# Music of the Third Reich



## RBrittain (Jan 24, 2011)

Hope this topic isn't too controversial? It's an interesting topic for me, as WWII and Classical Music are two of my biggest interests. I think most everyone now is willing to distinguish the cultural life within the empire from the horrors perpetrated elsewhere. As vile as the regime was, there was a substantial quantity of decent classical music and composers/conductors in Nazi Germany (who, by and large, had no affiliation with Hitler's crazed ideologies). Richard Strauss and Carl Orff are two composers that come to mind immediately. As for conductors, Herbert von Karajan, Wilhelm Furtwängler, Hans Knappertsbusch, Karl Böhm all conducted in the Third Reich.

I've been listening to a few pieces on Youtube recently. This is really interesting:






The music is great. It's interesting how they combined Beethoven's sublime music with idyllic scenes, probably as a means of propaganda, to create an altogether beautiful music video.

This is really interesting too:






The piece takes on an especially eerie sound, as though the darkness of the regime is shimmering through this already mystical piece by Wagner. Conducted by Knappertsbusch in 1940.


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## Edward Elgar (Mar 22, 2006)

Music was probably the only thing by which Nazis could honestly identify themselves as the master race.

The only thing they did wrong on the music scene was get rid of modernists like Schoenberg and Bartók.


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## david johnson (Jun 25, 2007)

stockholm would have been in neutral territory.


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## gr8gunz (Jan 19, 2011)

Yes indeed. From what I understand Karajan held quite a high post within the Nazi party. That always gave me pause when purchasing a work he conducted. Of course, my love of the music won out.

Hitler was a devout Wagner enthusiast and used his music as well as his name to advance his agenda in Germany. Although he was a madman he was also a political genius.


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## the_emptier (Jan 27, 2011)

there was plenty of music they suppressed though


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## RBrittain (Jan 24, 2011)

the_emptier said:


> there was plenty of music they suppressed though


True. There are some myths about the era also. I read somewhere that Wagner's Parsifal had been banned (for being too peaceful) in Nazi Germany, but this is totally wrong, as many recordings exist of Parsifal being performed throughout (I have a CD which includes a 1942 Berlin recording of the Prelude).

As for Mendelssohn being banned, I find that more likely.

I think they suppressed Jazz music, and especially championed Wagner, Beethoven, Bruckner. These are three of my favourite composers, so I can afford them some credit.


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## Il Seraglio (Sep 14, 2009)

I find the Nazis a bit overpraised on the music front. I hate Carl Orff and while Furtwangler was a great conductor, but was he any better than enemies of European fascism such as Arturo Toscanini or Otto Klemperer?

Give me Imperial France under Louis XIV any day. That was a cruel dictatorship with taste and class.


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## RBrittain (Jan 24, 2011)

Il Seraglio said:


> I find the Nazis a bit overpraised on the music front. I hate Carl Orff and while Furtwangler was a great conductor, but was he any better than enemies of European fascism such as Arturo Toscanini or Otto Klemperer?
> 
> Give me Imperial France under Louis XIV any day. That was a cruel dictatorship with taste and class.


I do believe that Carmina Burana is an important piece - powerful, descriptive and highly interesting.

I find Furtwängler overrated. He'd probably be my least favourite of the four conductors I mentioned. People praise Furtwängler's tempo skills, but I find his tempos utterly crazy sometimes.


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## Aksel (Dec 3, 2010)

Alex Ross wrote a chapter on this in "The Rest is Noise". Fascinating reading.
And Hitler's favourite composers were Wagner and Bruckner. But I can't remember how he felt about Mahler. Because I do remember reading somewhere that he saw a Tristan (I think, not sure) conducted by him and later saying it was a magical experience, or something along those lines. I might be wrong, though. It's a long time since I read it.


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## Aksel (Dec 3, 2010)

RBrittain said:


> I do believe that Carmina Burana is an important piece - powerful, descriptive and highly interesting.
> 
> I find Furtwängler overrated. He'd probably be my least favourite of the four conductors I mentioned. People praise Furtwängler's tempo skills, but I find his tempos utterly crazy sometimes.


I rather like Furtwängler. His Tristan with Kirsten Flagstad is magical.


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## RBrittain (Jan 24, 2011)

Aksel said:


> I rather like Furtwängler. His Tristan with Kirsten Flagstad is magical.


To be fair, I do possess this CD and I find it a magical performance:










Probably my favourite performance of Beethoven's Ninth, that I've heard. Aside from this, I've heard quite a few bizarre tempo recordings by him, making things fast when they didn't need to be fast, and switching too quickly from fast to slow. I think he sometimes does that to make his mark. Interesting conductor though, certainly unique.


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## gr8gunz (Jan 19, 2011)

the_emptier said:


> there was plenty of music they suppressed though


Yes there was. Has anyone ever heard of the commedian harmonists? A fantastic all male singing group which performed throughout Germany until banned by Hitler as being inappropriate for the "New Germany". The group poked musical fun at all kinds of music and sang some pretty silly tunes. I think a few of the singers were also Jewish. The group disbanded in 1934 and a few came to the US and tried again. They made a few performances but for the most part they failed to achieve the success they had in Germany.

The Kings Singers did a tribute album to them several years ago. Much of it is in German but it's still fantastic.

Here is a youtube link to one of their greatest tunes.


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

Edward Elgar said:


> Music was probably the only thing by which Nazis could honestly identify themselves as the master race.
> 
> The only thing they did wrong on the music scene was get rid of modernists like Schoenberg and Bartók.


The only thing?

There is also the killing of numerous composers and performers who were unfortunate enough to have (some) Jewish ancestry......


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## Vor Gott (Jan 26, 2011)

The Nazis also "stole" a lot of music during their reign. They adopted the ideas of philosophers such as Nietzsche, albeit in quite a selective manner, butchering it until it fit their agenda. A few composers come to mind: Beethoven's works as well as Wagner's (though Wagner was quite the German nationalist, however maybe not a socialist or a Nazi) as well as many other German/Austrian composers' works were assimilated into their Reich to, as you can imagine, promote their nationalist views. I also believe that Orff's _Carmina Burana_ was decently popular amongst the Nazis in the 1930's.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

Interesting how the OP mentions Orff & R. Strauss. Both of them composed music for the 1936 Berlin Olympics, I believe. I'm not a huge fan of either of these composers, so it doesn't really effect my estimation of them. I think Stravinsky's description of_ Carmina Burana_ as "neo-neanderthal" was spot on. It was good to hear this work in live performance, but as far as listening to a recording of it repeatedly, one gets quickly bored. As for Strauss, his _Metamorphosen_ was a kind of musical admission that he had probably made some mistakes in how he dealt with the regime. Strauss was later asked by a journalist why he didn't go to live in America with the rise of the Nazis, and he apparently said something to the effect that there were 50 opera houses in Germany that he could work at, but only about 2 in the USA. In _Metamorphosen_, with it's sentimentality and longing for the pre-Nazi past, one gets a sense that Strauss wished that this had never happened, he was glad it was over like a bad dream...


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## myaskovsky2002 (Oct 3, 2010)

*the best were forgotten*

Zemlinsky and Schreker were forgotten...Both Jewish, both had important positions, bothe were successful.

Martin (see my thread do you like Schreker and Zemlinsky?)


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## Nix (Feb 20, 2010)

Not only was it more musically beneficial for Strauss (at the time) for him to remain in Germany, but he also had Jewish relatives he wanted to protect. By putting himself in a position of power he was able to postpone their being taking to concentration camps. I don't remember the exact details but as I recall he managed to save one of his closest in-laws (daughter in law I think), though the rest of her family ended up being taken away regardless. Strauss has gotten a bad rep. personality wise, and while some of it was justified, people in the past have over exaggerated it when they believed him to be a Nazi sympathizer.


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## Vor Gott (Jan 26, 2011)

Andre said:


> Interesting how the OP mentions Orff & R. Strauss. Both of them composed music for the 1936 Berlin Olympics, I believe. I'm not a huge fan of either of these composers, so it doesn't really effect my estimation of them. I think Stravinsky's description of_ Carmina Burana_ as "neo-neanderthal" was spot on. It was good to hear this work in live performance, but as far as listening to a recording of it repeatedly, one gets quickly bored.


I completely agree! Musical works similar in content to the _Carmina Burana_ are comparable to paintings such as Picasso's _Dora Maar au Chat_:









http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dora_Maar_au_Chat​
It's different, unique and possibly even beautiful in some vague sense, but one is definitely the perfect number of viewings I would seek to have in my life.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

> Not only was it more musically beneficial for Strauss (at the time) for him to remain in Germany, but he also had Jewish relatives he wanted to protect. By putting himself in a position of power he was able to postpone their being taking to concentration camps. I don't remember the exact details but as I recall he managed to save one of his closest in-laws (daughter in law I think), though the rest of her family ended up being taken away regardless. Strauss has gotten a bad rep. personality wise, and while some of it was justified, people in the past have over exaggerated it when they believed him to be a Nazi sympathizer.


Yeah, but at the same time Strauss, as president of the music union in Germany, oversaw the total destruction of Jewish musical life in that country. I don't think that he was a Nazi sympathiser - no more than Furtwangler was - but I kind of see him as kind of like a businessman staying in Germany because it was better for him to stay in the music business by staying in the country. It was a matter of business acumen and political expediency more than doing what was morally or ethically right. Perhaps it's easy for us now, seperated from these events by more than half a century, to judge what these men did. But I believe what Thomas Mann - the great German writer, who also left, as he disagreed with the regime - said something to the effect that those who remained silent in the face of all the atrocities were perhaps the greatest sinners of them all. Food for thought, indeed...


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## canzld (Jan 26, 2011)

Andre said:


> said something to the effect that those who remained silent in the face of all the atrocities were perhaps the greatest sinners of them all.


the ones who didn't were soon dead 


Andre said:


> Food for thought, indeed...


for what it's worth - I have read that Furtwangler thought that to abandon the German people to the Nazis was worse and that by staying he kept a sliver of the true German culture alive in the face of barbarians, that to flee just because he (in his position) could, was to abandon the German people. Having read several studies about him over the years, I think he truly did believe this. There are no easy answers in these situations.


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## Nix (Feb 20, 2010)

Andre said:


> Yeah, but at the same time Strauss, as president of the music union in German, oversaw the total destruction of Jewish musical life in that country. I don't think that he was a Nazi sympathiser - no more than Furtwangler was - but I kind of see him as kind of like a businessman staying in Germany because it was better for him to stay in the music business by staying in the country. It was a matter of business acumen and political expediency more than doing what was morally or ethically right. Perhaps it's easy for us now, seperated from these events by more than half a century, to judge what these men did. But I believe what Thomas Mann - the great German writer, who also left, as he disagreed with the regime - said something to the effect that those who remained silent in the face of all the atrocities were perhaps the greatest sinners of them all. Food for thought, indeed...


From what I've read, Strauss did try to protect jewish composers and performers who he valued... again, it was all in his best interests, but at least he wasn't anti-semitic. And in that respect Strauss didn't remain completely silent- he did try and program Mendelssohn, and he did try and protect his family, but eventually the Nazi's pretty much told him to his face to stop, and there wasn't much more that he could do.

When comparing to other composers, is what Schoenberg and Bartok did really all that much better then what Strauss did? Schoenberg and Bartok, whose music wasn't valued by Germany, fled to America. Strauss, whose music was valued, stayed. They all did what was in their best interests, and by staying Strauss was less 'silent' then the other composers who left where their voice couldn't be heard at all (in Europe).


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## HarpsichordConcerto (Jan 1, 2010)

Here is an actual footage of Furtwängler conducting Beethoven's finale to symphony #9, on April 20th 1944 (which was for a birthday that not many of us would want to care). The footage is only interesting with respect to the manner which the orchestra and performers played it, musically speaking.


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## starry (Jun 2, 2009)

Music and art in general can exist beyond politics. It's often more the commentators on it than the creators who make it about politics.


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## Jacob Singer (Jan 7, 2011)

Vor Gott said:


> The Nazis also "stole" a lot of music during their reign. They adopted the ideas of philosophers such as Nietzsche, albeit in quite a selective manner, butchering it until it fit their agenda. A few composers come to mind: Beethoven's works as well as Wagner's (though Wagner was quite the German nationalist, however maybe not a socialist or a Nazi) as well as many other German/Austrian composers' works were assimilated into their Reich to, as you can imagine, promote their nationalist views.


For starters, the Nazis were most definitely _not_ socialists. If you believe that they were, then I suppose you also believe that North Korea is really a "Democratic People's Republic". 

The Nazis just used that term to attract people to the party, as it was a clever way to get the workers movements to support their takeover at the time. In reality, the socialists and communists were among the very first groups of people targeted by the Nazis after they gained power. They DESPISED the socialists with a fiery passion, just as Hitler wrote about in _Mein Kampf_. As a point of fact, the Nazis were fascists, not socialists.

Also, the Nazis, Wagner, and others during the 19th and 20th centuries were a hell of a lot more than just simple nationalists. They were rabid, delusional racists and white supremacists… some of the most evil people in modern history. The truth is that the legacy of scapegoating the Jews within Germany went back a very long time (e.g. the Hep-Hep riots of 1819), and in that sense the Holocaust was well over a century in the making in Germany. It was just spurred forward toward its ultimate conclusion by the influence of people like Wagner and eventually Hitler.


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## starry (Jun 2, 2009)

All races can be racist. In the past there have been other attempted or just theorised genocides against other peoples as well. 

I still say that most art is simply not political in any specific sense.


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## Delicious Manager (Jul 16, 2008)

Andre said:


> Yeah, but at the same time Strauss, as president of the music union in Germany, oversaw the total destruction of Jewish musical life in that country. I don't think that he was a Nazi sympathiser - no more than Furtwangler was - but I kind of see him as kind of like a businessman staying in Germany because it was better for him to stay in the music business by staying in the country. It was a matter of business acumen and political expediency more than doing what was morally or ethically right. Perhaps it's easy for us now, seperated from these events by more than half a century, to judge what these men did. But I believe what Thomas Mann - the great German writer, who also left, as he disagreed with the regime - said something to the effect that those who remained silent in the face of all the atrocities were perhaps the greatest sinners of them all. Food for thought, indeed...


It is so easy for us to judge in the safety of our modern world. Strauss was an old man of nearly 70 when Hitler came to power and his whole family was in Germany - including a half-Jewish daughter-in-law. I have always believed that Strauss did the best he could under the circumstances in which he and his family found themselves. He was able to do more to protect Jewish musicians (which he did) from the 'inside' than he would have been able to do from the 'outside'.

A brief mention of the other Germany and Austrian composers at the time:

Paul Hindemith - hated the Nazis and had many run-ins with them. Emigrated to Switzerland in 1938 as his wife was Jewish

Werner Egk - 'toed the line' during the Nazi years and held official positions

Hanns Eisler - passionately left wing and anti-Nazi, he was forced to flee to Moscow and then, later, the USA

Karl Amadeus Hartmann - hated the Nazis, withdrew from musical life in Germany and refused to allow any of his works to be played until after the fall of Nazism

Erich Wolfgang Korngold (Austrian) - A Jew whose music was banned by the Nazis, he feld to the USA where he carved-out a successful career as a film-music composer

Carl Orff - something of a sympathiser, but that hasn't stopped his 'Carmina Burana' becoming one of the most popular pieces in classical repertoire

Hans Pfitzner - a mixed relationship with the Nazis. He counted some officials of the Nazi party among his friends, but resisted their anti-Jewish policies

Arnold Schoenberg (Austrian) - As a Jew, Schoenberg fled to the USA during the Nazi period

Anton Webern (Austrian) - An ardent opposer of Nazism, his music was banned as 'degenerate' by the Nazis

Kurt Weill - A Jew whose music was banned in Nazi Germany - he had to flee to the USA


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## gr8gunz (Jan 19, 2011)

> Here is an actual footage of Furtwängler conducting Beethoven's finale to symphony #9, on April 20th 1944 (which was for a birthday that not many of us would want to care). The footage is only interesting with respect to the manner which the orchestra and performers played it, musically speaking.


Great Video.

Seated at the concert is a German officer with an eye patch. Could he possibly be the real Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg who lead the plot to assassinate Hitler???


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## Bill H. (Dec 23, 2010)

RBrittain said:


> True. There are some myths about the era also. I read somewhere that Wagner's Parsifal had been banned (for being too peaceful) in Nazi Germany, but this is totally wrong, as many recordings exist of Parsifal being performed throughout (I have a CD which includes a 1942 Berlin recording of the Prelude).
> 
> As for Mendelssohn being banned, I find that more likely.
> 
> I think they suppressed Jazz music, and especially championed Wagner, Beethoven, Bruckner. These are three of my favourite composers, so I can afford them some credit.


FWIW I have heard that Hitler's actual favorite was not Wagner but Bruckner. It seems plausible in that when the announcement was made of his death, German radio played the slow movement of Bruckner's 7th Symphony (the recording by Furtwangler and the BPO, available even today).

Some of the issues of working under the Reich were explored in the ca. 2000 film "Taking Sides", specifically dealing with Furtwangler's case (though I consider the movie a dramatization and not history). A further exploration of these issues is covered in Peter Gutmann's essay on Furtwangler:

http://www.classicalnotes.net/features/furtwangler.html


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## Bill H. (Dec 23, 2010)

HarpsichordConcerto said:


> Here is an actual footage of Furtwängler conducting Beethoven's finale to symphony #9, on April 20th 1944 (which was for a birthday that not many of us would want to care). The footage is only interesting with respect to the manner which the orchestra and performers played it, musically speaking.


Double check the date, I think it was 1942 (Furtwangler's famous wartime recording of the 9th was made in March of that year).


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## Edward Elgar (Mar 22, 2006)

Art Rock said:


> The only thing?
> 
> There is also the killing of numerous composers and performers who were unfortunate enough to have (some) Jewish ancestry......


Killing Gideon Klein and the rest of the potentially great Jewish composers was an abomination. Their music was highly modernist, but I admit the main reason for their foul murders was probably because they were Jewish.

I forgot Jewish musicians, professional and amateur who would have contributed to musical culture.

This just got me wondering though, if the Nazis hadn't captured Messiaen, would we have got 'Quartet for the End of Time'? That piece laid the foundations of Messiaen's greatness. Is this an example of triumph over adversity?


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## Aramis (Mar 1, 2009)

Talking about Jewis during WWII, don't forget Viotor Ullman who actually wrote complete opera while being prison in concentration camp. He was killed in usual way in Auschwitz-Birkenau. I didn't hear his opera but I know that some praise it.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viktor_Ullmann


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## Edward Elgar (Mar 22, 2006)

Aramis said:


> Talking about Jewis during WWII, don't forget Viotor Ullman
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viktor_Ullmann


He wrote quite a bit before his untimely end! Who knows how much he would have accomplished had he been allowed to live.

I would have been tempted to write an opera in protest of the regime. It's remarkable he carried on composing during those last harrowing years.


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## starry (Jun 2, 2009)

The Nazis didn't stop at just killing Jewish people they killed possibly as many as 5 million others who were gypsies, disabled etc.


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## Poppin' Fresh (Oct 24, 2009)

Jacob Singer said:


> For starters, the Nazis were most definitely _not_ socialists. If you believe that they were, then I suppose you also believe that North Korea is really a "Democratic People's Republic".
> 
> The Nazis just used that term to attract people to the party, as it was a clever way to get the workers movements to support their takeover at the time. In reality, the socialists and communists were among the very first groups of people targeted by the Nazis after they gained power. They DESPISED the socialists with a fiery passion, just as Hitler wrote about in _Mein Kampf_. As a point of fact, the Nazis were fascists, not socialists.
> 
> Also, the Nazis, Wagner, and others during the 19th and 20th centuries were a hell of a lot more than just simple nationalists. They were rabid, delusional racists and white supremacists… some of the most evil people in modern history. The truth is that the legacy of scapegoating the Jews within Germany went back a very long time (e.g. the Hep-Hep riots of 1819), and in that sense the Holocaust was well over a century in the making in Germany. It was just spurred forward toward its ultimate conclusion by the influence of people like Wagner and eventually Hitler.


I agree with most of what you're saying, but Wagner and the Nazis were worlds apart ideologically. Politically, before Wagner turned away from politics and became apolitical during his later years, his views were really those of a social anarchist influenced by figures such as Proudhon, Mikhail Bakunin, and Ludwig Feurbach (who was an influential figure in the development of Marxism). His nationalism and anti-Semitism were also of a completely different nature than that of Hitler and the Nazis. Thomas Mann once rightly remarked that "German spirit was everything to Wagner, German state nothing." Lumping him in with the likes of Hitler as some of the most evil people in modern history is a bit of an exaggeration to say the least.


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## RBrittain (Jan 24, 2011)

Poppin' Fresh said:


> Lumping him in with the likes of Hitler as some of the most evil people in modern history is a bit of an exaggeration to say the least.


I agree with this. I don't consider Wagner as an evil person - Nowhere near. Ultimately you define people by their actions, and the man had a good personal relationship with many Jews, even though he wrote against them. Racism has been rife throughout all of history, and Wagner was a racist but not one who actually took racist actions - which is a step beyond just 'disliking Jews'.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

Actually, Wagner was just as a rabid anti-semite as Hitler. I've got some quotes in a book to that effect. I'll get it out later & post some of them here. I remember one quote in which Wagner advocated locking Jews in a synagogue and burning it down. Chilling stuff, considering what happened in the gas chambers a few generations later. Wagner was basically a c*** & a user (sorry for being primitive, but I can't put it in any other way, having read those horrible quotes). Most of his relationships with Jews were based on sponging money off them, like with Meyerbeer. Richard liked the high life and was constantly in debt, so a little money from a Jew was very useful to him. & Meyerbeer's letter of recommendation was useful too...


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## starry (Jun 2, 2009)

Would he have actually done it though? Unfortunately quite a few composers in the past have probably said some really bad things, luckily for them most of it is lost in history. I still look at music purely as music though whatever personality someone may have had at times.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

Yes, I understand your point, starry. My mother said she read something somewhere to the effect that Chopin & Tchaikovsky were pretty big anti-semites as well. But not all composers were, look at Brahms' relationship with the Hungarian Jewish violinist & composer Joachim (dedicatee of a number of his works). So anti-semitism wasn't necessarily a sign of the times, it depended on the individual person. The thing with Wagner is that his views were extremely similar to those of the Nazis, and had Nazism occured during his lifetime, he undoubtedly would have been an ardent supporter. Basically, he was a very unpleasant man, but that doesn't diminish his music...


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## Aramis (Mar 1, 2009)

Andre said:


> & Meyerbeer's letter of recommendation was useful too...


Was it? He didn't do anything of all those plans he had in mind when went to Paris. These letters were rather unuseful, seems.



> he undoubtedly would have been an ardent supporter


You went too far.


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## Aramis (Mar 1, 2009)

Anyway, another thread which turned into "was Wagner gestapo officer" debate. Instead of elaborating against someone who some people think WOULD support something loathsome, let's focus on those who lived in more recent time and not only would, but actually did. I suggest Nono. Commie. And many other commies from XXth century, many of which are significant. What a ********.


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## RBrittain (Jan 24, 2011)

Andre said:


> Actually, Wagner was just as a rabid anti-semite as Hitler. I've got some quotes in a book to that effect. I'll get it out later & post some of them here. I remember one quote in which Wagner advocated locking Jews in a synagogue and burning it down. Chilling stuff, considering what happened in the gas chambers a few generations later. Wagner was basically a c*** & a user (sorry for being primitive, but I can't put it in any other way, having read those horrible quotes). Most of his relationships with Jews were based on sponging money off them, like with Meyerbeer. Richard liked the high life and was constantly in debt, so a little money from a Jew was very useful to him. & Meyerbeer's letter of recommendation was useful too...


What about Hermann Levi? He conducted many of Wagner's works, and is generally described by historians as a friend. Wagner chose him for the first performance of Parsifal, his last work. That to me indicates that Wagner realised how lunatic some of his anti-Jewish writings had been. Ultimately, he chose a Jewish conductor for the premiere of a distinctly Christian, spiritual opera. If he had really hated the Jews, then he would not have even thought about it.

Then there was a possibility that Wagner was slightly Jewish himself, which he probably knew about it. It's far more complicated than Wagner being this evil anti-semite who surrounded himself with 'white, pure Germans'. This wasn't the case. It all suggests a twisted genius. We know that Wagner was a man of show, and it wouldn't surprise me if some of his anti-Jewish ramblings were all part of his extravagant, sometimes ludicrous effrontery. And, as bad as it sounds now, being distrustful of Jews was pretty normal in those times. It's difficult to place the blame on any one single individual for going along with the norm. I really doubt that Wagner would have ever killed a Jew, for example.


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## Nix (Feb 20, 2010)

Andre said:


> Basically, he was a very unpleasant man, but that doesn't diminish his music...


I've always wondered if Wagner chose to write primarily instrumental music instead of Opera if it would have been nearly as successful. I think when composers write music thats not programmatic (like opera) they are writing a reflection of themselves and their experiences... and being the ugly character that Wagner is, I wonder if his music would have reflected that- or if the music would have just come off as artificial and fake. Fortunately(I think), he wrote for Opera, where he was brilliant at conveying other peoples emotions, but perhaps not his own.


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## RBrittain (Jan 24, 2011)

Nix said:


> I've always wondered if Wagner chose to write primarily instrumental music instead of Opera if it would have been nearly as successful. I think when composers write music thats not programmatic (like opera) they are writing a reflection of themselves and their experiences... and being the ugly character that Wagner is, I wonder if his music would have reflected that- or if the music would have just come off as artificial and fake. Fortunately(I think), he wrote for Opera, where he was brilliant at conveying other peoples emotions, but perhaps not his own.


I don't think he chose opera for those reasons. He wanted to create the ultimate art form, and the way to do that was combine orchestral music with stage play. I think, frankly, writing a symphony would have bored him, but I have no doubt he could have done. All the great orchestral pieces he wrote for his operas (Ride of the Valkyries, preludes/overtures for Tannhauser, Rienzi, Meistersingers, Lohengrin, Parsifal) ultimately came from the heart of Wagner, not the things he was portraying. So, I disagree. I think he was actually quite brilliant at portraying his own emotions, but put them in his operas for the fulfilment of his lofty artistic ambitions and ideals.


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## RBrittain (Jan 24, 2011)

(Oops, somehow posted twice.)


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

Thanks, RBrittain, I didn't know that about the relationship between Wagner & Levi. It seems that as he got older, Wagner realised that he might have been wrong about the Jews earlier (as you say).

& Nix's post makes me think of the political issues that underpin some of the greatest pieces in the classical repertoire. Just look at Beethoven's _Eroica symphony_, so firmly tied to the political context of the times. I've always kind of thought that Hindemith's _Mathis der Maler symphony _is like a modern _Eroica_. Eisler's _Anti-Fascist Cantata _was also a response to history as it had happened, I haven't heard it, but apparently it's his best work...


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## Aramis (Mar 1, 2009)

Nix said:


> I've always wondered if Wagner chose to write primarily instrumental music instead of Opera if it would have been nearly as successful. I think when composers write music thats not programmatic (like opera) they are writing a reflection of themselves and their experiences... and being the ugly character that Wagner is, I wonder if his music would have reflected that- or if the music would have just come off as artificial and fake. Fortunately(I think), he wrote for Opera, where he was brilliant at conveying other peoples emotions, but perhaps not his own.


You're very wrong thinking that writing in opera composer express someone else than himself. It's just putting your emotions into character. It is obvious that if Wagner or any other composer expressed his opera character's feelings the it was his own feeling because there is not such thing as made-up expression. His character expresses sandess, anger, hope, anything - it's all Wagner's. Best example - Meistersinger.


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## Poppin' Fresh (Oct 24, 2009)

Andre said:


> Actually, Wagner was just as a rabid anti-semite as Hitler. I've got some quotes in a book to that effect. I'll get it out later & post some of them here. I remember one quote in which Wagner advocated locking Jews in a synagogue and burning it down. Chilling stuff, considering what happened in the gas chambers a few generations later. Wagner was basically a c*** & a user (sorry for being primitive, but I can't put it in any other way, having read those horrible quotes). Most of his relationships with Jews were based on sponging money off them, like with Meyerbeer. Richard liked the high life and was constantly in debt, so a little money from a Jew was very useful to him. & Meyerbeer's letter of recommendation was useful too...


I believe the quote you are referring to about the burning of the Jews was made in response to his second wife Cosima's reading of a news article about a fire breaking out in a theater during a performance of the play Nathan the Wise. Wagner made a sardonic joke in response to the effect that all Jews should be burned at a performance of Nathan the Wise. We have to remember though, these were comments he made in privacy to his wife which she recorded in a diary neither of them ever expected to be published. It was a disgusting joke and in horrible taste to be sure. But people say some really nasty and hurtful things in the privacy of their homes that they don't wish to be broadcasted publically.

Was Wagner as rabid an anti-Semite as Hitler? Look, this is a subject that is aflame with emotion. After the discovery of the horrors of the death camps, people can't help but see anti-Semitism in a different light. Anti-Semitism leads to the Holocaust. But it should be emphasized that anti-Semitism exists in many forms, and Wagner's anti-Semitism comes from different roots and takes an entirely different form than Hitler's. The causes and motivations of Wagner's anti-Semitism is...complicated to say the least. I can go into it a little more if you wish, but for now suffice it to say that Wagner saw the world through the lens of his gigantic artistic concepts, and his anti-Semitism was largely born out of cultural concerns. It was a kind of theoretical anti-Semitism. He had an unbelievable amount of disdain for _the Jews_, in his mind an impersonal specter, a demonic monolith that haunted his world, its tentacles penetrating his native culture. He perceived that group to be alien and inimical to his goal in life: the acceptance of his grandly achieved artwork, whose roots grew from Germanic soil.

On the other hand are his many personal relationships and friendships with individual Jews. Again, because of the emotions and disgust springing from any hint at anti-Semitism in most people's minds after the Holocaust, Wagner's personality is not often a subject of reasoned analysis. The discovery of any such prejudice colored every aspect of the miscreant's character. If you were anti-Semitic, you were a _bad_ person. And the vehemence of Wagner's writings was such that not the slightest ***** in that encasement of racial hatred can be acknowledged by most writers; any seeming act of genuine friendship between Wagner and a Jew must be seen only as one of cynical manipulation on the part of the composer. But this simply isn't true. Wagner could be quite charming, generous, and warm; just as he could be selfish and irritable. Like most people. The basis of his relationship with Jews wasn't just to sponge money off them (not like he sponged money off Jews only!). Some of his greatest friendships and partnerships were with Jews. He and the Jew Samuel Lehrs were kindred artistic spirits, both struggling and destitute when they met. Wagner called that friendship the most beautiful of his life. Men like Carl Tausig and Heirich Porges were almost like sons to him, and he mentored them and brought them under his wing. Others like Joseph Rubinstein lived in his household like members of his family. Jewish artists and performers like Hermann Levi were intergral in helping bring his artistic visions to life.

Here are the thoughts of two Jews that knew Wagner intimately. The first, a Russian artist named Paul von Joukowsky, who was very close to the family and lived with them for periods of time:

"No one who has not known Wagner in the intimacy of his home can have any idea of the goodness of his nature, his childlike lovableness. Frau Wagner was right when she compared him to the child with the orb whom St Christopher carries across the stream; he was a child in spirit, with a whole world within him."

The other is from Hermann Levi, for Levi...well, who wrote letter he wrote to his father (a rabbi) when his father expressed apprehension at liking a known anti-Semite. Hermann wrote:

"You certainly can and you should. He is the best and noblest of men. Of course our contemporaries misunderstand and slander him. It is the duty of the world to darken those who shine. Goethe did not fare any better. But posterity will one day recognize that he was just as great a man as an artist, which those close to him know already. Even his fight against what he calls "Jewishness" in music and in modern literature springs from the noblest motives. That he harbors no petty anti-Semitism like some country squire or Protestant bigot, is show by his behavior toward me, toward Joseph Rubinstein, and by his former relationship with Tausig, whom he loved dearly. The most beautiful thing I have experienced in my life is that I was permitted to be close to such a man, and I thank God for it every day."

And how did Wagner feel about Levi? Levi conducted the first performance of Wagner's opera Parsifal, and Wagner was thrilled with Levi's work. After that first performance he went to the front of the theater to congratulate his conductor, who was standing there with his father, Benedict. After speaking to Hermann, Wagner turned to Benedict. He shook the rabbi's hand and exclaimed, "Your Hermann, as my alter ego, really ought to bear my name, Wagner."

So as you can see, his anti-Semitism and his relation to Jews really bears very little in common with Hitler. Wagner was a man who dedicated his life to art and was first and foremost concerned with bringing to life the music dramas that were the sole purpose of his existence. He was often frustrated and disgusted with the world, and lived in deadly fear that he would die before his work was done. He judged all individuals by one criterion only: by their artistic talent or their willingness to help in his cause. Never did he refuse the help or the friendship of anyone because he or she was a Jew, or on any other racial, moral, or religious ground.


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## Nix (Feb 20, 2010)

Aramis said:


> You're very wrong thinking that writing in opera composer express someone else than himself. It's just putting your emotions into character. It is obvious that if Wagner or any other composer expressed his opera character's feelings the it was his own feeling because there is not such thing as made-up expression. His character expresses sandess, anger, hope, anything - it's all Wagner's. Best example - Meistersinger.


Hmm... well I don't think of it as putting emotions into your character, but trying to get an emotional reaction from a character (or story) and then writing. It's still a secondary reaction, not something that is truly part of themselves, but rather how they reacted to something else entirely. But then combine that with acting, and the actual story itself and you still get something very moving. I'm an opera fan, but I think the musical content is _very_ different from non-programmatic music.

Another way of saying it: when I listen to/see an opera, I feel musically connected with the character whose singing it... I don't think about Wagner, or Verdi, or Bizet at all. When I listen to a Beethoven string quartet, I feel like Beethoven is reading me his diary.


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## Aramis (Mar 1, 2009)

Thank you for your informative post *Poppin' Fresh*



Nix said:


> Hmm... well I don't think of it as putting emotions into your character, but trying to get an emotional reaction from a character (or story) and then writing. It's still a secondary reaction, not something that is truly part of themselves, but rather how they reacted to something else entirely. But then combine that with acting, and the actual story itself and you still get something very moving. I'm an opera fan, but I think the musical content is _very_ different from non-programmatic music.


Sure, if that's how you take it. But don't make such ridiculous statements like it would be possible for someone vashed from all noble and profound emotions to express them because he was taking emotion from fictional character's soul and just bind it in music by his craftmanship. That's how you previous post looked like


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## Poppin' Fresh (Oct 24, 2009)

Nix said:


> I've always wondered if Wagner chose to write primarily instrumental music instead of Opera if it would have been nearly as successful. I think when composers write music thats not programmatic (like opera) they are writing a reflection of themselves and their experiences... and being the ugly character that Wagner is, I wonder if his music would have reflected that- or if the music would have just come off as artificial and fake. Fortunately(I think), he wrote for Opera, where he was brilliant at conveying other peoples emotions, but perhaps not his own.


You have to realized that above everything else, Wagner was a man of the theater. He actually came to music through a very round-a-about way. His childhood interests were theater and literature, and it's through those paths that he was led to music. Even then, he never mastered an instrument. Music was perceived as a means to an end. And he saw his art as a means to communicate most profoundly with an audience in a kind of quasi-religious state; to gain a greater understanding of the world and to create meaning in it.

He chose the dramatic subjects he did because he could identify with some aspect of them. In many ways, his characters are self-portraits. Inside Wagner the artist, as he himself said, was a saint trying to get out: in his life, the saint never got out at all, but something like it did in his art. As Father M. Owen Lee so poignantly observed "The unconvinced, hearing this said about a hateful, ranting man, will point out that the very solutions Wagner called for in humankind at large he was unable to find in himself. But that, as Hans Sachs sings in _Die Meistersinger_, is why the artist creates. Wagner, like the Philoctetes of Sophocles, needed healing and wholeness. His operas massively strive for, and in the end achieve, the completeness we all hope to find in the lives given us to lead. Ultimately the self-absorbed Wagner wrote for the rest of us."


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## Jacob Singer (Jan 7, 2011)

Poppin' Fresh said:


> The causes and motivations of Wagner's anti-Semitism is...complicated to say the least. I can go into it a little more if you wish, but for now suffice it to say that Wagner saw the world through the lens of his gigantic artistic concepts, and his anti-Semitism was largely born out of cultural concerns. It was a kind of theoretical anti-Semitism. He had an unbelievable amount of disdain for _the Jews_, in his mind an impersonal specter, a demonic monolith that haunted his world, its tentacles penetrating his native culture. He perceived that group to be alien and inimical to his goal in life: the acceptance of his grandly achieved artwork, whose roots grew from Germanic soil.


There were indeed various reasons that led people to anti-Semitism. Is Wagner different than Hitler in that respect? Well, of course. They had very different lives, and very different motivations in life.

Would Wagner have committed violence against Jews (or condoned violence against them)? I couldn't say that, and there is really no way to know. There were lots of people that "wouldn't have done the things they did" before becoming Nazis, and we have to remember that many people initially joined the Nazis (or supported them) simply out of a sense of pride for their country, which had seen some _really_ tough times in the years prior. The fact is that the actions taken against the Jews got gradually worse over time, and not every Nazi or Nazi sympathizer necessarily knew the extent of the situation. We also have to remember that the fervor that Hitler inspired was extremely compelling. So, had Wagner been alive during the Third Reich, would he have joined the Nazis? I have no doubt.

My point earlier was that anti-Semitism was being cultivated in Germany long before the Nazis came along and tried to initiate their "Final Solution". That's why they called it that, because the hatred for the Jews had been steadily growing for over a century, and the Jews were seen by _generations_ of people as the cause of all of Germany's ills. The fact is that there was a lot of uncertainty and animosity in Germany in his time, and Wagner's beliefs weren't any different from a lot of those within his society. He was just a really good writer (better than he was a composer, IMO, although some people will certainly disagree), and his facility with the written word had a tremendous influence on people.

Now, does that mean that you shouldn't listen to his music? Of course not. If it moves you, then by all means listen. There have been plenty of artists that have been ********, but that doesn't mean that we can't enjoy their art.


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