Wagner

Apart from the Ring cycle, I would also definitely recommend Parsifal, which contains some of Wagner's most sublime and most beautiful music.

Originally Posted by firsty_ferret

What's Wagner's best piece? I once saw the quote "listen to Wagner; if it doesn't put you to sleep, it'll put you into a coma" and from listening to his operatic stuff i must say i agree. Does he do any good orchestral/organ works?

Thanks,

I could be wrong, but I don't think Wagner ever wrote anything for the organ. The concept of an "organ piece" seems sort of anti-Wagnerian to me, in fact. Most of his works, especially his mid to late works (and all of his major works) are programmatic. He wrote a C major symphony as a young Beethovenian, and a handful of early piano sonatas, but nothing of any real note, in my opinion.

His best and most famous purely orchestral work is probably the Siegfried Idyll (which of course is recommended), but most of my favorite Wagner pieces are orchestral excerpts from the operas. There are a lot of Wagner Overtures & Preludes CDs out there: I'd recommend the ones to Tristan, Tannhauser, Rienzi, Parsifal, Meistersinger and Lohengrin especially to start out. The preludes in Der Ring probably beat all these, but they're harder to isolate since they go right into the singing.

Wagner hated it when people listened to only the orchestral excerpts from his operas (like the ride of the walkure for example) because he thought people wouldn't be able to grasp the overarching theme and emotion of his drama.

So after you've listened to the overtures and preludes and got yourself acquainted with Wagner, I would suggest purchasing the whole opera and listen to the whole thing act by act with summary and libretto in front of you. You can even purchase DVDs as well, if you want the visuals.

I think the Flying Dutchman is the best to start with. He wrote Rienzi before, but even he discarded it calling an amature work. Dutchman has alot of influence from Weber's Der Freischutz, which means it's a total german romantic opera. I would leave the ring cycle, tristan, and parsifal to the last because they are probably the most complex and difficult to grasp.