January 5 - Wieland Wagner; Friedrich Blume (The Musical Birthday Series)

Wieland Wagner (5 January 1917 – 17 October 1966) was an opera director and the grandson of Richard Wagner.

German Thoroughness 1

Wieland Wagner had the blood of the line,

And therefore was treated as semi-divine.

He staged new productions so spare and alarming

That nobody ever considered them charming.

He replaced the old trappings of sagas and myths

With plinths and planks and monoliths.

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Friedrich Blume (5 January 1893 – 22 November 1975) was an influential German musicologist.

German Thoroughness 2

Friedrich Blume, the musical scholar

Who edited the MGG,

Could have worked on something smaller,

But such a dogged man as he

Would have rather died in squalor

Than stop before the letter Z.

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