Pat Maherr, the man behind this project, has assembled a large, intensely atmospheric collage exclusively from old recordings of Richard Wagner’s works. Weighed down with history, it is sometimes hard to separate Wagner’s music from the man and the events which occurred after him to which he has become linked (the rise of anti-Semitism, in case it needed spelling out). Maherr has reclaimed and reduced Wagner’s music into its barest form, only the faintest whisper of recognition remains. Yet, like the composer’s original works, this album seems to go on for an eternity.
Plays Wagner sounds ancient. It sounds far older than even the legends that Wagner based his original works on. The grainy old vinyl recordings obtained by Maherr have been processed and re-recorded to tape. The cassette master was then used to create this CD, giving a ghostly hiss and gently adding a layer of saturated to distortion to the music. The end result is a haunting and dismal sound collage that at times brings to mind the drones and soundscapes that pepper David Lynch’s soundtracks between the ersatz 50s rock and roll and jazz.
While I like the concept and I like the general aesthetic of the musical outcome, an entire album of processed Wagner recordings is too much. Unlike other found sound artists like Philip Jeck, Maherr’s approach does not add much to the sounds he has co-opted beyond what sounds like some time stretching and reverb. Equally, the sounds he has amassed and mutated end up becoming drab audio wallpaper or a game of "spot the composition." I am not meaning to sound so dismissive but listening to this in one go is harder than an opera novice sitting through a complete cycle of Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen. I have found that dipping in and out of Plays Wagner is much more rewarding, defeating the ear fatigue I was getting from listening to the full album.
A more judicious edit of this album might have been preferable but overall Plays Wagner is not a bad album. Yet I cannot help it would have made a much better EP.
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