It appears Hitler had quite a few guilty pleasures:
Hitler’s lost music collection reveals ‘forbidden’ Jewish and Russian composers
[QUOTE=carnivorousplant]
I don’t know if Fritz Lang was an anti semite.
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Far from it. Lang’s mother was a Jew, as was his first wife. When the Nazis rose to power, he left Germany (in 1934) for Paris and then the U.S. (abandoning what would have been a lucrative career after his numerous successes). He divorced his second wife, leaving her in Germany, after she became a Nazi party member, and proceeded to make a number of anti-Nazi thrillers in the States: Man Hunt, Hangmen Also Die, Ministry of Fear, Cloak and Dagger. His “Mabuse” films made in Germany were also thinly veiled criticisms of National Socialism.
I find Hitler’s love of Beethoven’s music amusing because Beethoven would’ve detested him and would’ve passed snarky notes about him at the cafe.
Heard a joke a while back: Austria’s greatest triumph was convincing the world that Beethoven was an Austrian and Hitler wasn’t.
[QUOTE=Ludovic]
I got a Wagner tape once but I only listened to it once for several years. Then I listened to it again and thought “Wow! This opera really is very coherent, and has nice subtle themes linking everything together running through it! I can’t believe I didn’t like it originally!”
Then I looked at the tape cover, and it was a best of.
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As Mark Twain said, Wagner has wonderful moments and terrible quarter hours.
[QUOTE=LonesomePolecat]
As Mark Twain said, Wagner has wonderful moments and terrible quarter hours.
[/QUOTE]
Rossini, not Twain.
Originally: M. Wagner a de beaux moments, mais de mauvais quart-d’heures.
[QUOTE=fachverwirrt]
Rossini, not Twain.
Originally: M. Wagner a de beaux moments, mais de mauvais quart-d’heures.
[/QUOTE]
I stand corrected–but it sure sounds like something Twain would have said! 
Opera. Bleeach. Had to listen to far too much of it while I was in school and NEVER again.
[QUOTE=LonesomePolecat]
I stand corrected–but it sure sounds like something Twain would have said!
[/QUOTE]
Twain seems to have said a lot of things he never said. 
[QUOTE=LonesomePolecat]
I stand corrected–but it sure sounds like something Twain would have said!
[/QUOTE]
Perhaps you are thinking of his essay The Damned German Language.
Twain’s famous quote is:
“Wagner’s music is better than it sounds.” (intentional irony I guess?)
[QUOTE=carnivorousplant]
There were so many deaths on stage that Wagner’s sister became physically ill upon reading the libretto.
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Good thing she never got to watch Don Mendo’s Revenge then. In Spanish we have the expression “even the prompter dies, in that story” - in Don Mendo, it’s actually true.