Posted on 08/19/2011 12:49:49 PM PDT by mojito
Richard Wagner, the most repugnant of musical nationalists, has become an unlikely poster child for culturally progressive Israelis. The recurring controversy over the public performance of work by the Nazi Party’s favorite composer erupted again in late July when the Israeli Chamber Orchestra, led by the Austrian conductor Roberto Paternostro, performed a much-publicized Wagner program at the Bayreuth Festival in Germany, Wagner’s self-erected shrine and a pillar of the Nazi movement well before Hitler took power. (Paternostro received a standing ovation from the largely German audience, which understandably liked the idea of Jews playing Wagner.) Morbid ethnocentrism with overtones of nationalist extremism is acceptable to the Israeli left, it seems, as long as it isn’t Jewish.
Every so often a prominent musician makes a point of sneaking Wagner into a public concert in Israel. Zubin Mehta, the Indian-born conductor of the Israel Philharmonic, played a Wagner excerpt as an encore to a 1981 concert; Daniel Barenboim, conducting a German ensemble, did it again at the 2001 Jerusalem Festival. And in each case public opprobrium put Wagner’s scores back on the shelf. At the Bayreuth concert, some of the Israeli musicians explained that they never would perform Wagner in Israel but felt free to do so elsewhere. Performance of Wagner’s music is unofficially—but effectively—banned in Israel. But should it be? Mark Twain quipped that Wagner’s music is better than it sounds. By the same token, banning Wagner’s music is a better idea than it sounds. Suppressing the performance of important musical works is not a small matter, though, and deserves careful thought rather than emotional reflex.
(Excerpt) Read more at tabletmag.com ...
I think he shares some credit there with Martin Luther's infamous anti-semitic tract, "Of the Jews and their Lies."
“Is Israel Right to Unofficially Ban Wagner?”
No. You severly limit your enjoyment by erecting PC barriers to acceptable art. Not that enjoyment is the most important thing, but we’re talking about high art here. And even if you hate the dissonance and near atonality or consider him pretentious, overwrought, and unlistenable, you have to admit we’re not talking about pornography, gansta rap, or piss christ here.
Also, it would be one thing if Wagner were a writer or painter, but music is the most closely “absolute” artform, into which it is difficult if not impossible to inject explicit political messages. he wrote his own librettos, I realize, and his operas involve words, plots, and actions which can convey pretty clear messages. But leaving aside whether or not the operas are anti-semetic, no one really pays attention. It’s about the music, and his music is not anti-semitic.
Considering that Wagner died before Hitler was born, it would seem odd to “ban” Wagner’s music because another generation’s nefarious characters liked it.
If the Israelis want an unofficial ban on Wagner because Wagner was an anti-semite himself, I have no problem with that.
That’s a really good point. Should we condemn a previous society based on current understandings of morality? Things like this are fluid and tend to change drastically over time, but generally unnoticed when happening, kind of like erosion.
I remember in High School we were debating 50’s TV stereotypes, and my opinion was the same as yours. The characters were not bad guys because their actions are based in the era they existed in.
I am very willing to avoid modern artists who hold repugnant views because I don't want to enrich them. Thus, I won't pay to see a Jane Fonda or George Clooney movie. I won't buy certain musicians’ CDs, I won't buy certain writers’ books, etc. That is because I think their current political views are disgusting.
I don’t believe in banning artists at all. Wagner was a genuis, no denying and I love his music - although some of it does drone on a bit. Fonda was a fair actress who gave one or two decent performances in film and coasted for the next 30 years. The New York Times actually has a HIT piece on her today, btw. Check it out, you’ll enjoy it.
Please read some of the writings of Wagner on the Jews. They are stomach-churning. As this article points out, after Wagner’s death, his awful wife Cosima attempted to bail Hitler out of jail (forgot about that one!) and had her grand kiddies dandle on his knee. The whole creepy family were Nazis!
It’s the ultimate paradox, isn’t it?
“he did more than anyone else to mold the culture in which Nazism flourished”
He did more than anyone else besides Beethoven to mold musical culture, but that’s it. If that has anything to do with nazism I’ll eat my hat. He had nothing to do with the general political, economic, or social atmosphere, except as a dealer in secondhand ideas. His politics were early on the vaguely socialistic leftwing French Revolutionary principles of ‘48, and later almost stoical resignation. His philosophy was pure Schopenhauer, expressed with a fraction of the clarity, power, and originality of Nietzsche.
What is it people think Wagner taught the Nazis? Audobons and old-timey milkmaid dresses? Hooked crosses? State corporatism? Most likely it’s just that “Ride of the Valkyries” reminds us of the luftwaffe.
“What is it people think Wagner taught the Nazis?”
Aside from anti-semitism, I mean. And that not, or barely, in his operas, which is all anyone ever really cared about. Saying his anti-semetic articles moulded the Jew hating of the Weimar and Nazi eras is like saying Steve Urkel of “Family Matters” is responsible for today’s popular black youth culture. Okay, Urkel existed, but he’s irrelevant by now.
Wagner was one of legions of German Jew haters of pre-Hitlerite century. Too many to count, really, and that’s just Germany. Vastly more influential on Hitler’s thought was Brit Houston Stuart Chamberlain, who just so happened to be related to Wagner through marriage, but nevermind that.
All you’d have to do is close your eyes and flip to a random page of European history since the Dark Ages to find allegations of Christ killing, pogroms, and fake protocols. The historical air is thick with scapegoating.
Without Wagner’s “flight of Valkyries” the Air Cav scene with Robert Duvall in “Apocalypse Now” would not have been classic. Supposedly the music scared the NVA
It is not an essay ... it is a polemic. The author has facts wrong and chooses to ignore facts he finds inconvenient. For instance, he totally omits the fact that one of the reasons Wagner's music is not played in public in Israel is that it was played in the concentration camps and causes enormous mental distress to holocaust survivors who were saturated with Wagner's music under those circumstances. With time that reason will, in the course of human events, eventually become moot. Far from "sneaking Wagner into a public concert in Israel", when Barenboim played Wagner in Israel, he had first submitted (and had approved by officials of the Jerusalem Festival) a program with a concert performance of Act One of Wagner's opera "Die Walkure"; he withdrew the program and substituted Schumann and Stravinsky. As an encore to the program (originally scheduled to be a Wagner program) he announced would play music of Wagner and invited those for whom Wagner's music had painful associations to leave the hall so they would not be exposed to it - noting that there were many people who did not have such a problem and, in a democracy, were entitled to hear the music if they wished.
The author hideously distorts the facts of the infamous "Hitler Birthday" performance of Beeethoven's 9th Symphony - for one thing, it occurred in 1942 (not 1944). From all reports, Furtwangler was tricked by Goebbels into performing and was furious. I own a copy of the broadcast of the performance and I have no doubt that is true, for the performance is conducted with a fury totally absent from any other Furtwangler performance of the piece that survives (including one given only the month before). The 4th movement "Ode to Joy", while tremendously exciting, comes across as a headlong gallop into the gates of hell rather than anything "joyful". Also, the Mozart opera that Beethoven thought was immoral was Cosi fan Tutte, not Don Giovanni. (Beethoven incorporated music from Don Giovanni into his "Diabelli Variations".)
The author's bias is evident - such as when he credits Wagner for writing the theme music for the Third Reich. Wagner died before there was even a thought of a third reich - the second reich was less than 25% over when Wagner died!
Unfortunately, the only thing compelling about the essay is the demonstration of the low standards exhibited in modern journalism. That's my opinion ... you are, of course, welcome to judge for yourself.
I believe they may be confusing Cosima with her DiL Winifred. Cosima was a very old and infirm lady by the time Hitler rose to prominence. I'm not sure she could really be faulted (much) for supporting him anyway, since she died in 1930, well before he took power. It's not like she or anyone else could see into the future, any more than we can.
Winifred, OTOH -- who was English, not German -- was a die-hard, unrepentant Nazi, even after the war. People even speculated that she was one of Hitler's girlfriends.
My British SiL served in the RAF during the London Blitz.
She won’t allow Wagner either.
“They’re gonna play music!
“What!?
“They’re gonna play Wagner. Scares the hell out of the slopes!
“This is a Romeo Foxtrot, shall we dance?
(Cues Ride of the Valkyries)
I flew Hueys in Vietnam and I swear I am not making it up when I told the C.O. that the Valkyrie theme would be a heck of a backdrop as our helicopters were taking off every morning (like the bugle charge call in the movie later on). He reminded me that the 115V provided by the aircraft inverters was 400 cycle, not 60 cycle which would fry any tape deck. Sounded like a good idea, though.
Anyway, whoever said Leon Uris `peeled back the layers of naziism in the German pysche” was spot on. I sensed it when I was stationed in FRG in the 1980’s. Jokes about the Holocaust being told by GI’s German wives just as an example.
The Israelis have a right to their qualms about Wagner, IMO.
Karl Marx (yes, I know he was of Jewish ancestry) wrote some of the most horrendous anti-Semitic propaganda ever penned, but somehow that hasn’t led the world’s Jews to repudiate Marx or socialism.
It was Winifred. She was British and was married off to the homosexual Siegfried Wagner. She (and the family) became close friends with Hitler. It’s very instructive to view H.J.Syberberg’s interview with Winifred (it got him banned from Bayreuth). She really didn’t see Hitler as a bad man, he was just a good friend of the family. She was very naive in that respect. On the plus side, and pretty much what saved her in the war’s aftermath was that she interceded for many Jewish artists - directly to Hitler and to the chagrin of his henchmen.
Wagner was a great composer, a true giant. Personally he was a complete creep. Hitler also very much misunderstood Wagner. He took what he wanted and that was extremely superficial.
It was Winifred. She was British and was married off to the homosexual Siegfried Wagner. She (and the family) became close friends with Hitler. It’s very instructive to view H.J.Syberberg’s interview with Winifred (it got him banned from Bayreuth). She really didn’t see Hitler as a bad man, he was just a good friend of the family. She was very naive in that respect. On the plus side, and pretty much what saved her in the war’s aftermath was that she interceded for many Jewish artists - directly to Hitler and to the chagrin of his henchmen.
Wagner was a great composer, a true giant. Personally he was a complete creep. Hitler also very much misunderstood Wagner. He took what he wanted and that was extremely superficial.
Yes, I have a book called the Tangled Bank (I think, by Stanley Hyman) which features some of Marx’s more lurid descriptions of Jews. You need tongs to read it. Those writings don’t get too much play in either media or history, do they?
I had a blind date with a very good-looking German man back about 1980, oy, such a long time ago! Now, you can’t paint all Germans with a broad brush, but I swear I was with him not 10 minutes before he started talking against the Jews in a gross way. This was in NYC so I guess he noticed a few of them. My skin crawled and I was outta that date within the next 5 minutes(I’m not Jewish, by the way).
I imagine you look a lot like Robert Duvall, lol!
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