Conrad Susa at WSNC

Composer Conrad Susa gave an amusing talk entitled "In Wagner’s Musical Forge: Das Rheingold" on Saturday afternoon. The focus was very much on the music itself, as evidenced by the beginning of the score taped to the wall. Susa played recordings of Bach's F Major Toccata and Beethoven's Piano Concerto No. 5 in E-flat major, and demonstrated how Wagner stole from these composers. He also extolled the virtues of Pythagoras, having proved music mathematically and elevating music to a sublime and divine art. Entertainingly enough, Susa called atonal music inhuman and political.