as a user. But before I launch into the opera/Wagner/LSD experience, I want to set the scene, both about LSD in general and my use in specific. 

I remember the day I learned about acid.  I was watching General Hospital, something I did regularly in the Nurse Jesse Brewer/ Dr. Steve Hardy days, and there was a guy on who had used this drug.  This was 1965, when I was 11. I became intrigued, but I certainly wasn't precocious when it came to drugs.

When I was 16, I went to Altamont, the infamous free Rolling Stones concert in which a man was killed (and I was really near him, and Mick, for that matter—see photo below.) 

The guy circled is the guy the Hell's Angels killed; I am the first person on the right.  You know Mick.

We arrived the evening before and I spent the night snuggling in a sleeping bag with some guy I met there (no sex, really). Now that would have been a place to score LSD, but I hadn't yet had one sip of alcohol or one marijuana puff in my life, so I didn't even consider it. I went to sleep to the sounds of drug barkers roaming the crowds offering “Acid. Mescaline. Grass.”  (Gee, I wonder why mom didn't want me to go?)  

Later on in my high school years, I went to a concert at the Fillmore with a leftist airman that I was sort-of-dating who dropped the drug that night and asked me to do it with him; I declined to partake.

In college, I still wasn't a drinker—I only started drinking in my late 20s—and I hated pot then and now, but I decided to give LSD a try.  I did it stupidly, following none of the sensible guidelines that I advance here.  While it was a mixed experience—at one point, everyone I saw had drooping faces, like Dali clocks, with blood streaming from them—I was very glad I had tried it. (And, by the way, I did know those drooping, bloody faces were hallucinations and it didn't really freak me out, but I still found them unpleasant). I felt a lot like Dorothy did after her visit to Oz:  “Some of it was wasn't very nice, but most of it was beautiful.” Every once in a while over the next 20 years, I would do it when someone offered a hit and I had a day to spare, but it wasn't ever a big thing with me until acid met opera.  But that story will have to wait for a later post.

When acid first became well-known to the general populace, after being used primarily in therapeutic settings for the decades since its discovery in 1938, there was a lot of stupid fear-mongering such as this amusing video, but also a lot of stupid people using the drug carelessly with occasional tragic results.  The result was knee-jerk anti-LSD laws that were rather draconian and stopped fruitful research for many decades. 

I have read and thought a lot about LSD and absolutely advocate that the law be changed so that it can be used therapeutically and for life-enhancement.  Some regulation would be welcome, but prohibition is depriving people who could really use the drug from its help, and preventing its use by people like me who want the self-enhancement the drug clearly can deliver.   We are lucky in Santa Cruz to be home to MAPS, whose vision is “a world where psychedelics and marijuana are safely and legally available for beneficial uses, and where research is governed by rigorous scientific evaluation of their risks and benefits.”  To this end, the institute does research and advocacy. I plan to volunteer for this organization when I return from Hilo in June.

I've always thought that most people with any sort of adventurous spirit—again, see here for exceptions— should take acid at least once in life as it gives you very heightened, and enhanced, senses and a new window to view the world.  It truly is a trip to a place you can't get otherwise—or at least easily.

Through both formal research and real-world use of LSD, the consensus is that the drug experience, and the user’s personal safety, is related to three factors:  set, setting and drug purity/dosage.  See for example—and for detailed information about creating a good set and setting— here. 

“Set” refers to factors within the user, such as expectations, personality, life history, mental stability, etc. “Setting” refers to factors outside the user, such as the place the person takes the drugs, the atmosphere, the people there, etc.  As for drug purity/dosage, generally, it is wise to get it from someone you know who can vouch for it, and then you try it in a small dose first, to test the strength.  

Historically, those who report “bad trips” tend to take the drug carelessly in uncontrolled situations with unfamiliar or, even, hostile people.   Check out this anti-LSD PSA from the ’60s.  While it is funny watching the representation of the murdered hot dog, I believe that it is a true story.  That said, the woman in the PSA was completely unprepared for the drug. Until you are familiar with LSD and yourself on it, it is very important to take all reasonable precautions.

The reason, by the way, that I put “good trip” and “bad trip” in quotes is because many trips can't be so easily categorized.  In my twenties, when I wasn't careful at all about the setting, I often had bad parts of a trip—in particular, feelings of confusion, fear, paranoia and insecurity.  I found that in interacting with people, I often couldn't judge their intent.  They would have an expression that might have been benign or might have indicated “you are such a stupid jerk.”  If I tried to voice my feelings or clarify my fears, it would lead to weird interactions that made me more paranoid. My confusion would lead to shame.  You know that feeling that one gets when caught doing something shameful?  One writer describes it thusly:  

The typical shame response is a heightened degree of arousal and self consciousness. The person in emotional pain averts his eyes and his head goes down. New information is blocked. There is intense discomfort and muscular tension. The body collapses inward to protect the self and there is a shrinking of body energy. The skin may become flushed with embarrassment. There are feelings of inadequacy and the fear of self exposure. The person wants to shrink, hide or even die to get away from the painful feelings of mortification.

Yeah, that description pretty much covers it.  Anyway,  I would get that feeling easily and frequently when I dropped acid. Not fun.

Though many relish interactions with people when high, I discovered that was very hard for me. For a long time, I decided to cut out all confusing human interaction and to just take acid by myself.  I now do take acid with trusted others, but if I ever get that feeling, I just throw on my headphones and listen to music and I am in heaven.

The effects of LSD

The types of effects it has are well-known to users:

·      Our natural tendency to screen out peripheral information is greatly reduced: the sound of a car horn in the distance, a bird chirping, neighbors talking, light coming through a plant highlighting a spider web out of the corner of your eye—all demand or grab your attention in random ways. 

·      On the other hand, you can really focus if you wish.  I wasted some time playing Tetris to test this, and learned two things—I can easily surpass my high score, and playing Testris is a truly stupid way to pass the time on acid.  The most famous example of someone surpassing his previous ability at a game or sport was the no-hitter pitched by Dock Ellis on acid (and, according to this short animated documentary narrated by Dock, he had also popped bennies). 

·      Emotions are greatly heightened, which is one of the most problematic aspects of the drug if the emotion is not a good one. But, of course, it is enthralling if it is a feeling of ecstasy or even merely happiness.

·      All senses are heightened: colors seem more vivid, sounds and sight are more detailed.  When you look at anything it seems to have a greater depth of field, and patterns jump out at you.  Objects undulate, shift around slightly. (The film Waking Life, which is about lucid dreaming, captures this quality better than any other representation I have seen.)  If you think you see things in the clouds when you are in your normal state, you will become an expert on acid.  I especially love looking at wood or stone, particularly as light plays upon them, as whole movies will play out with the changing light. Generally, when you aren't high, you can still see what you saw while high, but not as dynamically as they were before. In the book The Varieties of PsychedelicExperience (you can read the whole book at this link), one person put it this way:  “[one gets] a wonderful awareness of the almost infinite detail that objects will yield up if only one will give them one's attentions.”  (Within the same book, for a particularly good recapitulation of the LSD experience, read pages 11-12, particularly from “Along with this there were torrents of ideas.” The above quote is within those pages.)

·      The relationship to time seems to alter; our internal clock is just not the same.  For instance, a dramatic pause in music seems to last so much longer than it does when I am normally listening. On the other hand, time sometimes seems to speed by. 

·      Aurally, the sound does not distort in the way that it does visually while high, or at least, so it seems.  But in listening to a beloved piece of music, you will have an enlightening experience—the emotional impact is increased as is the ability to hear, and appreciate, complexity.  Here is an article describing the whys of this, again for those who like to know the science.  It is hard to put into words, but you become one with the tempo and the music and, if it's an opera, the drama.

The NIH has issued this explaining the science behind the effects for those interested.

Posted (near) simultaneously: My idiosyncratic LSD rules

Next post: LSD and Opera