Daniel Orsen, Violist
CD Reviews
The latest from Daniel’s Substack, in which he (mostly) reviews CDs. Read and subscribe here.
Prose
“The Viola’s White Knight: Hermann Ritter and the quest for the perfect Alto instrument.”
The Strad, February 2024
“Liturgy, Wagner, and the Heresy of Art-Religion”
The Anglican Way, Volume 2 New Series, Number 1
“Objectively Divine: Mengelberg’s 1939 St. Matthew Passion”
The Anglican Way, Volume 1 New Series, Number 2
“Loki: The Ethos of the Viola”
Journal of the American Viola Society, Volume 39, Number 1
“A Survival Guide to College Auditions”
Journal of the American Viola Society, Volume 37, Number 2
Wagner’s Nightmare
Wagner’s Nightmare is a tongue-in-cheek retrospective on Richard Wagner, culminating in an album of music Wagner would not like. Reflecting on Wagner and his legacy in writing was an important part of the Nightmare.
Find the full selection of essays about Wagner by Daniel Orsen and Pierre-Nicolas Colombat here.
What did Wagner have against the viola? Why did he feel a need to have special violas built for his orchestra at Bayreuth? How did he use the viola orchestrationally?
“The Apollonian and the Dionysian”
Nietsche and Wagner. Why did Nietzsche love Wagner so much as to sacrifce his academic career to become Wagner’s PR man? Why did his love for Wagner curdle to hate? What did the concepts of the Apollonian and Dionysian mean to both men, and what do they mean for art today?
“Wagner, Wister, and Westerns”
The Western is arguably America’s most important mythic theater and cultural export, but behind all the the ten-gallon hats, cigarillos, and shootouts it is deeply Wagnerian. Who was Owen Wister? How did his novel, The Virginian, establish the Western genre while simultaneously being Wagner fan-fiction? Which Western tropes were first Wagnerian tropes?