Richard Wagner
 

I went to a performance of the BSO recently, and one of the pieces they played was Wagner’s “Siegfried Idyll”. Conductor Jun Märkl produced a grand, and at times tender, romantic sound from the orchestra – beautiful perhaps.

I am never able to reconcile how this person could have been both the harsh anti-Semite, spewing hatred towards Jews, and at the same time the composer of such engaging, hopeful, and loving music. Humans are mysterious creatures.

Life is full of contradictions

Yep, we are definitely not an easy lot to figure out. I truly believe that every single one of us is capable of doing incredibly good things. Unfortunately, if the circumstances are just right, we are each probably capable of doing incredibly bad things as well.

It certainly seems that the greater a man's accomplishments, the deeper his dark side seems to go...Beethoven created some of the most beautiful music the world has known, yet he was a bitter, angry misanthrope who made life miserable for all who knew him, & became even worse when his hearing failed.
Also was watching a show about Albert Einstein recently...seemed a brilliant man of science with an unusual love of all humankind to the outside world, yet he was a miserable human being with two failed marriages.

...and the list goes on...

When I think musical paradox I think Jim Nabors :p