– Do you realise it was the anniversary of Richard Wagner's birth yesterday? Two hundred years.
– I suppose that's quite a significant birthday. A lot of candles on the cake. Were he to be having a cake.
– I'm afraid cake would not really be appropriate. I don't even know if he was particularly fond of it. One of those topics on which I suspect history is stubbornly silent.
– Why do you mention it? The anniversary; not the cake.
– I just happened to notice it. A significant figure in the development of nineteenth century music. Controversial in many ways – politically, especially. And probably not the jolliest of people. I suppose he typifies the dilemma of how do you separate the character of the artist from the art they produce?
– And how do you?
– I don't know. It's a dilemma. I know when I was a teenager I was quite fond of his overtures.
– I suppose there's not much singing in the overtures.
– Indeed. That was what probably attracted me to them. I've never managed to sit through the entirety of any of his music dramas.
– Life is short. Art is long. Never more so than in this case.
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