# Bad, bad musicians!



## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

We seem to have a recurring idea around here that composers, conductors, or performers of classical music must be on the side of the angels to be thought worth listening to. Were they anti-Semitic? Nazi sympathizers? Communists? Even child molesters (yes, we have some of those)? Aligning with the wrong side seems to make them pariahs in our eyes. If we want to enjoy them, we have to somehow see them as hidden resisters (yeah, DSCH, I’m talking about you!)

Does this make any sense at all? I‘ll happily suggest: it doesn’t. It’s a kind of silly season we can’t seem to escape.

What do you think?


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## MarkW (Feb 16, 2015)

I'm torn. As I've said elsewhere, there's no correlation between being a great artist and having noble character, but where does one draw the line? Since the 1960s, Bill Cosby has been one of the funniest people around. But what do we think of him knowing he's a serial predator? Shakespeare probably had his un-gentle side to be able to create Leontes and Lear and Othello and Prospero. Beethoven could be a monster. Fitzgerald was a drunk. Percy Grainger was into S&M. It's easy to say only the works matter, but each of us has to decide for himself if there is unforgivable conduct.


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## arnerich (Aug 19, 2016)

I'd like to think we could detach the composer from the music and hear it objectively. But for many people the only reason they like a piece is because of the composer. If we discovered a minuet presumed to be by Mozart people would go nuts for it even if it was garbage. I always under estimate just how much art is anchored to sociology.


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## Star (May 27, 2017)

Frankly if we put all composers and musicians through a character examination test then we would be left with fairly thin pickings as to who we listen to. There are some things I will not listen to but that is my choice. I don't legislate for others. There are of course bandwagons rolling around today which do!


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## David Phillips (Jun 26, 2017)

There are, and have been, plenty of musicians who are and were good people.


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## Art Rock (Nov 28, 2009)

I have no problem myself enjoying the art (including music) of people who were despicable human beings or worse. I can understand people who don't though.


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## ToneDeaf&Senile (May 20, 2010)

I listen to music, not the "virtues" or lack thereof of those who compose it. I can love the one while deploring the other. OP's statement that we somehow see those composers whose private and/or public lives we disagree with as "hidden resisters" in order to enjoy their music came as a surprise to me. I've never thought to do so. Nor do I see a need to. Do many here share OP's view on this? (I'm not knocking OP. To each his or her own. It's simply a viewpoint I hadn't thought to take into consideration.)


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## amfortas (Jun 15, 2011)

ToneDeaf&Senile said:


> I listen to music, not the "virtues" or lack thereof of those who compose it. I can love the one while deploring the other. OP's statement that we somehow see those composers whose private and/or public lives we disagree with as "hidden resisters" in order to enjoy their music came as a surprise to me. I've never thought to do so. Nor do I see a need to. Do many here share OP's view on this? (I'm not knocking OP. To each his or her own. It's simply a viewpoint I hadn't thought to take into consideration.)


Simply from a historical perspective, the label seems apt for a handful composers in specific situations--sometimes without the scare quotes.


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

I doubt if anyone entirely escapes the consequences of their bad or questionable behavior... and the lousier it is the more likely the consequences. (Gesualdo for example.) There's usually the price of poverty or condemnation to be paid that's inevitably extracted by life—and their good side is their creativity and the enduring art they brought into the world. Who's to say that the questionable side of their nature wasn't an essential part of their ability to create the good that listeners love because the music is alive? I'm not convinced that both sides of one's personality can be separated like the wheat from the chaff without destroying the composer or the art. At heart, I'd say it's an unanswerable question and people can condemn the behavior of others all they want, but there will always be composers who break the mold and do exactly what they want without fear of consequences even if such negative reactions by others is inevitable.


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## Donna Elvira (Nov 12, 2017)

Try as I might to not let the nature of some artists' character influence how I hear his music or performance, certain actions on their part do affect my enjoyment of their music(making.)
For instance:
My husband knew some dirty gossip on one of my favorite actors.
He said he would not tell me because he did not want to ruin my enjoyment of his work.
He did tell me this anecdote about him, however:
When asked about his bad behavior, the actor said, "Yeah, I wish I could be (his name) too."


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## CypressWillow (Apr 2, 2013)

As I've said elsewhere, sometimes people simply aren't worthy of the gift of talent they've been given. Does this mean I won't watch/support Bill Cosby (e.g.) ever again? Yup, it does. Does it matter to me if you still enjoy Bill Cosby? I'll keep that opinion of you to myself. Kindly keep your opinion of me for my decision to yourself.


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## Haydn man (Jan 25, 2014)

Larkenfield said:


> I doubt if anyone entirely escapes the consequences of their bad or questionable behavior... and the lousier it is the more likely the consequences. (Gesualdo for example.) There's usually the price of poverty or condemnation to be paid that's inevitably extracted by life-and their good side is their creativity and the enduring art they brought into the world. Who's to say that the questionable side of their nature wasn't an essential part of their ability to create the good that listeners love because the music is alive? I'm not convinced that both sides of one's personality can be separated like the wheat from the chaff without destroying the composer or the art. At heart, I'd say it's an unanswerable question and people can condemn the behavior of others all they want, but there will always be composers who break the mold and do exactly what they want without fear of consequences even if such negative reactions by others is inevitable.


I think these comments resonate with me
Each case on its merits


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## EddieRUKiddingVarese (Jan 8, 2013)

what about Rolf Harris


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## Pugg (Aug 8, 2014)

It's a kind of silly season we can't seem to escape.


This.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

I never give a thought to a composer's personality or character while listening to music. There's just no room in my head for that. The music has its own life and doesn't know it's creator's bad habits. Gesualdo sounds nothing like murder, Wagner sounds nothing like anti-semitism, Britten sounds nothing like pederasty. I probably wouldn't listen to Gesualdo if he'd murdered someone I loved, but that wouldn't be a reaction to his vices as such but to the source of my own pain. 

It might be a little different reading a novel, where the mind can disengage from the work at will and think about who the words came from, or watching an actor, whose work is his person standing before us. An actor convicted of crime would begin to look like the criminal he is.


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## Star (May 27, 2017)

Woodduck said:


> I never give a thought to a composer's personality or character while listening to music. There's just no room in my head for that. The music has its own life and doesn't know it's creator's bad habits. Gesualdo sounds nothing like murder, *Wagner sounds nothing like anti-semitism*, Britten sounds nothing like pederasty. I probably wouldn't listen to Gesualdo if he'd murdered someone I loved, but that wouldn't be a reaction to his vices as such but to the source of my own pain.
> 
> It might be a little different reading a novel, where the mind can disengage from the work at will and think about who the words came from, or watching an actor, whose work is his person standing before us. An actor convicted of crime would begin to look like the criminal he is.


Jewish people might be a bit more sensitive as to the meaning:
"I am convinced that this figure [Mime] is the embodied persiflage of a Jew, as intended by Wagner (with all the traits which he gave him: his petty cleverness, greed, and all the complete musically and textually excellent jargon [Yiddishized German])." (Gustav Mahler)


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## ToneDeaf&Senile (May 20, 2010)

Hmm...It dawns on me that I limited my first contribution solely to composers of classical music, rather than include its performers, which OP mentions. With performers, particularly still living performers, I can see the argument for not wanting to listen to/support someone you consider a "bad" person for whatever reason. Heck, I might even do so myself depending on why I disliked that performer as human being. (I include instrumentalists and conductors alike here.)

I suppose that, should a composer write a composition with music I like very much, except that it contains vocal contributions I consider overtly offensive, I might not want to hear the piece regardless of its otherwise sterling attributes. I suspect those lyrics who need to be pretty "over the top" for me to ban it. But it could happen.


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## Guest (Dec 22, 2017)

EddieRUKiddingVarese said:


> what about Rolf Harris


Yeah that was the worst one in some ways, the one light entertainer of our youth who never appeared to have that hard, nasty and cynical side that so many do.

Eddie, please tell me that I can still believe in Skippy.


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## Triplets (Sep 4, 2014)

Woodduck said:


> I never give a thought to a composer's personality or character while listening to music. There's just no room in my head for that. The music has its own life and doesn't know it's creator's bad habits. Gesualdo sounds nothing like murder, Wagner sounds nothing like anti-semitism, Britten sounds nothing like pederasty. I probably wouldn't listen to Gesualdo if he'd murdered someone I loved, but that wouldn't be a reaction to his vices as such but to the source of my own pain.
> 
> It might be a little different reading a novel, where the mind can disengage from the work at will and think about who the words came from, or watching an actor, whose work is his person standing before us. An actor convicted of crime would begin to look like the criminal he is.


May I ask what Anti Semitism" sounds like" to you? I was going to use the example that Star cites in #17 but she beat me to it.
Does it have to be as graphic as the Horst Wessel song to meet your threshold?
Back to the OP, I find the that the concept of completely rejecting the work of an Artist because they have been found to be less than perfect humans untenable. I agree with those who state that a case by case judgement and each according to their own lights is the only answer. The other day I was exploring the contents of the big Alfred Brendel box on Phillips. I pulled out a live performance of a Beethoven PC and was about to play it when I noticed that the Conductor was Levine. I placed the CD back in the box and played something else. It is just too soon and it would have interfered with my enjoyment of listening. By next week, I'll probably be able to listen without bias


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## Guest (Dec 22, 2017)

Groan. Even Skippy turned into a middle aged perv.






He even mentions his friend Rolf Harris towards the end.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

Then we have the example of Sir Eugene Goossens, composer and conductor, dabbler in pornography and black magic, and whose enthusiasms, art, and life are the subject of a play and of perhaps an opera.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2003/oct/30/arts.australia


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## Faustian (Feb 8, 2015)

Star said:


> Jewish people might be a bit more sensitive as to the meaning:
> "I am convinced that this figure [Mime] is the embodied persiflage of a Jew, as intended by Wagner (with all the traits which he gave him: his petty cleverness, greed, and all the complete musically and textually excellent jargon [Yiddishized German])." (Gustav Mahler)


This tells us more about Mahler (a self-conscious Jew in a very anti-semitic climate who was more than aware of Wagner's infamous antisemitic prejudices) than it provides any kind of meaningful insight into the character of Mime and what he represents.

When you say Jews might be more "sensitive to the meaning", it implies that Wagner intended Mime to be antisemitic. But there's no evidence that this is the case. Mime isn't Jewish, which makes it's difficult for the character to be an antisemitic caricature. Mimes' music and text do a marvelous job at delineating the shallowness and obsession of his character, but there's nothing definably Yiddishized about it. In fact the only way Mime could be construed to be an antisemitic caricature were if what Mahler calls "petty cleverness and greed" were traits that Wagner considered to be exclusively Jewish. But we know this isn't the case.

Personally I'd find it hard to believe that so many talented Jewish musicians and perceptive Jewish listeners would have any sort of use performing or listening to this music if it was nothing more than hateful antisemitic propaganda.


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## Star (May 27, 2017)

Faustian said:


> This tells us more about Mahler (a self-conscious Jew in a very anti-semitic climate who was more than aware of Wagner's infamous antisemitic prejudices) than it provides any kind of meaningful insight into the character of Mime and what he represents.
> 
> When you say Jews might be more "sensitive to the meaning", it implies that Wagner intended Mime to be antisemitic. But there's no evidence that this is the case. Mime isn't Jewish, which makes it's difficult to call the character an antisemitic caricature. Mimes' music and text do a marvelous job at delineating the shallowness and obsession of his character, but there's nothing definably Yiddishized about it. In fact the only way this could be the case were if what Mahler calls "petty cleverness and greed" were traits that Wagner considered to be exclusively Jewish. But we know this isn't the case.
> 
> Personally I'd find it hard to believe that so many talented Jewish musicians and perceptive Jewish listeners would have any sort of use performing or listening to this music if it was nothing more than hateful antisemitic propaganda music.


You have your opinion. In the light of Wagner's writings I'll go with Mahler! And Wagner!


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## mbhaub (Dec 2, 2016)

They are just people, subject to all human failings. There's that thing about letting those without sin being the first to cast the stone. I don't ignore their biographical facts, no matter how distasteful, but am aware that even men (c'mon, most of them are) whose brains house very dark regions have some light where great music shines through. So I'll gladly listen to James Levine conduct Wagner and Bernstein conducting Copland. Remember when GW Bush was elected and the Dixie Chicks made some anti-Bush comment. At that time a lot of c/w fans tossed out or destroyed their Dixie Chicks cds. Dumb. Their music making was exciting before Bush and it was exciting after the election. Nothing changed. If I were to go through my large classical collection and throw away anything composer or performed by someone who was "bad", my collection would be very, very small I'm afraid.


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## Faustian (Feb 8, 2015)

Star said:


> You have your opinion. I'll go with Mahler!


You can go with anyone you want, and if going with Mahler instead of the countless other Jewish musicians and interpreters allows you to reinforce your stances on Wagner's music so that you feel comfortable rejecting and denouncing it, have fun with that.


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## Star (May 27, 2017)

Faustian said:


> You can go with anyone you want, and if going with Mahler instead of the countless other Jewish musicians and interpreters allows you to reinforce your stances on Wagner's music so that you feel comfortable rejecting and denouncing it, have fun with that.


Of course we can also go to countless others who have seen anti-semitism in the works! But I wasn't arguing, just expressing an opinion as I he I'm entitled to do. I actually feel quite comfortable in rejecting Wagner as in addition to disliking the man's philosophy I find much of the music pretty tedious.


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## CnC Bartok (Jun 5, 2017)

Interesting accusations against Charles Dutoit today.......


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## Faustian (Feb 8, 2015)

Star said:


> But I wasn't arguing, just expressing an opinion as I he I'm entitled to do.


Oh, I didn't see an opinion -- I only saw you make the suggestion that "Jewish people might be a bit more sensitive as to the meaning".

Do you think any person, Jewish or otherwise, would "hear" antisemitism in Wagner's works if _Das Judenthum in der Musik_ had never been published and Wagner's antisemitic views never made public?


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## Star (May 27, 2017)

Faustian said:


> Oh, I didn't see an opinion -- I only saw you make the suggestion that "Jewish people might be a bit more sensitive as to the meaning".
> 
> Do you think any person, Jewish or otherwise, would "hear" antisemitism in Wagner's works if _Das Judenthum in der Musik_ had never been published and Wagner's antisemitic views never made public?


In my understanding of Englush at least, that is an opinion.

Your question is quite superfluous as Das Judenthum in der Musik was published and Wagner's antisemitic views are well known.


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## Faustian (Feb 8, 2015)

> Your question is quite superfluous as Das Judenthum in der Musik was published and Wagner's antisemitic views are well known.


Not superfluous at all. Believe it or not, there are people who are unaware of Wagner's antisemitic views. For those individuals, is it possible for them to hear antisemitism in the operas? There is a distinction between the operas containing antisemitic qualities based on the substance of the music and text and people reading antisemitism into the operas based on historical associations and knowledge of Wagner's antisemitism.

The "meaning" of these works exist on several levels. As far as intentions are concerned to their "meaning", it doesn't appear Wagner was setting out to create an antisemitic caricature in Mime or any of his other characters. There are no Jewish characters in any of the operas, so on a literal level there is no antisemitic "meaning". But on a personal level, someone who is aware of Wagner's antisemitic views and sensitive to them _may_ read antisemitism into the works, and in that sense they will have an antisemitic "meaning" for them.


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## Azol (Jan 25, 2015)

Quoting from a musical forum member's signature,



> My music collection increased tenfolds when I switched from heroin-addicts to crazy ones


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## Star (May 27, 2017)

Faustian said:


> Not superfluous at all. Believe it or not, there are people who are unaware of Wagner's antisemitic views. For those individuals, is it possible for them to hear antisemitism in the operas? There is a distinction between the operas containing antisemitic qualities based on the substance of the music and text and people reading antisemitism into the operas based on historical associations and knowledge of Wagner's antisemitism.
> 
> The "meaning" of these works exist on several levels. As far as intentions are concerned to their "meaning", it doesn't appear Wagner was setting out to create an antisemitic caricature in Mime or any of his other characters. There are no Jewish characters in any of the operas, so on a literal level there is no antisemitic "meaning". But on a personal level, someone who is aware of Wagner's antisemitic views and sensitive to them _may_ read antisemitism into the works, and in that sense they will have an antisemitic "meaning" for them.


I don't think there is any point in arguing the point. There are stacks of books that deal with the subject. You talk about the levels of meaning in the works but deny one facet which is quite obvious to many people, including not a few music scholars. I can understand Wagner admirers who are emotionally tied to the works will try and argue differently. But I'll stick with Mahler.


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## EddieRUKiddingVarese (Jan 8, 2013)

Strange Magic said:


> Then we have the example of Sir Eugene Goossens, composer and conductor, dabbler in pornography and black magic, and whose enthusiasms, art, and life are the subject of a play and of perhaps an opera.
> 
> https://www.theguardian.com/world/2003/oct/30/arts.australia


Was popular in Aussie (as still is), until some letters were found - maybe he was a bad influence on Skippy also- wonder what happened to the Witch of Kings Cross


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## Faustian (Feb 8, 2015)

Star said:


> I don't think there is any point in arguing the point. There are stacks of books that deal with the subject. You talk about the levels of meaning in the works but deny one facet which is quite obvious to many people, including not a few music scholars. I can understand Wagner admirers who are emotionally tied to the works will try and argue differently. But I'll stick with Mahler.


Well, you're not arguing any of my points, you're simply talking around them. Are you saying that I am too emotionally tied to the works to notice or admit any of the antisemitic elements in them? I can assure you, that's not the case.

I'm simply asking you a question. First your opinion was that a Jewish person might be more sensitive, more perceptive to the antisemitism in Wagner's operas, but now apparently it's "obvious to many". Either way. Take a Jewish person who has no knowledge of Richard Wagner the man, his writings, or his reputation and have them watch the operas. Would that person come away with the notion that these works were on some level antisemitic?

I don't see how that would be even relatively plausible. And bearing that in mind, that should give some indication of how antisemitic the operas really are.


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## Star (May 27, 2017)

Faustian said:


> Well, you're not arguing any of my points, you're simply talking around them. Are you saying that I am too emotionally tied to the works to notice or admit any of the antisemitic elements in them? I can assure you, that's not the case.
> 
> I'm simply asking you a question. First your opinion was that a Jewish person might be more sensitive, more perceptive to the antisemitism in Wagner's operas, but now apparently it's "obvious to many". Either way. Take a Jewish person who has no knowledge of Richard Wagner the man, his writings, or his reputation and have them watch the operas. Would that person come away with the notion that these works were on some level antisemitic?
> 
> *I don't see how that would be even relatively plausible*. And bearing that in mind, that should give some indication of how antisemitic the operas really are.


Of course it's obvious to many. It was to Mahler Ever seen the vast amount of literature on the subject? As Adrian Mourby says, 'Given that Wagner blamed the Jews for the materialism and reactionary values that were inhibiting Europe's spiritual development, it was perhaps inevitable that he drew on Jewish cliches to create his villains.' There is a huge amount of ink been spilt on the subject. But I don't want to argue the point here as I don't care for the man, his philosophy or his music and do not wish to waste my time in debating it. I was simply responding to the point made by a previous poster.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Triplets said:


> May I ask what Anti Semitism" sounds like" to you? I was going to use the example that Star cites in #17 but she beat me to it.
> Does it have to be as graphic as the Horst Wessel song to meet your threshold?
> Back to the OP, I find the that the concept of completely rejecting the work of an Artist because they have been found to be less than perfect humans untenable. I agree with those who state that a case by case judgement and each according to their own lights is the only answer. The other day I was exploring the contents of the big Alfred Brendel box on Phillips. I pulled out a live performance of a Beethoven PC and was about to play it when I noticed that the Conductor was Levine. I placed the CD back in the box and played something else. It is just too soon and it would have interfered with my enjoyment of listening. By next week, I'll probably be able to listen without bias


The point is that _no_ music sounds like anti-semitism.


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## Faustian (Feb 8, 2015)

Star said:


> Of course it's obvious to many. It was to Mahler Ever seen the vast amount of literature on the subject? As Adrian Mourby says, 'Given that Wagner blamed the Jews for the materialism and reactionary values that were inhibiting Europe's spiritual development, it was perhaps inevitable that he drew on Jewish cliches to create his villains.' There is a huge amount of ink been spilt on the subject. But I don't want to argue the point here as I don't care for the man, his philosophy or his music and do not wish to waste my time in debating it. I was simply responding to the point made by a previous poster.


Why are you bolding out one sentence in my response and ignoring the context, and yet still ignoring the question I'm asking you? I get that you don't care for Wagner, but you were responding to Woodduck's statement that _he_ didn't hear any antisemitism in the operas. As in _his_ perception. Then you responded by saying a person of Jewish decent might be more sensitive and pick up on what you say are the antisemitic elements in them. I've actually tried an experiment before -- not so hard to do really as most people don't have a very extensive knowledge of the lives and cultural history of famous composers -- and exposed friends and family to various operas of Wagner, and then after the fact clued them in on the controversy surrounding them, and to the allegations of antisemitism. In each case the person was a little shocked, and in no way picked up on any racism embedded in the works. And yet you say it's so obvious. Are you calling me, or these friends and family members dense? If not, please explain why you believe a person of any cultural background or ethnicity would consider the operas antisemitic if they had no prior knowledge of Wagner. Now granted, these friends and family members weren't Jewish. So I'd like to hear your reasoning why it might be different if they were. I'm asking your thoughts, not those of Adrian Mourby or anyone whose written literature on the subject. And no, citing Gustav Mahler or any other person who already knows some of the background of the operas in the context of Wagner's antisemitism doesn't count.

As to Adrian Mourby's quote, I don't see why it is "perhaps inevitable" that Wagner draw on "Jewish cliches" for his villains, and it ignores the fact that not all of Wagner's villains exhibit the same traits. What cliches is he referring to? Why does Mime's selfishness and greed make him an antisemitic caricature, but Wotan's selfishness and greed don't?


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Star said:


> Of course it's obvious to many. It was to Mahler Ever seen the vast amount of literature on the subject? As Adrian Mourby says, 'Given that Wagner blamed the Jews for the materialism and reactionary values that were inhibiting Europe's spiritual development, *it was perhaps inevitable that he drew on Jewish cliches to create his villains*.' There is a huge amount of ink been spilt on the subject. *But I don't want to argue the point here as I don't care for the man, his philosophy or his music and do not wish to waste my time in debating it. I was simply responding to the point made by a previous poster.*


If you don't want to debate it, why did you inject it into the discussion?

I said "Wagner doesn't _sound_ like anti-semitism." That seems self-evident, and hardly a reason for quoting people who want to see Jewishness in his characters. Those people - including some prominent scholars - may have any number of reasons for wanting to, but those reasons don't have much to do with what's actually in the works.

The statement that "it was perhaps inevitable" that Wagner made his mythical villains stereotypically Jewish is as prejudiced, unscholarly and simple-minded a statement as can be made on the subject, and contains an obvious flaw in logic. It assumes that if A and B are both similar to C, then A is a representation of B - i.e., if Wagner thought Jews were greedy and swarthy, and Alberich is greedy and swarthy, then Alberich is a Jew. Never mind the fact that a dwarf who lives under a waterfall and fashions a ring that gives him power is present in Wagner's mythological sources.

It isn't hard to discredit all these allegations. And I defy anyone to listen to a recording of the _Ring_ and hear Jewishness anywhere. Of course, if you want to stage Wagner's works in such a way as to make certain characters look and act like anti-semitic stereotypes, you can do it. But nothing in the operas necessitates that.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Faustian said:


> I've actually tried an experiment before -- not so hard to do really as most people don't have a very extensive knowledge of the lives and cultural history of famous composers -- and exposed friends and family to various operas of Wagner, and then after the fact clued them in on the controversy surrounding them, and to the allegations of antisemitism. *In each case the person was a little shocked, and in no way picked up on any racism embedded in the works... granted, these friends and family members weren't Jewish*....citing Gustav Mahler or any other person who already knows some of the background of the operas in the context of Wagner's antisemitism doesn't count.
> 
> As to Adrian Mourby's quote, I don't see why it is "perhaps inevitable" that Wagner draw on "Jewish cliches" for his villains, and it ignores the fact that *not all of Wagner's villains exhibit the same traits.* What cliches is he referring to? *Why does Mime's selfishness and greed make him an antisemitic caricature, but Wotan's selfishness and greed don't?*


I too have introduced Wagner to others, and two of these people were themselves Jewish. Neither of them saw anything Jewish in the operas, despite their awareness of the associations popularly made between Wagner, anti-semitism, and Nazism.

Your observation about Wotan is spot-on. It's been pointed out that, ironically, some of Wagner's protagonists are better candidates for being considered Jewish than his villains. There is the Flying Dutchman who, like the legendary "wandering Jew," lives under a curse, has no home and must be saved from his alienated condition by a (presumably Christian) Norwegian seaman's daughter. Wagner saw this connection himself, but the Dutchman is presented as entirely sympathetic. And there's Titurel, a mysterious, Jehovah-like figure who heads a religious order under a strict moral code, who compels his only begotten son to suffer agonizing pain, and finally dies when a representative of a more humane morality of compassion replaces him (a plausible representation of the evolution of an Old Testament religion of law into a New Testament religion of grace). The trouble is, those who look for anti-semitism in Parsifal always make Klingsor the Jew!

Look close, and you see how absurd this "Jew-spotting" is. It's a historical misfortune, and there's no reason to perpetuate it.


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## Tallisman (May 7, 2017)

Yeah! why are you all so sanctimonious! Can you please just forget about the genocide and moral corruption and let me enjoy these lovely little innocent ditties in peace? Open your mind, man. Not a whiff Nazism. Once you choose to forget about the slightly inherent Nazism, that is.


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## Tallisman (May 7, 2017)

Woodduck said:


> I too have introduced Wagner to others, and two of these people were themselves Jewish. Neither of them saw anything Jewish in the operas


Yeah, Wagner's operas didn't strike me as particularly Jewish, either.


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## Tallisman (May 7, 2017)

Faustian said:


> Oh, I didn't see an opinion -- I only saw you make the suggestion that "Jewish people might be a bit more sensitive as to the meaning".
> 
> Do you think any person, Jewish or otherwise, would "hear" antisemitism in Wagner's works if _Das Judenthum in der Musik_ had never been published and Wagner's antisemitic views never made public?


But it _was _published, which is rather the point. I shouldn't have to make the effort as a listener to separate myself from historical facts. You can construct all the hypotheticals that you want, but we don't live and consume culture inside a hypothetical space. It is historical fact that Wagner's music is affected by his beliefs and personality. And it will remain a truth whether the listener is aware of it or not, which means that once discovered, it shouldn't have to be quickly ignored just to keep the edifice going.

Wagner's ideology clearly affects his music, and it is of great musicological and historical interest to explore this further. His break from traditional forms is inextricably linked (even fuelled) by his Romantic view of Germanic culture, of the apparent need for a rebirth of the heroic, Dionysian, Germanic tradition he interpreted. This, which by itself is not a negative, clearly is useful when interpreting his music, because the link between his ideology and his music is true; it _makes sense in our real, non-hypothetical space_ and therefore can't be ignored nor should be.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Tallisman said:


> But it _was _published, which is rather the point. *I shouldn't have to make the effort as a listener to separate myself from historical facts.* You can construct all the hypotheticals that you want, but we don't live and consume culture inside a hypothetical space. *It is historical fact that Wagner's music is affected by his beliefs and personality. *And it will remain a truth whether the listener is aware of it or not, which means that *once discovered, it shouldn't have to be quickly ignored just to keep the edifice going.*
> 
> *Wagner's ideology clearly affects his music*, and it is of great musicological and historical interest to explore this further. *His break from traditional forms is inextricably linked (even fuelled) by his Romantic view of Germanic culture, of the apparent need for a rebirth of the heroic, Dionysian, Germanic tradition he interpreted.* *This*, which by itself is not a negative, *clearly is useful when interpreting his music, because the link between his ideology and his music is true*; it _makes sense in our real, non-hypothetical space_ and therefore can't be ignored nor should be.


This starts off with a statement I find baffling. Do you normally hear "historical facts" when you listen to music? I don't. I don't hear facts of any kind. Music, in fact, seems to me a welcome relief from the universe of facts.

It's true that a composer's music will be affected (somehow) by his beliefs (some of them) and his personality (in some ways). That leaves absolutely every assertion made here about Wagner's music, specifically regarding all that clicheed anti-semitic and Nazi stuff, unproven. The idea that a single iota of that historical baggage has been "discovered" in his music and thus can't be "ignored" assumes that what some people burdened with certain historical associations think they hear in the music is actually there to be discovered. Well, I can assure you that a great many people who know and love Wagner's music, and who don't lack historical awareness or knowledge of his life and thought, have discovered nothing of the kind in it and are not confronted with any question of ignoring or not ignoring.

It can be of interest, and possible value, to learn some of the ideological currents that formed an artist's outlook on life and his artistic goals. But as you are surely aware, finding concrete expression of ideas in the sounds that constitute music is a perilous undertaking, and usually one that reveals more about the listener than about the music. Wagner's music is German in its stylistic lineage, he was concerned with German cultural identity and wished his work to exemplify what he considered the best aspects of it, his personality was passionate and grandiose (among many other traits), and most people hear qualities that might be called "heroic" or "Dionysian" in some (far from all) of his music. But does that mean that the music actually contains or communicates any sort of _ideology_ that can be "discovered" - or ignored? No. And can the expressive power and human qualities of his music be fully appreciated by someone without knowledge of Wagner's personality and thought? I can say from personal experience that it can, since I discovered his music at quite a tender age and was able, when I learned about them, to put "historical facts" - many of which are not facts, by the way - into a larger perspective formed by my own direct experience of the works themselves.

I see nothing in your statement that demonstrates anything but an association of certain music with certain events or ideas, and such associations are infinitely variable from person to person. We don't all stand in the same relationship to music, or to culture and history, and to characterize our personal response to music as something objective to be "discovered" is a mistake.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

It's interesting (to me anyway) how we assign a sacred status to a genocide such as the Holocaust, while ignoring carefully the holocaust in which our own (USA) nation is founded -- the almost total extermination, by several means, of the indigenous population.

And we never give any thought to the holocaust in the Congo Free State from 1885 to 1908, when it was a privately-owned land of King Leopold II of Belgium. The total death count can't be determined accurately but is generally estimated at between ten and twenty million. Does anybody even know about that? Oh well, the victims were the wrong race I guess. So we curse Hitler but never spare even a frown for King Leo, one of the worst mass murderers of all time.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congo_Free_State

The enormities of the outrages man is capable of seem unlimited, but poor Wagner was guilty of nothing but a prejudice not so very uncommon in his time. He harmed nobody nor advocated any action against them - unlike, for instance, Martin Luther. And yet his sins are what seem important to us. Very strange indeed.


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## brianvds (May 1, 2013)

Strange Magic said:


> Then we have the example of Sir Eugene Goossens, composer and conductor, dabbler in pornography and black magic, and whose enthusiasms, art, and life are the subject of a play and of perhaps an opera.
> 
> https://www.theguardian.com/world/2003/oct/30/arts.australia


Based on what I read in that article, the real scandal here is the way in which he was publicly humiliated. What a person dabbles in in his private life is none of the public's business, if he's not engaged in harming anyone.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

brianvds said:


> Based on what I read in that article, the real scandal here is the way in which he was publicly humiliated. What a person dabbles in in his private life is none of the public's business,* if he's not engaged in harming anyone.*


That's really all that should matter to us. Otherwise the private pursuits of eccentric people are none of our damn business. I'd like to think that we're outgrowing the concept of "victimless crime," but there are still a lot of us who seem to want to decide what others do in their bedrooms. Of course, in order to determine what they do we have to watch. Maybe that's the real nature of our interest.


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## SONNET CLV (May 31, 2014)

I will, at least, stop purchasing recordings of such musicians as James Levine and Charles Dutoit. I will no longer add my hard earned green to their coffers.


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## Star (May 27, 2017)

Woodduck said:


> If you don't want to debate it, why did you inject it into the discussion?
> 
> I said "Wagner doesn't _sound_ like anti-semitism." That seems self-evident, and hardly a reason for quoting people who want to see Jewishness in his characters. Those people - including some prominent scholars - may have any number of reasons for wanting to, but those reasons don't have much to do with what's actually in the works.
> 
> ...


Oh I see. Mahler was unscholarly and didn't know what he was talkng about? If it isn't hard to discredit these allegations then why do you try so hard? I just slipped in a remark by Mahler to show you not everyone seems to think your way, which would be quite obvious to you when you see the huge voluminous amount of material written on the subject. Many people - scholarly people - have come out with different conclusions than you. Including Mahler. now please just agree that people think differently.


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## senza sordino (Oct 20, 2013)

Robert Pickett said:


> Interesting accusations against Charles Dutoit today.......


CBC News

I have several CDs with Dutoit and OSM, back in the 90s it was easy to find these CDs here in Canada. I guess I'm just going to have to overlook this when I play my Dutoit CDs.


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## Star (May 27, 2017)

KenOC said:


> It's interesting (to me anyway) how we assign a sacred status to a genocide such as the Holocaust, while ignoring carefully the holocaust in which our own (USA) nation is founded -- the almost total extermination, by several means, of the indigenous population.
> 
> And we never give any thought to the holocaust in the Congo Free State from 1885 to 1908, when it was a privately-owned land of King Leopold II of Belgium. The total death count can't be determined accurately but is generally estimated at between ten and twenty million. Does anybody even know about that? Oh well, the victims were the wrong race I guess. So we curse Hitler but never spare even a frown for King Leo, one of the worst mass murderers of all time.
> 
> ...


As Leopold II was not a musician or composer - any more than Robert Mugabe is today - then your comments are spurious as far as this thread is concerned. 
Also please remember the debate is not about whether Wagner was guilty of genocide as he certainly wasn't - at least by his own actions. It's whether a central plank of his philosophical writings found their way into his operas. Mahler thought it did. That's all I am saying.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Star said:


> As Leopold II was not a musician or composer - any more than Robert Mugabe is today - then your comments are spurious as far as this thread is concerned.


Well, Martin Luther was both a musician and a composer. 'Luther advocated setting synagogues on fire, destroying Jewish prayerbooks, forbidding rabbis from preaching, seizing Jews' property and money, and smashing up their homes, so that these "envenomed worms" would be forced into labour or expelled "for all time".' (Wiki)

How does Milquetoast Wagner stack up against that? :lol:


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

Star said:


> Jewish people might be a bit more sensitive as to the meaning:
> "I am convinced that this figure [Mime] is the embodied persiflage of a Jew, as intended by Wagner (with all the traits which he gave him: his petty cleverness, greed, and all the complete musically and textually excellent jargon [Yiddishized German])." (Gustav Mahler)


It's true that Mahler as a Jew said that and reacted to it. There's also more to that quote that relates to how Mahler thought this character of Mimi should not be exaggerated in performance like another conductor was doing in Vienna: https://books.google.com/books?id=ZJoqDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT151&lpg=PT151&dq="I+am+convinced+that+this+figure+%5BMime%5D+is+the+embodied+persiflage+of+a+Jew,+as+intended+by+Wagner+(with+all+the+traits+which+he+gave+him:+his+petty+cleverness,+greed,+and+all+the+complete+musically+and+textually+excellent+jargon+%5BYiddishized+German%5D).%22+(Gustav+Mahler)&source=bl&ots=TLHNFkAznz&sig=acPzOwhWckaTg-f4SEDZb3eEtas&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiY-OPNzJ_YAhWpr1QKHRj2CfUQ6AEIKzAA#v=onepage&q="I%20am%20convinced%20that%20this%20figure%20%5BMime%5D%20is%20the%20embodied%20persiflage%20of%20a%20Jew%2C%20as%20intended%20by%20Wagner%20(with%20all%20the%20traits%20which%20he%20gave%20him%3A%20his%20petty%20cleverness%2C%20greed%2C%20and%20all%20the%20complete%20musically%20and%20textually%20excellent%20jargon%20%5BYiddishized%20German%5D).%22%20(Gustav%20Mahler)&f=false

But everyone is missing the point when Mahler went ahead and performed Wagner anyway. The question is what allowed Mahler to conduct him? I thought that's what this thread was about as far as the acceptance of a composer's questionable character vs. their talent is concerned.

"In 1875, Mahler was accepted to the Vienna Conservatory. During his three years there, he initially focused on piano but later switched to composition, becoming an admirer of Wagner and Bruckner. Two years later, he began attending lectures at the University of Vienna, where he further explored Wagner's ideas, as well as the philosophy of Nietzsche and the political ideals of socialism.

"Later, Leipzig was one of the nineteenth century's preeminent musical centers... Mahler was able to conduct part of Wagner's Ring cycle and win the hearts of Leipzig audiences."

Mahler continued to conduct Wagner without rejecting him because of his genuine interest and not just because he may have been expected to perform him as a matter of expediency. In other words, even as Jew he accepted Wagner as a great composer.


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## Machiavel (Apr 12, 2010)

I think we have to separate the men from his works . Hitler could have been a great painter, he had talent. Does that mean I should reject it because of what he did? 

By the same token should I reject, mathematics, philosophy, concept about western civilization, history, the birth of theater, socrates, plato because slavery and pedophilia was normal and accepted back then? Should we reject all the advancement medicine made because it was done in horrific context in ww2.


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## Star (May 27, 2017)

KenOC said:


> Well, Martin Luther was both a musician and a composer. 'Luther advocated setting synagogues on fire, destroying Jewish prayerbooks, forbidding rabbis from preaching, seizing Jews' property and money, and smashing up their homes, so that these "envenomed worms" would be forced into labour or expelled "for all time".' (Wiki)
> 
> How does Milquetoast Wagner stack up against that? :lol:


Sorry but Mahler (who I quoted) was talkng about Wagner not Luther, as to the fact he saw anti-semitism in Wagner's operas.


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## Star (May 27, 2017)

Larkenfield said:


> It's true that Mahler as a Jew said that and reacted to it. There's also more to that quote that relates to how Mahler thought this character of Mimi should not be exaggerated in performance like another conductor was doing in Vienna: https://books.google.com/books?id=ZJoqDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT151&lpg=PT151&dq="I+am+convinced+that+this+figure+%5BMime%5D+is+the+embodied+persiflage+of+a+Jew,+as+intended+by+Wagner+(with+all+the+traits+which+he+gave+him:+his+petty+cleverness,+greed,+and+all+the+complete+musically+and+textually+excellent+jargon+%5BYiddishized+German%5D).%22+(Gustav+Mahler)&source=bl&ots=TLHNFkAznz&sig=acPzOwhWckaTg-f4SEDZb3eEtas&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiY-OPNzJ_YAhWpr1QKHRj2CfUQ6AEIKzAA#v=onepage&q="I%20am%20convinced%20that%20this%20figure%20%5BMime%5D%20is%20the%20embodied%20persiflage%20of%20a%20Jew%2C%20as%20intended%20by%20Wagner%20(with%20all%20the%20traits%20which%20he%20gave%20him%3A%20his%20petty%20cleverness%2C%20greed%2C%20and%20all%20the%20complete%20musically%20and%20textually%20excellent%20jargon%20%5BYiddishized%20German%5D).%22%20(Gustav%20Mahler)&f=false
> 
> But everyone is missing the point when Mahler went ahead and performed Wagner anyway. The question is what allowed Mahler to conduct him? I thought that's what this thread was about as far as the acceptance of a composer's questionable character vs. their talent is concerned.
> 
> ...


Exactly! Hence Mahler's opinion had more weight for that reason!


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Star said:


> Sorry but Mahler (who I quoted) was talkng about Wagner not Luther, as to the fact he saw anti-semitism in Wagner's operas.


Well, in my post (to which you seem to object) I was talking about us and our own hypocrisy in attacking Wagner, not about Mahler, Wagner, or Luther. As is often the case, we'll profit by looking closer to home rather than criticizing people long dead.


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## Star (May 27, 2017)

KenOC said:


> Well, in my post (to which you seem to object) I was talking about us and our own hypocrisy in attacking Wagner, not about Mahler, Wagner, or Luther. As is often the case, we'll profit by looking closer to home rather than criticizing people long dead.


I can't see any hypocrisy whatever in objecting to Wagner's Jewish writings. Or in what Mahler said about Wagner (which was I quoted and certain people have objected to.) I would have thought it just proves us to be civilised people.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Star said:


> Oh I see. Mahler was unscholarly and didn't know what he was talkng about? If it isn't hard to discredit these allegations then why do you try so hard? I just slipped in a remark by Mahler to show you not everyone seems to think your way, which would be quite obvious to you when you see the huge voluminous amount of material written on the subject. Many people - scholarly people - have come out with different conclusions than you. Including Mahler. now please just agree that people think differently.


No, I'm afraid you don't see. If you did you wouldn't dismiss or ignore the points Faustian and I have raised. We're quite capable of raising others as well, since we do actually know something about this subject.

No one questions the fact that people disagree. It's also the case that some people are wrong, and do a lot of rationalizing to bolster their ill-founded claims. Mahler was not speaking from knowledge when he claimed that Wagner "intended" Mime to be Jewish. It isn't a question of scholarship; Mahler was not a Wagner scholar, but merely a profound admirer, who considered Wagner the greatest composer since Beethoven and who produced and conducted his operas magnificently.

You speak of scholarship as if you are well-read in Wagner studies. Are you? How much of that "huge voluminous amount of material written on the subject" can you refer to specifically? Who are your sources? What makes them authoritative? Why should we believe your particular set of "scholarly people" rather than those who disagree with them? Are Barry Millington and Robert Gutman more credible on the subject than Michael Tanner and Bryan Magee? You _are_ familiar with the work of these important scholarly people, surely?

The appeal to authority is not an argument for anything, and it means nothing to me. I will set my fifty years of experience with Wagner against any of your thus-far-anonymous scholars. You claim to agree with Mahler, but you also claim, strangely, to agree with Wagner, who to the best of our knowledge never once suggested that any character in his operas was intended to represent a Jew. If you know anything at all about Wagner the man, you know that he talked and wrote voluminously about everything that interested him and everything he believed. You also know that his wife Cosima kept detailed diaries to preserve her husband's thoughts, his conversations and sayings, for posterity. You can learn much about his philosophy of music and drama and his goals for his work, but you will not find one word in his writings or his conversations indicating that his operas contain anti-semitic messages and symbols.

Your personal dislike of Waner may make information like this of no interest to you. But since you like to talk about scholarship, I thought I'd just point to a direction in which you might look in your research. I'm always pleased to share my own knowledge and insight into Wagner. On the matter of his stature as a composer, I agree with Mahler.


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## Star (May 27, 2017)

Woodduck said:


> No, I'm afraid you don't see. If you did you wouldn't dismiss or ignore the points Faustian and I have raised. We're quite capable of raising others as well, since we do actually know something about this subject.
> 
> No one questions the fact that people disagree. It's also the case that some people are wrong, and do a lot of rationalizing to bolster their ill-founded claims. Mahler was not speaking from knowledge when he claimed that Wagner "intended" Mime to be Jewish. It isn't a question of scholarship; Mahler was not a Wagner scholar, but merely a profound admirer, who considered Wagner the greatest composer since Beethoven and who produced and conducted his operas magnificently.
> 
> ...


As I said. I agree with Mahler too!


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## Guest (Dec 23, 2017)

KenOC said:


> It's interesting (to me anyway) how we assign a sacred status to a genocide such as the Holocaust, while ignoring carefully the holocaust in which our own (USA) nation is founded -- the almost total extermination, by several means, of the indigenous population.
> 
> And we never give any thought to the holocaust in the Congo Free State from 1885 to 1908, when it was a privately-owned land of King Leopold II of Belgium. The total death count can't be determined accurately but is generally estimated at between ten and twenty million. Does anybody even know about that? Oh well, the victims were the wrong race I guess. So we curse Hitler but never spare even a frown for King Leo, one of the worst mass murderers of all time.
> 
> ...


That is all so true, and our own generation is responsible for half a million Iraqi deaths. One wonders how many good, good musicians there would be from the Arab world if America's foreign policy hasn't been so intent on destroying democracy and self-determination in this region for decades.


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## amfortas (Jun 15, 2011)

Woodduck said:


> The music has its own life and doesn't know it's creator's bad habits. Gesualdo sounds nothing like murder, Wagner sounds nothing like anti-semitism, Britten sounds nothing like pederasty.


Getting away from Wagner for a moment . . . I do see Britten's choice of subject matter for some of his operas--_Peter Grimes_, _The Turn of the Screw_, _Death in Venice_, even _A Midsummer Night's Dream_--to some extent reflecting his attraction to young boys and his awareness of its social stigma.


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## Tallisman (May 7, 2017)

Woodduck said:


> This starts off with a statement I find baffling. Do you normally hear "historical facts" when you listen to music? I don't. I don't hear facts of any kind. Music, in fact, seems to me a welcome relief from the universe of facts.
> 
> It's true that a composer's music will be affected (somehow) by his beliefs (some of them) and his personality (in some ways). That leaves absolutely every assertion made here about Wagner's music, specifically regarding all that clicheed anti-semitic and Nazi stuff, unproven. The idea that a single iota of that historical baggage has been "discovered" in his music and thus can't be "ignored" assumes that what some people burdened with certain historical associations think they hear in the music is actually there to be discovered. Well, I can assure you that a great many people who know and love Wagner's music, and who don't lack historical awareness or knowledge of his life and thought, have discovered nothing of the kind in it and are not confronted with any question of ignoring or not ignoring.


Either they haven't read enough, are choosing not to use their mental faculties, or don't take a forensic enough interest in music or musicology.

I didn't say the anti-semitism (which, I agree, is made too much of a fuss about) and ideology would be able to be found in the music without prior knowledge of the man. What I am saying is that we *do* have knowledge of the man, which leads us to the *very natural, logical* conclusion that his music was affected by his ideology. And it does seem clear, once you make that logical link: heroism, German romanticism, musical radicalism etc. It all pulls together and makes sense precisely because that is the description of the historical reality, whether it can be discovered solely through the music (which it clearly can't) or demands external musicological and historical research.

When, in any other field (literature for example), the researcher reads more into the writer's life, his views, his beliefs, we don't expect him to forget it all just because 'oh, he wouldn't have been able to spot it in the text, so it's worthless'. No. The researcher tries to make the logical link between this new information and the text. He tries to square the two, if he can. He rereads the text (or the novel, or whatever). If he cannot spot any possible link between the two, then he can come to the rough conclusion that the writer chose not to be to ideological in his novels, despite his personal beliefs, and reserved them for separate artistic endeavour. However, if it becomes very clear upon perusal of all information gathered, that the linkage can be made (which, for me, it can be in the case of Wagner) through the pure light of reason, then _LET IT BE_.

If you are rejecting the fact that Wagner's music is highly ideological and that with a sufficient knowledge of Wagner's background and ideas it does not become clear to you how this is, then you are choosing to do so for reasons I can't understand. I'm not so totally romantic as to try and make myself believe that music exists in some lovely, pure space in the ether, detached from its creators and worldly matters and historical facts and influences. How that blatant truth can elude you (or you evade _it_) is confusing, as you seem to pride yourself on your wealth of scholarship. Choose to ignore it if you want, but if that's what it takes to enjoy Wagner, to make the effort to place the music on a high altar and ignore the man who made it, then I'd rather not listen to his music but still retain my critical faculties.


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## Ariasexta (Jul 3, 2010)

Jean Rondeau, I felt nothing about him nor do I want to buy his CDs untill this moment, but recently I got very annoyed by his high frequency appearance on search engines. His hairstyle is a ridicule to the repertoir, he records for tasteless label the "red" Erato, I hope he just leave harpsichord alone and go play some jazz or Rap.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

Tulse said:


> That is all so true, and our own generation is responsible for half a million Iraqi deaths. One wonders how many good, good musicians there would be from the Arab world if America's foreign policy hasn't been so intent on destroying democracy and self-determination in this region for decades.


Groups would be a fabulous place to discuss these issues, though I see an effort (feeble, pro forma) is being made to keep these expressions' subjects "musical".


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Tallisman said:


> *Either they haven't read enough, are choosing not to use their mental faculties, or don't take a forensic enough interest in music or musicology.*
> 
> I didn't say the anti-semitism (which, I agree, is made too much of a fuss about) and ideology would be able to be found in the music without prior knowledge of the man. What I am saying is that we *do* have knowledge of the man, which leads us to the *very natural, logical* conclusion that his music was affected by his ideology. And it does seem clear, once you make that logical link: *heroism, German romanticism, musical radicalism etc.* It all pulls together and makes sense precisely because that is the description of the historical reality, whether it can be discovered solely through the music (which it clearly can't) or demands external musicological and historical research.
> 
> ...


Let me remind you of your entrance into this discussion, in which Star introduced the issue of "Jewish" strerotypes supposedly found in Wagner's operas. You said, beneath a photo of a record album called "Third Reich Musical Favorites":

Can you please just forget about the genocide and moral corruption and let me enjoy these lovely little innocent ditties in peace? Open your mind, man. Not a whiff [of] Nazism. Once you choose to forget about the slightly inherent Nazism, that is. 

I assume this was not intended as any kind of scholarly statement, but its meaning is pretty clear. It means that you believe the historical connection between Wagner and Nazism is inherent in Wagner's music.

I fear your reasoning is fallacious in a couple of respects, and in this latest post you've begun by impugning some very distinguished individuals who disagree with you. It would be extremely difficult to show that a man like Bryan Magee, philosopher and author of _The Tristan Chord_ and _Aspects of Wagner, _ "hasn't read enough, is choosing not to use his mental faculties, or doesn't take a forensic enough interest in music or musicology." I invite you to read his essays and see if your evaluation of him stands.

There is no question, as I've already conceded, that an artist's work is affected by the ideas in his head. Admitting this doesn't tell us one single thing about which of his ideas actually do influence his work, or how that influence is manifested. People differ in the way they answer these questions. You are claiming objective truth for your particular answers with respect to Wagner's music, and heaping scorn on people who answer differently. That's just a no go.

Your answers, in any case, are generalized, vague, and possibly not even on-topic. No one questions Wagner's musical radicalism, or denies that he was a player in the German Romantic movement, or fails to hear "heroic" qualities in some of his music. None of that is under debate here. What is under debate is the idea that there are anti-semitic characters or messages in his operas, and that Nazism is somehow "inherent" (your word) in his music. Your apparent contention is that because we know that Wagner was a revolutionary German Romantic with prejudices about Jews, and that his works were co-opted by Hitler to represent his world-view, we with our fund of historical knowledge must hear Wagner's works as somehow "proto-Nazi" or tainted by Nazism, and that if we don't hear them that way we are stupid or dishonest. This is simply fallacious.

Also fallacious is the idea that "Wagner's music is highly ideological." None of the (vague) descriptions you offer of it define an ideology - as indeed they could not. It's certainly true that philosophical ideas inform the libretti of the operas, and in complex ways that shouldn't be oversimplified or reduced to stereotypes and tabloid-worthy memes (which, unfortunately, they frequently are). Wagner's music itself, as an expression of his dramatic characters and situations, is astoundingly varied, and as with his dramatic conceptions it won't do to stereotype it in order to bolster one's stereotyped views of its composer. The poetic and musical worlds of Der Fliegende Hollander, Das Rheingold, Tristan und Isolde, Die Meistersinger, and Parsifal are amazingly different worlds.

If you yourself are compelled by ideas about Wagner's personal life and cultural milieu to hear Nazism in his music, I'm sorry. I sympathize with Jewish people who remember the Nazi years and have mental and emotional associations they can't escape. People have a right to bring, or not to bring, all sorts of associations to bear on the experience of music, and I wouldn't try to talk you out of yours. But in suggesting that we should all have our ideas and feelings about Wagner's music altered by the particular historical facts you find relevant, and that if we don't we are somehow leaving our brains at the door, you're doing nothing but protesting that other people's responses to art are not like yours and are therefore inferior to yours and wrong.


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## Star (May 27, 2017)

Woodduck;1367076[B said:


> ]Let me remind you of your entrance into this discussion, in which Star introduced the issue of "Jewish" strerotypes supposedly found in Wagner's operas[/B]. You said, beneath a photo of a record album called "Third Reich Musical Favorites":
> 
> Can you please just forget about the genocide and moral corruption and let me enjoy these lovely little innocent ditties in peace? Open your mind, man. Not a whiff [of] Nazism. Once you choose to forget about the slightly inherent Nazism, that is.
> 
> ...


Can I remind you that the entrance to this discusiion was your statement that 'Wagner's music sounds nothing like anti-semitism' and I simply quoted Mahler to show you that distinguished musician disagreed with you. So I assume you consider yourself a better judge of Wagner's operas than Mahler?
You say an artist's work is affected by ideas in his head. I have read Wagner 'cursed the Jews day and night.' So us it not likely that might just have found its way into the operas?
I would have thought Wagmer's work was 'highly ideological'he certainly apoears to gave meant it to be.
I'll stick with Mahler on this one.


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## EddieRUKiddingVarese (Jan 8, 2013)

Anyone here for Cage or Stockhausen  (we might as well do the whole lot)


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Star said:


> Can I remind you that the entrance to this discusiion was your statement that 'Wagner's music sounds nothing like anti-semitism' and I simply quoted Mahler to show you that distinguished musician disagreed with you. So I assume you consider yourself a better judge of Wagner's operas than Mahler?
> 
> You say an artist's work is affected by ideas in his head. I have read Wagner 'cursed the Jews day and night.' *So us it not likely that might just have found its way into the operas?*
> I would have thought Wagmer's work was 'highly ideological'he certainly apoears to gave meant it to be.
> *I'll stick with Mahler on this one.*


My statement was about music, about what it can and can't express, and what I do and don't think about while listening to it. What other people think about is their business.

Mahler wasn't talking about Wagner's music in any case, but about one of his dramatic characters. About music, Mahler would agree with me. Music can't sound "anti-semitic" or anti-anything.

What you think "just might be likely" and what is factual are two different things.

And as for "sticking with Mahler," are you aware of what Mahler thought about Wagner's music? _"There are only him [Beethoven] and Richard [Wagner] - and after them, nobody." _About _Parsifal_ he said, _"I can hardly describe my present state to you. When I came out of the Festspielhaus, completely spellbound, I understood that the greatest and most painful revelation had just been made to me, and that I would carry it unspoiled for the rest of my life."
_
I'll stick with Mahler too. 

(BTW, what point are you trying to make here? Faustian pointed out, in answer to you, that Mahler's feelings about a certain repulsive little Nibelung were probably colored by his own personal sensitivity as a Jew living in a very anti-semitic milieu (turn-of-the-century Vienna), and that his view was not supported by anything particularly semitic about the character in the opera _Siegfried_. I should have thought anyone would have found that a worthwhile observation - maybe even something to think about.)


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

EddieRUKiddingVarese said:


> Anyone here for Cage or Stockhausen  (we might as well do the whole lot)


That would be blessed relief.


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## EddieRUKiddingVarese (Jan 8, 2013)

Just feel blessed that L'il Wayne has not taken up a classical instrument (I do- but he has ruined the guitar a bit for me)


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

EddieRUKiddingVarese said:


> Just feel blessed that L'il Wayne has not taken up a classical instrument (I do- but he has ruined the guitar a bit for me)


Poor boy. Didn't his high school have a guidance counsellor?


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## EddieRUKiddingVarese (Jan 8, 2013)

Woodduck said:


> That would be blessed relief.


Or where you referring to the Zappa tune blessed relief?


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## Tallisman (May 7, 2017)

Woodduck said:


> But in suggesting that we should all have our ideas and feelings about Wagner's music altered by the particular historical facts you find relevant, and that if we don't we are somehow leaving our brains at the door, you're doing nothing but protesting that other people's responses to art are not like yours and are therefore inferior to yours and wrong.


Have another try


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## Tallisman (May 7, 2017)

Woodduck said:


> Let me remind you of your entrance into this discussion, in which Star introduced the issue of "Jewish" strerotypes supposedly found in Wagner's operas. You said, beneath a photo of a record album called "Third Reich Musical Favorites":
> 
> Can you please just forget about the genocide and moral corruption and let me enjoy these lovely little innocent ditties in peace? Open your mind, man. Not a whiff [of] Nazism. Once you choose to forget about the slightly inherent Nazism, that is.
> 
> *^I assume this was not intended as any kind of scholarly statement*


Bang on, Holmes


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## Tallisman (May 7, 2017)

Woodduck said:


> Music can't sound "anti-semitic" or anti-anything.


I'd give that more thought than it immediately seems to demand.


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## Triplets (Sep 4, 2014)

Larkenfield said:


> It's true that Mahler as a Jew said that and reacted to it. There's also more to that quote that relates to how Mahler thought this character of Mimi should not be exaggerated in performance like another conductor was doing in Vienna: https://books.google.com/books?id=ZJoqDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT151&lpg=PT151&dq="I+am+convinced+that+this+figure+%5BMime%5D+is+the+embodied+persiflage+of+a+Jew,+as+intended+by+Wagner+(with+all+the+traits+which+he+gave+him:+his+petty+cleverness,+greed,+and+all+the+complete+musically+and+textually+excellent+jargon+%5BYiddishized+German%5D).%22+(Gustav+Mahler)&source=bl&ots=TLHNFkAznz&sig=acPzOwhWckaTg-f4SEDZb3eEtas&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiY-OPNzJ_YAhWpr1QKHRj2CfUQ6AEIKzAA#v=onepage&q="I%20am%20convinced%20that%20this%20figure%20%5BMime%5D%20is%20the%20embodied%20persiflage%20of%20a%20Jew%2C%20as%20intended%20by%20Wagner%20(with%20all%20the%20traits%20which%20he%20gave%20him%3A%20his%20petty%20cleverness%2C%20greed%2C%20and%20all%20the%20complete%20musically%20and%20textually%20excellent%20jargon%20%5BYiddishized%20German%5D).%22%20(Gustav%20Mahler)&f=false
> 
> But everyone is missing the point when Mahler went ahead and performed Wagner anyway. The question is what allowed Mahler to conduct him? I thought that's what this thread was about as far as the acceptance of a composer's questionable character vs. their talent is concerned.
> 
> ...


This is irrelevant. No one is denying that Wagner was a great composer and one of the most influential of all time. The fact that Mahler could simultaneously understand his significance as a Composer and understand that one of his characters is based on an Anti Semitic stereotype isn't refuted.


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## Triplets (Sep 4, 2014)

Star said:


> As Leopold II was not a musician or composer - any more than Robert Mugabe is today - then your comments are spurious as far as this thread is concerned.
> Also please remember the debate is not about whether Wagner was guilty of genocide as he certainly wasn't - at least by his own actions. It's whether a central plank of his philosophical writings found their way into his operas. Mahler thought it did. That's all I am saying.


Bravo. Can we name one other Composer who was was so troubled by the fact that Jewish people had the temerity to live on the same Planet and breathe the same rarified air as he or she does that they took time off from writing Operas or other music and write a little diddy called "The Case Of The Jews"?


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## Triplets (Sep 4, 2014)

Woodduck said:


> The point is that _no_ music sounds like anti-semitism.


So the Horst Wessel Song is a little campfire ditty?


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## Triplets (Sep 4, 2014)

KenOC said:


> It's interesting (to me anyway) how we assign a sacred status to a genocide such as the Holocaust, while ignoring carefully the holocaust in which our own (USA) nation is founded -- the almost total extermination, by several means, of the indigenous population.
> 
> And we never give any thought to the holocaust in the Congo Free State from 1885 to 1908, when it was a privately-owned land of King Leopold II of Belgium. The total death count can't be determined accurately but is generally estimated at between ten and twenty million. Does anybody even know about that? Oh well, the victims were the wrong race I guess. So we curse Hitler but never spare even a frown for King Leo, one of the worst mass murderers of all time.
> 
> ...


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## Dan Ante (May 4, 2016)

Regarding Musicians, I have played with some real drongos one example is a drummer in a trio we played in clubs, pubs and restaurants, a fine musician but a devious liar and as dishonest as they come I loaned him a recording of a jazz band that I was playing in at the time, he never gave it back saying he lost it and it was not possible to get another.
The opposite is a pianist that saved me from a thrashing when I told a big brute of a man what I thought of him, so you get all sorts, even cheeky bass players.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Triplets said:


> So the Horst Wessel Song is a little campfire ditty?


The words may be anti-semitic. The music is not. How many times does it have to be said that music is not ideological?


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Triplets said:


> This is irrelevant. No one is denying that Wagner was a great composer and one of the most influential of all time. The fact that Mahler could simultaneously understand his significance as a Composer and understand that one of his characters is based on an Anti Semitic stereotype isn't refuted.


Irrelevant to what?

1. It's relevant to the topic of his thread. Mahler said he believed that Mime was supposed to have Jewish traits, and he practically worshipped Wagner anyway and gave great performances of his works. That was his answer to the question posed by the thread. Go back and read the OP.

2. It's relevant to the as yet unproven assertion that there is anti-semitism in Wagner's music or his dramas. You can go on repeating that there is forever, as some seem determined to - and guess what? You have still said nothing of value. Your willful belief doesn't need to be "refuted" by anyone any more than a belief in pink elephants does.

What can be asserted without evidence can be rejected without evidence.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Woodduck said:


> The words may be anti-semitic. The music is not. How many times does it have to be said that music is not ideological?


Say it as often as you wish, but that doesn't necessarily make it true. Listening to the Emperor, I really believe I can clearly hear the ideology of Beethoven's times -- every man can be a hero!* Of course, it could be that you're right, and it's just my imagination. But I prefer to believe otherwise. 

*Of course you have to take Ludwig's correspondence course, three easy monthly payments.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Triplets said:


> Bravo. Can we name one other Composer who was was so troubled by the fact that Jewish people had the temerity to live on the same Planet and breathe the same rarified air as he or she does that they took time off from writing Operas or other music and write a little diddy called "The Case Of The Jews"?


If you're concerned about relevancy, would you explain how it's relevant - or why it's fun - to hammer away at the faults of dead composers just for the sake of doing it? What are you out to prove? Do you think you're teaching us something we don't know? Are you looking to be recognized for your perspicacity or moral superiority? I'd really like to know the answer to this, from you and all others (there have been a number on this forum) who love to get on the moralist's soapbox.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

KenOC said:


> Say it as often as you wish, but that doesn't necessarily make it true. Listening to the Emperor, I really believe I can clearly hear the ideology of Beethoven's times -- every man can be a hero! Of course, it could be that you're right, and it's just my imagination. But I prefer to believe otherwise.


Which notes represent the concept "every"?


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Slight change in direction, but still about bad musicians. The “Great Purge” (or “Great Terror”) took place in the USSR from 1936 to 1938. I know of no composer who was imprisoned or killed in that affair, although plenty lost friends and associates in the other arts.

In those years in the US, however, a well-known composer was sent to prison and served four years in San Quentin. Who?


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## Faustian (Feb 8, 2015)

Triplets said:


> Bravo. Can we name one other Composer who was was so troubled by the fact that Jewish people had the temerity to live on the same Planet and breathe the same rarified air as he or she does that they took time off from writing Operas or other music and write a little diddy called "The Case Of The Jews"?


Is that why he wrote the essay. You learn something new here every day. Well, that composer who was so troubled by the fact that Jewish people had the temerity to live on the same Planet and breath the same air also called his relationship one particular Jew he knew as "one of the most beautiful friendships of my life". Huh. Guess that was one Jew who he didn't have a problem sharing the planet with.


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## Merl (Jul 28, 2016)

KenOC said:


> Slight change in direction, but still about bad musicians. The "Great Purge" (or "Great Terror") took place in the USSR from 1936 to 1938. I know of no composer who was imprisoned or killed in that affair, although plenty lost friends and associates in the other arts.
> 
> In those years in the US, however, a well-known composer was sent to prison and served four years in San Quentin. Who?


Oooh I know the answer to this! Henry Cowell. He got locked up for summat like 20 years, for being bisexual, but got out after 4.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Merl said:


> Oooh I know the answer to this! Henry Cowell. He got locked up for summat like 20 years, for being bisexual, but got out after 4.


Well, sex with an 17-year old male in fact. Shades of current events! But it's interesting that during Stalin's Great Terror, the US incarcerated more composers than the USSR did.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

KenOC said:


> Slight change in direction, but still about bad musicians. The "Great Purge" (or "Great Terror") took place in the USSR from 1936 to 1938. I know of no composer who was imprisoned or killed in that affair, although plenty lost friends and associates in the other arts.


Among those others lost was Vsevolod Meyerhold, famed theatre director, well-known by all the Soviet composers. His torture and execution in 1940 served to wonderfully concentrate the minds of virtually all (remaining) artists in the USSR.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vsevolod_Meyerhold


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## Larkenfield (Jun 5, 2017)

Triplets said:


> This is irrelevant. No one is denying that Wagner was a great composer and one of the most influential of all time. The fact that Mahler could simultaneously understand his significance as a Composer and understand that one of his characters is based on an Anti-Semitic stereotype isn't refuted.


Read the original OP. It doesn't have to be refuted to be pertinent to the original intentions of this thread. Regardless of what Wagner wrote in his articles or may have suggested in his operas, Mahler performed him anyway and overcame whatever objections or reservations he had... Mahler was somehow able to overcome his hurt while others haven't been able to. The basic thrust of the thread is the relationship between a person of questionable or controversial character and the acceptance or lack of it of his genius.

Some of you might read Shakespeare and his characterization of Shylock. Despite his less than flattering portrayal as a greedy moneylender, the playwright continues to be performed. So the world will sometimes accept such contradictory people because these creators also happened to deal creatively and positively with some of the larger issues of life, whether its myth, new combinations of instrumentation or sounds, the power of love and redemption, and so on, other than race or religion.

Some of you might be surprised to know that the car manufacturer Henry Ford wrote some highly inflammatory articles on the Jews during the 1920s and yet people still drive Fords. This is not to approve of or excuse such anti-semitism but to point out that one may still have contributed something meaningful in art, engineers or science to the world despite their questionable character.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Faustian said:


> Is that why he wrote the essay. You learn something new here every day. Well, that composer who was so troubled by the fact that Jewish people had the temerity to live on the same Planet and breath the same air also called his relationship one particular Jew he knew as "one of the most beautiful friendships of my life". Huh. Guess that was one Jew who he didn't have a problem sharing the planet with.


And of course there were many other Jews with whom Wagner was on friendly, and more than friendly, terms throughout his life. Wagner tended to express himself in extreme terms, but his attitudes were typically ambivalent. Insensitive and even vicious remarks are balanced by expressions of appreciation and respect, and his thinking and attitudes changed over time.

Subtleties don't impress inquisitors, but we can always try.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Woodduck said:


> And of course there were many other Jews with whom Wagner was on friendly, and more than friendly, terms throughout his life. Wagner tended to express himself in extreme terms, but his attitudes were typically ambivalent. Insensitive and even vicious remarks are balanced by expressions of appreciation and respect, and his thinking and attitudes changed over time.
> 
> Subtleties don't impress inquisitors, but we can always try.


Still, when we read Wagner's "Das Judenthum in der Musik" it's kind of hard to find the appreciation and respect. It seems to be pretty toxic stuff, based on the précis here.

https://sites.google.com/site/kenocstuff/wagner-on-judaism-in-music


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## Huilunsoittaja (Apr 6, 2010)

Also unfortunately we can look at the present right now. Sexual harrassment scandals first with James Levine, and now Charles Dutoit. An ex-professor of mine got fired this past March for sexual harrassment too. These were all great musicians. But it shouldn't give them any VIP brownie points. Crime is crime.

I can't help thinking... Shouldn't we be caring _more_ about the characters of musicians? Honestly, wouldn't you prefer they _didn't_ have these problems? It might be just cuz I'm a musician, but mental health of musicians is a big deal to me, and same goes for their character. It doesn't make music fun to work alongside people that are cruel or bullies. I want to see the musician world reformed in such aspects, that that behavior would be cracked down on. It's a job environment satisfaction issue. Great art _is_ secondary to things like friendship, interpersonal relations, mental wellness, and meaning. Yes, you heard that from the horse's mouth.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Huilunsoittaja said:


> Also unfortunately we can look at the present right now. Sexual harrassment scandals first with James Levine, and now Charles Dutoit. An ex-professor of mine got fired this past March for sexual harrassment too. These were all great musicians. But it shouldn't give them any VIP brownie points. Crime is crime.
> 
> I can't help thinking... Shouldn't we be caring _more_ about the characters of musicians? Honestly, wouldn't you prefer they _didn't_ have these problems? It might be just cuz I'm a musician, but mental health of musicians is a big deal to me, and same goes for their character. It doesn't make music fun to work alongside people that are cruel or bullies. I want to see the musician world reformed in such aspects, that that behavior would be cracked down on. It's a job environment satisfaction issue. Great art _is_ secondary to things like friendship, interpersonal relations, mental wellness, and meaning. Yes, you heard that from the horse's mouth.


An interesting viewpoint. But I'll ask: What would happen to Wagner's career if he were writing today and published _Das Judenthum in der Musik_? I'm pretty sure his operas would never be published or performed. Would that be a worthy outcome?

Great art may be secondary, but it's all Wagner had to give us. To me at least, his personal deficiencies are nothing compared with that.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

KenOC said:


> Still, when we read Wagner's "Das Judenthum in der Musik" it's kind of hard to find the appreciation and respect. It seems to be pretty toxic stuff, based on the précis here.
> 
> https://sites.google.com/site/kenocstuff/wagner-on-judaism-in-music


Do you know the expression "His bark is worse than his bite?" I've quoted Hermann Levi, Wagner's conductor for the premiere of _Parsifal, _on other threads. In a letter to his Rabbi father, who knew Wagner's reputation for antisemitism, Levi wrote:

_„You certainly could and you should like Wagner. 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. That he bears no petty antisemitism like a country squire or a protestant bigot is seen by the way he treats me, Rubinstein, the late Tausig whom he loved dearly…Even his fight against what he calls „Jewishness" in music and modern literature springs from the noblest of motives. I am convinced that posterity will learn what we who are close to him know already: that in him we had just as great a man as a musician. I consider myself very lucky to be working with such a man and I thank God for it every day."_

Well, the posterity Levi refers to took forms he couldn't have anticipated, and let him down. But what _was_ Wagner's real-life, in-the flesh-attitude toward Jewish people, as opposed to his half-thoughtful, half-crazy abstract pronouncements on "Judaism in music"? Sad to say, I'm absolutely certain that the above rather beautiful testimony, from an intelligent, educated, distinguished Jewish musician who knew and worked with Wagner intimately and frequently visited his home, will strike the soapbox moralists and haters as totally incomprehensible, given what they think they know. They would rather credit a self-conscious Mahler's nervous fears about a dwarf looking too Jewish onstage.

Wagner died in 1883, fifty years before the Nazism some people claim they hear in his music. Did Levi hear anything like that as he studied and conducted Wagner's scores? Did anyone before 1930? I'm sure not - and yet I have seen a film about Nazi concentration camps in which the sublime prelude to _Parsifal,_ which Levi studied and conducted under Wagner's direction, was used as background music for grey-visaged men in helmets and jackboots! Levi would have been stunned and outraged.

Why do the same people who decry injustice against races and nationalities commit, not merely with a clear conscience but with a sense of righteousness, injustices against individuals? Overkill seems to be a constant temptation to certain people; they don't just want curse out the driver who cuts them off at the exit ramp, they want to run him off the road or shoot him. Wagner is always an easy target, and shooting him is unfortunately fashionable.

(BTW, isn't this thread essentially a duplicate of How can a composer be a creep and still write beautiful music? ? Or does it just feel that way, since any thread on which Wagner can be mentioned is bound to result in the same arguments? Some of the Wagner-haters might do well to check out some of the threads devoted to him on the opera forum. They'll find there people actually coming to grips with what's actually in the operas, and many extended discussions, going back years, by some forum members who know more than a thing or two.)


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## Star (May 27, 2017)

KenOC said:


> Well, sex with an 17-year old male in fact. Shades of current events! But it's interesting that during Stalin's Great Terror, the US incarcerated more composers than the USSR did.


So you would have sooner lived in the USSR at that time? :lol:


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Huilunsoittaja said:


> Also unfortunately we can look at the present right now. Sexual harrassment scandals first with James Levine, and now Charles Dutoit. An ex-professor of mine got fired this past March for sexual harrassment too. These were all great musicians. But it shouldn't give them any VIP brownie points. Crime is crime.
> 
> I can't help thinking... Shouldn't we be caring _more_ about the characters of musicians? Honestly, wouldn't you prefer they _didn't_ have these problems? It might be just cuz I'm a musician, but mental health of musicians is a big deal to me, and same goes for their character. It doesn't make music fun to work alongside people that are cruel or bullies. I want to see the musician world reformed in such aspects, that that behavior would be cracked down on. It's a job environment satisfaction issue. Great art _is_ secondary to things like friendship, interpersonal relations, mental wellness, and meaning. Yes, you heard that from the horse's mouth.


I guess that depends on what you mean by "caring." We may not feel comfortable working with musicians of whose character we disapprove, and it's our prerogative not to. And of course no one wants to work with a person who's obnoxious on the job. But dismissing a fine professional from his position for having, at some time in his past, behaved inappropriately with another person? That's not a simple matter. Must wrongdoers always be banished from society? Who's qualified to judge that?

We are a punitive culture. We like black-and-white thinking and drastic solutions. Our God, after all, sends people to hell to burn forever. There are humane ways to deal with wrongdoers, and less "advanced" cultures, which have no prisons and seek to bring their erring fellows back into the bosom of society, have practiced some of them. But we prefer infractions and lifetime bans.

As for the characters of Beethoven or Picasso or Hemingway preventing us from playing their music or viewing their paintings or reading their novels... I don't see that "caring" is a relevant concept.

I don't think there are are any "shoulds" here.


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Star said:


> So you would have sooner lived in the USSR at that time? :lol:


A most amazing _non sequitur_. Thanks!


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## Star (May 27, 2017)

I


Woodduck said:


> Do you know the expression "His bark is worse than his bite?" I've quoted Hermann Levi, Wagner's conductor for the premiere of _Parsifal, _on other threads. In a letter to his Rabbi father, who knew Wagner's reputation for antisemitism, Levi wrote:
> 
> _„You certainly could and you should like Wagner. 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. That he bears no petty antisemitism like a country squire or a protestant bigot is seen by the way he treats me, Rubinstein, the late Tausig whom he loved dearly…Even his fight against what he calls „Jewishness" in music and modern literature springs from the noblest of motives. I am convinced that posterity will learn what we who are close to him know already: that in him we had just as great a man as a musician. I consider myself very lucky to be working with such a man and I thank God for it every day."_
> 
> ...


I can't see why a quote from a distinguished composer brings all these words!
So those people who think differently to you aren't educated and informed? We are just irrational 'Wagner haters' with Wagner the poor misunderstood victim? I dare say Levi was an intelligent, educated Jewish musician but then so was Mahler. To accuse people of 'overkill' when Wagner himself published page after page of venomous rhetoric is a bit rich. What you have said is actually entirely besides the point. The question us not Wagner's attitude to individual Jews he knew. What the question is is whether one of Wagner's most deeply held philosophies found its way into his operas. I feel it would be incredible if it hadn't knowing that Wagner held his operas are deeply philoshical in nature. To imply those who feel differently from you are ill informed does not boost your argument as opinion - by equally well informed scholars - is split on the matter. As for me I stick with Mahler.


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## Star (May 27, 2017)

KenOC said:


> A most amazing _non sequitur_. Thanks!


Anazing question avoidance!


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## Donna Elvira (Nov 12, 2017)

Larkenfield said:


> Read the original OP. I
> Some of you might read Shakespeare and his characterization of Shylock. Despite his less than flattering portrayal as a greedy moneylender, the playwright continues to be performed."
> 
> People don't get Shylock, Shakespeare wrote him as a sympathetic, conflicted character.
> ...


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## Faustian (Feb 8, 2015)

Star said:


> I feel it would be incredible if it hadn't knowing that Wagner held his operas are deeply philoshical in nature.


And so no one will ever be able to convince you otherwise. Once you start with the premise that antisemitism *must* be in the operas because it was part of Wagner's make-up and set about trying to find it, as many so-called "scholars" do, than you are liable to find it just about anywhere. But perhaps instead of treating works of art as if they were journeys into the inner life of their creators and acting like the best way to understand them is by what they tell us about the person who made them, all the while patting ourselves on the back for what great musical scholars and detectives we are, we should be more concerned about what the works say.

One would think that if Wagner had the conviction and desire to take his theories on Jewish musicians imitating German art and coopting German culture in order to profit off it and turn them into an opera that he would have written an opera about derivative Jewish musicians composing vapid popular tunes at the expense of the German composer who toils away in seclusion, creating beautiful and profound musical works that never find an audience. But there was no such opera, and no such ideas find their way into the operas he did compose. We know that Wagner had a lot of concerns and opinions about a wide range of topics, and to think that all of them were somehow infused into his operas is absurdity. Wagner had quite a lot to say about his operas, about characters like Alberich and Mime, and he never said anything about them representing Jews. These characters simply meant something else to him, and he had different goals in mind when creating them, as difficult as thst may be to fathom.

However, there are still some who want to spot all the hidden, coded antisemitic messages in the operas and to be outraged and offended by them, despite the fact that a majority of listeners throughout history have been blissfully unaware of such meanings and messages. And that includes the Nazis. Well, there's no stopping them.


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## Guest (Dec 24, 2017)

Donna Elvira said:


> "yet people still drive Fords."
> 
> Not self respecting Jews.


How about any true Scotsman?...


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## Boston Charlie (Dec 6, 2017)

Perhaps the discussion has veered in the way of ridiculous. With all the other horrible things going on the world: civil unrest, human rights violations, the threat of nuclear war, global warming, poverty, disease and so forth; are we really going to worry about the foibles of a few long since dead musicians? As for Levine and Dutiot who are still alive (albeit, elderly), what do the few pennies we deprive them of by not purchasing their recordings compare to the injustice that takes place every time we buy our clothes which are probably made by slaves in southeast Asia? 

As for me, I love classical music, as it is probably the best proof that beauty exists in this very flawed and fallen world that we live in; and I don't deprive myself of enjoying any of it.


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## Tallisman (May 7, 2017)

Woodduck said:


> Which notes represent the concept "every"?


Oh, come now...


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## Boston Charlie (Dec 6, 2017)

Woodduck said:


> We are a punitive culture. We like black-and-white thinking and drastic solutions. Our God, after all, sends people to hell to burn forever. There are humane ways to deal with wrongdoers, and less "advanced" cultures, which have no prisons and seek to bring their erring fellows back into the bosom of society, have practiced some of them. But we prefer infractions and lifetime bans.


From a psychological point of view, the human brain quite naturally strives to place things into categories, to make everything "fit"; and these laws of perception that form our own realities make it difficult to see the complexity of human nature.

As a child I was taken in by Italian-American old-world grandparents who were wonderful to me in many ways and I could never stop loving them for rescuing me from a life in the projects and in poverty. On the other hand, they were also products of their environments and lack of education (as well as, a fair degree of being victims themselves of people prejudging them on account of their own ethnic background in a time in America when people lived in their own ethnic enclaves and saw the world in terms of "us" vs "them"); and they routinely used racial slurs and professed ethnic and racial stereotypes that still make me cringe to this day every time I think about it.

Rather than throwing the baby out with the bath water, it may be more constructive to understand what might make otherwise loving and responsible grandparents express themselves by way of such awful racial and ethnic slurs and stereotypes. Likewise, instead of tearing down or blotting out the music of a great composer, it may build a better world to understand how a person who could bless the world with such beautiful music could also have his or her own dark side.


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## Guest (Dec 24, 2017)

KenOC said:


> An interesting viewpoint. But I'll ask: What would happen to Wagner's career if he were writing today and published _Das Judenthum in der Musik_? I'm pretty sure his operas would never be published or performed. Would that be a worthy outcome?
> 
> Great art may be secondary, but it's all Wagner had to give us. To me at least, his personal deficiencies are nothing compared with that.


Wagner didn't molest musicians as far as I know. The situation is different to that which you were replying to.

One artist whose loss was disappointing was Leni Reifenstal. It is a shame that she was unable to direct films in the post war period. There is a huge void in German cinema from the 30s through to the late 60s.


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## Tallisman (May 7, 2017)

"_What issues from the Jews' attempts at making Art, must necessarily therefore bear the attributes of coldness and indifference, even to triviality and absurdity; and in the history of Modern Music we can but class the Judaic period as that of final unproductivity, of stability gone to ruin._"

- Judenthum in Der Musik

And you continue to tell me that Wagner's striving for a new form, and the form that that new innovation takes, its consciously heroic, passionate characteristics, have nothing to do with his ideology.


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## Faustian (Feb 8, 2015)

Tallisman said:


> "_What issues from the Jews' attempts at making Art, must necessarily therefore bear the attributes of coldness and indifference, even to triviality and absurdity; and in the history of Modern Music we can but class the Judaic period as that of final unproductivity, of stability gone to ruin._"
> 
> - Judenthum in Der Musik
> 
> And you continue to tell me that Wagner's striving for a new form, and the form that that new innovation takes, its consciously heroic, passionate characteristics, have nothing to do with his ideology.


If it does, it sounds a lot like what Woodduck has already posited:



Woodduck said:


> It's been pointed out that, ironically, some of Wagner's protagonists are better candidates for being considered Jewish than his villains. There is the Flying Dutchman who, like the legendary "wandering Jew," lives under a curse, has no home and must be saved from his alienated condition by a (presumably Christian) Norwegian seaman's daughter. Wagner saw this connection himself, but the Dutchman is presented as entirely sympathetic. And there's Titurel, a mysterious, Jehovah-like figure who heads a religious order under a strict moral code, who compels his only begotten son to suffer agonizing pain, and finally dies when a representative of a more humane morality of compassion replaces him (a plausible representation of the evolution of an Old Testament religion of law into a New Testament religion of grace). The trouble is, those who look for anti-semitism in Parsifal always make Klingsor the Jew!


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Tallisman said:


> "_What issues from the Jews' attempts at making Art, must necessarily therefore bear the attributes of coldness and indifference, even to triviality and absurdity; and in the history of Modern Music we can but class the Judaic period as that of final unproductivity, of stability gone to ruin._"
> 
> - Judenthum in Der Musik
> 
> And you continue to tell me that Wagner's striving for a new form, and the form that that new innovation takes, its consciously heroic, passionate characteristics, have nothing to do with his ideology.


Of course that is _not_ what I've told you. What I've told you is that the whole idea is useless unless we can show _the specific way_ in which social or political ideas of the sort you quote find their way into music. That is not easy to do, and you most certainly have not done it.

Go back to the drawing board and return with an example of music illustrating Jewish musical impotence and the resulting decline of European culture, and we'll have something to discuss.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Star said:


> I
> 
> I can't see why a quote from a distinguished composer brings all these words!
> So those people who think differently to you aren't educated and informed? We are just irrational 'Wagner haters' with Wagner the poor misunderstood victim? I dare say Levi was an intelligent, educated Jewish musician but then so was Mahler. To accuse people of 'overkill' when Wagner himself published page after page of venomous rhetoric is a bit rich. What you have said is actually entirely besides the point. The question us not Wagner's attitude to individual Jews he knew. What the question is is whether one of Wagner's most deeply held philosophies found its way into his operas. I feel it would be incredible if it hadn't knowing that Wagner held his operas are deeply philoshical in nature. To imply those who feel differently from you are ill informed does not boost your argument as opinion - by equally well informed scholars - is split on the matter. As for me I stick with Mahler.


You began with a conclusion based on one brief statement of opinion by a not unbiased individual, you've talked about (but not cited) "scholars," you've ignored every argument that might call your belief into question and offered no argument that supports it, and you've done nothing but repeat yourself in post after post, which you're still doing.

Me, I come onto this forum hoping to learn something I didn't know.


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## Star (May 27, 2017)

Faustian said:


> *And so no one will ever be able to convince you otherwise. Once you start with the premise that antisemitism must be in the operas because it was part of Wagner's make-up and set about trying to find it, as many so-called "scholars" do, than you are liable to find it just about anywhere. *But perhaps instead of treating works of art as if they were journeys into the inner life of their creators and acting like the best way to understand them is by what they tell us about the person who made them, all the while patting ourselves on the back for what great musical scholars and detectives we are, we should be more concerned about what the works say.
> 
> One would think that if Wagner had the conviction and desire to take his theories on Jewish musicians imitating German art and coopting German culture in order to profit off it and turn them into an opera that he would have written an opera about derivative Jewish musicians composing vapid popular tunes at the expense of the German composer who toils away in seclusion, creating beautiful and profound musical works that never find an audience. But there was no such opera, and no such ideas find their way into the operas he did compose. We know that Wagner had a lot of concerns and opinions about a wide range of topics, and to think that all of them were somehow infused into his operas is absurdity. Wagner had quite a lot to say about his operas, about characters like Alberich and Mime, and he never said anything about them representing Jews. These characters simply meant something else to him, and he had different goals in mind when creating them, as difficult as thst may be to fathom.
> 
> However, there are still some who want to spot all the hidden, coded antisemitic messages in the operas and to be outraged and offended by them, despite the fact that a majority of listeners throughout history have been blissfully unaware of such meanings and messages. *And that includes the Nazis. Well, there's no stopping them*.


Actually I started with the opposite premise but became convinced through hearing them.

Who said I am 'outraged and offended'? Please don't put words into my mouth I haven't said. I also did not say anything about coded, antisemitic messages and neither has anyone else ac far as I can see.

Ah so from your last statement implies you are now equating those of us who feel this way with the Nazis? What an interesting thesis! please don't go down that road.


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## Star (May 27, 2017)

Woodduck said:


> You began with a conclusion based on one brief statement of opinion by a not unbiased individual, you've talked about (but not cited) "scholars," you've ignored every argument that might call your belief into question and offered no argument that supports it, and you've done nothing but repeat yourself in post after post, which you're still doing.
> 
> Me, I come onto this forum hoping to learn something I didn't know.


I think I said scolarship is divided on the issue, something you will find out if you trouble to read both sides.

I could actually say that you too have 'ignored every argument that might bring your belief into question'. There are plenty of arguments out there without reciting them on TC. Would it convince you if I did?

Why not just say we have examined the evidence and come to different conclusions?

Btw I also come onto this forum hoping to learn things. But that does not mean I have to agree with every opinion expressed any more than you do.

Please, in the Christmas spirit of charity, let's agree to disagree. I'll sign of this particular argument on Wagner now!

Happy Christmas to all who agree and disagree!


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Donna Elvira said:


> And self respecting Jews don't listen to (or conduct) Wagner, either.
> True, they study him, how else can one understand music, but, they hold him off at a distance, as a museum study piece, and don't let him get into their psyche.
> I can't listen to Wagner now that I've moved back to Israel, against my morals, but no big loss, give me Brahms or Verdi anyday.


A statement like this simply defies belief.

I can assure you that the world is full of self-respecting Jews who love and perform the music of Wagner, and it has been full of them since Wagner's own day, when distinguished Jews were quite active in advancing the cause of his music. Gustav Mahler, who suffered from living and working in the strongly antisemitic milieu of pre-WW I Vienna, was thoroughly devoted to Wagner's works, and even during the Nazi era Jewish musicians continued to perform his music. The Jewish anathema against Wagner is mainly a post WW II phenomenon induced by memories of the Holocaust, in which, needless to say, Wagner was not a participant.

Rest assured that Wagner is not trying to "get into your psyche." Those who don't want to listen to him should not, but they also shouldn't go around accusing millions of Jews who enjoy and perform his works of lacking self-respect.


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## Faustian (Feb 8, 2015)

Star said:


> Actually I started with the opposite premise but became convinced through hearing them.
> 
> Who said I am 'outraged and offended'? Please don't put words into my mouth I haven't said. I also did not say anything about coded, antisemitic messages and neither has anyone else ac far as I can see.
> 
> Ah so from your last statement implies you are now equating those of us who feel this way with the Nazis? What an interesting thesis! please don't go down that road.


You've stated before that you don't have much time for Wagner's music or theories, but you've spent enough time listening to them to deduce this huh? Fascinating. Tell me more. What characteristics of Mime's or any other characters do you find specifically and uniquely belong to Jews that has led you to decide that these characters cannot be anything but Wagner's attempt to create Jewish caricatures, despite the lack of any evidence that this was Wagner's intention?

And I would say you completely misunderstood my last statement, and trying to say I'm implying thst anyone here has anything in common with Nazis is insulting.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Star said:


> I think I said scolars hip is divided on the issue, something you will find out if you trouble to read both sides.
> 
> I could actually say that you too have 'ignored every argument that might bring your belief into question'. There are plenty of arguments out there without reciting them on TC. Would it convince you if I did?
> 
> Why not just say we have examined the evidence and come to different conclusions?


I have indeed troubled to "read both sides." I've even given you the names of writers on both sides. What have _you_ read on "both sides"?

Were you to claim that I've ignored every argument that might bring my beliefs into question you would be lying. You haven't offered a single argument. Not one.

You seem to be under the impression that merely having an opinion is proof of the validity of that opinion.

News flash: some opinions have merit, others don't. Those that do are based on facts. Dig up a few of those and get back to me.

On second thought, don't. I've had enough of this. Enjoy your opinions, but note: if you're going to put them out for public scrutiny, they're going to be scrutinized.


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## Star (May 27, 2017)

Faustian said:


> You've stated before that you don't have much time for Wagner's music or theories, but you've spent enough time listening to them to deduce this huh? Fascinating. Tell me more. What characteristics of Mime's or any other characters do you find specifically and uniquely belong to Jews that has led you to decide that these characters cannot be anything but Wagner's attempt to create Jewish caricatures, despite the lack of any evidence that this was Wagner's intention?
> 
> *And I would say you completely misunderstood my last statement, and trying to say I'm implying thst anyone here has anything in common with Nazis is insulting.*


I apologise if I misunderstood your statement, but I would respectfully suggest you are more careful how you put thinfs in print I'v you do not wish to be misunderstood.


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## Star (May 27, 2017)

Woodduck said:


> I have indeed troubled to "read both sides." I've even given you the names of writers on both sides. What have _you_ read on "both sides"?
> 
> Were you to claim that I've ignored every argument that might bring my beliefs into question you would be lying. You haven't offered a single argument. Not one.
> 
> ...


Exactly! I couldn't agree more. but please note that people are entitled to an opinion even if they have come to a different conclusion to yourself.


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## Flamme (Dec 30, 2012)

Donna Elvira said:


> Larkenfield said:
> 
> 
> > Read the original OP. I
> ...


----------



## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Flamme said:


> Donna Elvira said:
> 
> 
> > Im not a great admirer of Wag but this sounds a bit too extreme...I dont know too many real jews but in some ''wannabe'' jews i have met, who want to use their often suspicious ''jewish roots'' to advance in life, im talking about people who are 1/2, 1/4, 1/8 jews who are really what i call ''political jews'', i have noticed this type of sensitivity to many things not just this issue at hand. They seem to be in constant self induced neurotic state of mind, and can be tiggered by almost anything they deem ''anti-jewish'' in the moment.:tiphat:
> ...


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## Dan Ante (May 4, 2016)

Rebel looking for a cause!


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## fluteman (Dec 7, 2015)

Woodduck said:


> Flamme said:
> 
> 
> > I think we've all seen this phenomenon. Unfortunately, it's become fashionable among people belonging to persecuted minorities to make a cult of victimhood and look for persecutors everywhere, even when the real victims and their persecutors are now dead. Here we apparently have someone complaining of psychological persecution by a composer who died 134 years ago, and who offered several of her/his forebears employment, friendship, and, in the case of Hermann Levi, immortality.
> ...


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

I must be pretty darned naïve. When I started this thread on "bad composers," I had no idea it would turn into another tiresome Wagner thread.

I had hoped people might address other issues, such as the concert cancellations of Valentina Lisitsa, who found herself on the wrong side in the current Ukraine dispute (from the Western viewpoint, at least).

There are FAR more interesting things to talk about than the old "Wagner was a Nazi" garbage.


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## Dan Ante (May 4, 2016)

KenOC said:


> I must be pretty darned naïve. When I started this thread on "bad composers," I had no idea it would turn into another tiresome Wagner thread.
> 
> I had hoped people might address other issues, such as the concert cancellations of Valentina Lisitsa, who found herself on the wrong side in the current Ukraine dispute (from the Western viewpoint, at least).
> 
> There are FAR more interesting things to talk about than the old "Wagner was a Nazi" garbage.


Excuse me Ken but don't you mean Musicians??? or am I missing something here?


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Sorry, yes I meant musicians (which includes composers). My comment remains unchanged. Enough Wagner!


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## Star (May 27, 2017)

KenOC said:


> I must be pretty darned naïve. When I started this thread on "bad composers," I had no idea it would turn into *another tiresome Wagner thread.*
> 
> I had hoped people might address other issues, such as the concert cancellations of Valentina Lisitsa, who found herself on the wrong side in the current Ukraine dispute (from the Western viewpoint, at least).
> 
> There are FAR more interesting things to talk about than the old "Wagner was a Nazi" garbage.


Yes it is a shame that some people won't accept the FACT that there is a difference of opinion in the music world among musicologists. That is what some of us are pointing out. To say Wagner scholars like Millington and Weiner (and it appears Mahler and certain of the composers descendants) - and others who see the same things - are ill informed, appears to me just an intellectual get out. Why not just accept that there is a difference of opinion? Those of us who have been to unversities (during the 60s) got used to the idea that there were different interpretations of the same historical facts. That is the study of history.


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## Star (May 27, 2017)

Getting back to musicians, just read the lives of some famous musicians and you'll often find they are less than exemplary as people. The recent scandals that have hit the music industry have happened throughout history - with Kings, Prime Ministers and Presidents among others - only they have been better covered up. We are dealing with highly gifted people but you have the same fallibilities as we all have. There's been a recent documentary about Elvis Presley and his sheer magnetism as a performer. Unfortunately of the stage she was often a very lonely man who career destroyed him in the end. When we talk about show business, whether it is pop music or highbrow classical music, we are talking of an illusion - a wonderful illusion maybe, but an illusion. It is not real life. The same people who can create wonderful music can be absolute toerags at the same time.


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## fluteman (Dec 7, 2015)

KenOC said:


> I must be pretty darned naïve. When I started this thread on "bad composers," I had no idea it would turn into another tiresome Wagner thread.
> 
> I had hoped people might address other issues, such as the concert cancellations of Valentina Lisitsa, who found herself on the wrong side in the current Ukraine dispute (from the Western viewpoint, at least).
> 
> There are FAR more interesting things to talk about than the old "Wagner was a Nazi" garbage.


Yes, and also violinist Lisa Batiashvili's refusal to perform with the close Putin ally Valery Gergiev. Like Ukraine, Batiashvili's native Georgia has suffered severe reprisals from Russia for attempting to adopt more pro-western policies after achieving its independence.
The moderator of another classical music forum, who slips in a pro-Putin post whenever he can, called Batiashvili's stance "naive" when another poster mentioned it and then threatened to delete my posts as off-topic and inappropriately political when I called him on it. Of course, he was the one who raised the issue, not me, but as he's the moderator, I bid that forum farewell.
I don't need politics in my classical music discussion, but I find such intellectual dishonesty and not-too-hidden agendas, especially when on the part of moderators, intolerable. And I agree, the same is very much true of the tiresome Wagner debate, which only exists because he was used as a tool of the Nazi propaganda machine. Many other musicians and artists have made nasty anti-Jewish statements, in many cases far worse than his.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

Chopin receives rough treatment from Wallace Brockway and Robert Weinstock in their excellent yet idiosyncratic _Men of Music_. Here is an example of B&W's choice prose:

"His [Chopin's] social vices were characteristic of the highborn Pole domiciled in Paris: he was snobbish to the point of stupidity, and often treated those he considered his inferiors with brusque discourtesy. Of a part with this was his fanatical contempt for Jews--unless they happened to be Rothschilds, a Mendelssohn, or a Heine. He used the epithets "Jew" and "pig" interchangeably for anyone who incurred, even unwittingly, his disfavor. Ever a sensitive plant, imbibing his impressions, and most of his nonmusical ideas, from his immediate ambience, Chopin did not think out these absurd attitudes, but accepted them as unthinkingly as he did the fashion of wearing yellow gloves."

Lest Chopin enthusiasts despair, Brockway and Weinstock are fulsome in their praise of Chopin as composer.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

post deleted............


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## fluteman (Dec 7, 2015)

Strange Magic said:


> Chopin receives rough treatment from Wallace Brockway and Robert Weinstock in their excellent yet idiosyncratic _Men of Music_. Here is an example of B&W's choice prose:
> 
> "His [Chopin's] social vices were characteristic of the highborn Pole domiciled in Paris: he was snobbish to the point of stupidity, and often treated those he considered his inferiors with brusque discourtesy. Of a part with this was his fanatical contempt for Jews--unless they happened to be Rothschilds, a Mendelssohn, or a Heine. He used the epithets "Jew" and "pig" interchangeably for anyone who incurred, even unwittingly, his disfavor. Ever a sensitive plant, imbibing his impressions, and most of his nonmusical ideas, from his immediate ambience, Chopin did not think out these absurd attitudes, but accepted them as unthinkingly as he did the fashion of wearing yellow gloves."
> 
> Lest Chopin enthusiasts despair, Brockway and Weinstock are fulsome in their praise of Chopin as composer.


I've long since learned not to pay too much attention to the politics or business and personal affairs of great artists. Often, they devote all of their energy, talent, intellect, and anything else that is good and admirable about them to their art, leaving their foolish, selfish, arrogant, immature, naive, thoughtless and cruel aspects, and whatever other character flaws they may have, to predominate in other areas of their lives.


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## Triplets (Sep 4, 2014)

KenOC said:


> I must be pretty darned naïve. When I started this thread on "bad composers," I had no idea it would turn into another tiresome Wagner thread.
> 
> I had hoped people might address other issues, such as the concert cancellations of Valentina Lisitsa, who found herself on the wrong side in the current Ukraine dispute (from the Western viewpoint, at least).
> 
> There are FAR more interesting things to talk about than the old "Wagner was a Nazi" garbage.


So if I understand you correctly, it upsets you when you start a thread and it veers in a direction that you don't like. By starting a thread, you claim ownership? The right to silence others who didn't share your "thread vision"? And you get to decide when a topic is tiresome and you don't want to hear about it anymore?
Happy New Year, Tsar Ken!


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## Triplets (Sep 4, 2014)

Woodduck said:


> Flamme said:
> 
> 
> > I think we've all seen this phenomenon. Unfortunately, it's become fashionable among people belonging to persecuted minorities to make a cult of victimhood and look for persecutors everywhere, even when the real victims and their persecutors are now dead. Here we apparently have someone complaining of psychological persecution by a composer who died 134 years ago, and who offered several of her/his forebears employment, friendship, and, in the case of Hermann Levi, immortality.
> ...


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Triplets said:


> So if I understand you correctly, it upsets you when you start a thread and it veers in a direction that you don't like. By starting a thread, you claim ownership? The right to silence others who didn't share your "thread vision"? And you get to decide when a topic is tiresome and you don't want to hear about it anymore?
> Happy New Year, Tsar Ken!


Uh, no. You are generalizing without reason. But in good will I assume, given the season! So a sincere Happy New Year to you as well.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Star said:


> Yes it is a shame that some people won't accept the FACT that there is a difference of opinion in the music world among musicologists. That is what some of us are pointing out. To say Wagner scholars like Millington and Weiner (and it appears Mahler and certain of the composers descendants) - and others who see the same things - are ill informed, appears to me just an intellectual get out. Why not just accept that there is a difference of opinion? Those of us who have been to unversities (during the 60s) got used to the idea that there were different interpretations of the same historical facts. That is the study of history.


No sooner has KenOC requested that we get off the subject of Wagner, than someone has to jump right back into it, apparently just to have the last word before "getting back to musicians." That is foul play, Ms. Star.

As one of the "some people" whom you here cite as not accepting that there are differences of opinion, I would like to reveal a momentous bit of news: _everyone_ accepts that there are differences of opinion. What thinking people _do not_ accept is that all opinions have equal merit. Some opinions have good evidence and clear facts to support them. Other opinions don't.

Nobody needs to be told that if they'd only "been to universities in the '60s" they'd have learned that facts can be interpreted differently. If those universities were worth the paper their diplomas were printed on they'd also have pointed out that If you want consideration for your interpretation of facts, it really is necessary to come up with some facts to begin with, and that scornfully shrugging off facts presented by others on the spurious grounds that "there are differences of opinion" will get you a big red "F" - and not only in musicology.

KenOC is right: the subject of "Wagner and the Jews" does become tiresome, but not because the subject isn't interesting. It becomes tiresome because people attached to their prejudices insist on proving at maddening length their lack of interest, or outright contempt, for facts when those are presented to them. If people actually came here to learn something from members who have facts to present, rather than merely to throw out opinions and bristle when others challenge them, discussions would not become tiresome but would be worthy of something that calls itself a forum.

Sorry, Ken. I hope that I, Faustian and others won't have to listen again to someone telling us that it's a "shame" that we "won't accept the fact that there are differences of opinion" etc. etc. etc.

And happy new year to you.


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## Triplets (Sep 4, 2014)

Woodduck said:


> No sooner has KenOC requested that we get off the subject of Wagner, than someone has to jump right back into it, apparently just to have the last word before "getting back to musicians." That is foul play, Ms. Star.
> 
> As one of the "some people" whom you here cite as not accepting that there are differences of opinion, I would like to reveal a momentous bit of news: _everyone_ accepts that there are differences of opinion. What thinking people _do not_ accept is that all opinions have equal merit. Some opinions have good evidence and clear facts to support them. Other opinions don't.
> 
> ...


I apologize if I missed it in your previous posts, but there isn't anything listed on your profile. What exactly are your formal qualifications? Would you care to list your CV here?


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Triplets said:


> I apologize if I missed it in your previous posts, but there isn't anything listed on your profile. What exactly are your formal qualifications? Would you care to list your CV here?


52 years of immersion in Wagner's works, analyzing them as musician and scholar, starting at age 16. Is that formal enough, or do you want a degree from Trump University?


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

Triplets said:


> I apologize if I missed it in your previous posts, but there isn't anything listed on your profile. What exactly are your formal qualifications? Would you care to list your CV here?


This is a classical music Internet forum. The notion of asking people for their "formal qualifications" is totally removed from the motivating idea behind such a gathering--I'm astonished (a little/not really) at the request. People are free to volunteer whatever information they choose, and some do, with varying degrees of usefulness.

I am a Certified Expert in Everything.


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## fluteman (Dec 7, 2015)

Strange Magic said:


> I am a Certified Expert in Everything.


Oh yeah? Well,

I know our mythic history, King Arthur's and Sir Caradoc's,
I answer hard acrostics, I've a pretty taste for paradox,
I quote in elegiacs all the crimes of Heliogabalus,
In conics I can floor peculiarities parablous.
I can tell undoubted Raphaels from Gerard Dows and Zoffanies,
I know the croaking chorus from the Frogs of Aristophanes,
Then I can hum a fugue of which I've heard the music's din afore,
And whistle all the airs from that infernal nonsense Pinafore.

Happy new year to all.


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## Pat Fairlea (Dec 9, 2015)

Blimey! I spend a few quiet weeks away from TC and come back to find you all still bickering about Wagner and anti-semiotics. And each other's qualifications for having an opinion.
Well, I have an O-Level in Geology, so my opinion of Rachmaninov's The Rock trumps yours.
Seriously, just because a musician or composer was a thorough-going rectal fundament (OK, Mods?) in life, why should that affect how their music affects us? I fell in love with Grainger' s Hill Song no.2 long before I knew about his S&M habits. And knowing that makes no difference. The music is still wonderful.


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## EddieRUKiddingVarese (Jan 8, 2013)

I have a PhD in Making Weird Noise(MWN) from the YGBK University. You gotta Be Kidding Uni has many well known grauates

I'm sure Grainger (another great Aussie) studied there too

Happy 2018


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## amfortas (Jun 15, 2011)

Triplets said:


> Funny how it upsets you that a Country that occupies about 0.005% of the Earth's land mass doesn't like to perform Wagner, but I bet you don't lose a minutes sleep over the lack of representation of the cultural output of Jews in the Muslim and a significant part of the Christian world


While you conveniently ignore the fact that the entire universe will someday cease to exist.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Strange Magic said:


> This is a classical music Internet forum. The notion of asking people for their "formal qualifications" is totally removed from the motivating idea behind such a gathering--I'm astonished (a little/not really) at the request. People are free to volunteer whatever information they choose, and some do, with varying degrees of usefulness.
> 
> I am a Certified Expert in Everything.


Certified, eh? I knew it was something...


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## eugeneonagain (May 14, 2017)

EddieRUKiddingVarese said:


> I have a PhD in Making Weird Noise(MWN) from the YGBK University. You gotta Be Kidding Uni has many well known grauates
> 
> I'm sure Grainger (another great Aussie) studied there too
> 
> Happy 2018


Hey you. I studied on your distance study course and never received my diploma in atonal dancing. I demand a refund!


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

Woodduck said:


> Certified, eh? I knew it was something...


I have been Certified by Experts.....


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Maybe it _is _time to get back to Wagner...


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## eugeneonagain (May 14, 2017)

Okay, I'll start...

Wasn't Wagner just a top bloke? Pretty good musician too. Seems he doesn't fit into this thread topic at all.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

amfortas said:


> While you conveniently ignore the fact that the entire universe will someday cease to exist.


That's what they want. Then nobody will have to listen to "The Ride of the Ashkenazi Valkyries."


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## EddieRUKiddingVarese (Jan 8, 2013)

eugeneonagain said:


> Hey you. I studied on your distance study course and never received my diploma in atonal dancing. I demand a refund!


Sorry, they was a mess up in the apost with your atonal diploma- someone went apostal, not to be confused with apostle........... and we are looking into it at the YGBK.


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## Dan Ante (May 4, 2016)

amfortas said:


> While you conveniently ignore the fact that the entire universe will someday cease to exist.


Not to worry there are plenty more out there.


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## eugeneonagain (May 14, 2017)

Dan Ante said:


> Not to worry there are plenty more out there.


Universes or people ignoring the fact?


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## EddieRUKiddingVarese (Jan 8, 2013)

^ take your pick


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## Star (May 27, 2017)

Woodduck said:


> No sooner has KenOC requested that we get off the subject of Wagner, than someone has to jump right back into it, apparently just to have the last word before "getting back to musicians." That is foul play, Ms. Star.
> 
> As one of the "some people" whom you here cite as not accepting that there are differences of opinion, I would like to reveal a momentous bit of news: _everyone_ accepts that there are differences of opinion. What thinking people _do not_ accept is that all opinions have equal merit. Some opinions have good evidence and clear facts to support them. Other opinions don't.
> 
> ...


So you come to the discusiion completely unprejudiced? You say that you have had 52 years immersion in Wagner's works and therefore anyone who doesn't agree with you is wrong? Does that show you're coming at it from an unprejudiced frame of mind? Of course not. Others I have read who are equally as well qualified as you (and maybe even better qualified) disagree with you. Why does this present a problem? We disagree all the while about things. I was having a discussion with someone the other night I fundamentally disagreed with but yet we agreed to disagree. Why can't some of you guys do that? 
I am happy to accept the facts presented to me and I have studied the facts. But the problem with this is that it s then interpreting the facts and that us opinion. I have heard your argument but actually I have heard those arguments before. For you to insist that other peoples arguments are not worth the paper they're written because they do not agree with you is not an argument. Sorry but some of us are not going to be intellectually bulldozed by that. 
This is a matter that is never going to be proved one way or the other. We can both present eminent scholars and producers who take different sides. Which is why I called for a recognition that there is a difference of opinion among scholars of equal worth And qualification. I do not wish to continue this argument you call 'tiresome' (and which actually began with a two line quote from the great Jewish composer Mahler and which was picked upon for lengthy reposts) so I do wish you would let it rest and agree that there is a difference of opinion in the real world here.


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## Star (May 27, 2017)

Triplets said:


> Woodduck said:
> 
> 
> > Funny how it upsets you that a Country that occupies about 0.005% of the Earth's land mass doesn't like to perform Wagner, but I bet you don't lose a minutes sleep over the lack of representation of the cultural output of Jews in the Muslim and a significant part of the Christian world
> ...


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## Guest (Jan 1, 2018)

Yawnnnnnnnnnnnnn


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## Dan Ante (May 4, 2016)

Tulse said:


> Yawnnnnnnnnnnnnn


Very clever..................


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## Jacck (Dec 24, 2017)

Antisemitism was rampant in Europe long before the World Wars. Already during the Middle Ages there were pogroms. Recently I read some novels from German/Austrian authors - The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann and The Man Without Qualities by Robert Musil. Both novels are set before WW1 and both describe a society full of antisemitism. Is it so hard to imagine that someone like Wagner or Strauss could be inspired by the philosophy of Nietzsche and believe this antisemitist ********? It is easy to judge today.

Lets us frame the question differently. Would I still enjoy the music of John Williams if I knew that he was an ardent Trump suporter? (I do not know whether he is or not, it is just an example). We have similar politicians in my country and I tend to despise pop musicians who openly support these politicians.


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Jacck said:


> Antisemitism was rampant in Europe long before the World Wars. Already during the Middle Ages there were pogroms. Recently I read some novels from German/Austrian authors - The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann and The Man Without Qualities by Robert Musil. Both novels are set before WW1 and both describe a society full of antisemitism. Is it so hard to imagine that someone like Wagner or Strauss could be inspired by the philosophy of Nietzsche and believe this antisemitist ********? It is easy to judge today.
> 
> Lets us frame the question differently. Would I still enjoy the music of John Williams if I knew that he was an ardent Trump suporter? (I do not know whether he is or not, it is just an example). *We have similar politicians in my country and I tend to despise pop musicians who openly support these politicians.*


What about musicians who played in the Soviet era in (at least tacit) support of the regime?


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## EdwardBast (Nov 25, 2013)

DavidA said:


> What about musicians who played in the Soviet era in (at least tacit) support of the regime?


Coercion versus volunteerism?


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## Jacck (Dec 24, 2017)

"What about musicians who played in the Soviet era in (at least tacit) support of the regime?"

what about them? I was born in a communist country, although I was only 10 when the regime collapsed. Not everyone is brave enough to stand up openly to a dictatorial regime and be prosecuted (go to jail, let the whole family suffer etc). And we are talking about the better days from the late stage of the regime. It was much worse during stalinism. Read the Gulag Archipelago to get an idea about the milions of dead that perished in gulags. So most people learn to live a double existence. You know that the regime is bad, and you cooperate on the surface in order not to be hassled, not to go to gulag etc. 
And especially Russians have a peculiar attitude towards their country. They know that their country is corrupt but they still love it. That was the case with Prokofiev. He could have stayed abroad and avoid stalinism, despite that he chose to return and compose symphonies for the regime. 
http://www.scena.org/lsm/sm8-9/Prokofiev-en.htm
I really do not want to judge the people who lived during these times


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Star said:


> So you come to the discusiion completely unprejudiced? You say that you have had 52 years immersion in Wagner's works and therefore anyone who doesn't agree with you is wrong? Does that show you're coming at it from an unprejudiced frame of mind? Of course not. Others I have read who are equally as well qualified as you (and maybe even better qualified) disagree with you. Why does this present a problem? We disagree all the while about things. I was having a discussion with someone the other night I fundamentally disagreed with but yet we agreed to disagree. Why can't some of you guys do that?
> I am happy to accept the facts presented to me and I have studied the facts. But the problem with this is that it s then interpreting the facts and that us opinion. I have heard your argument but actually I have heard those arguments before. For you to insist that other peoples arguments are not worth the paper they're written because they do not agree with you is not an argument. Sorry but some of us are not going to be intellectually bulldozed by that.
> This is a matter that is never going to be proved one way or the other. We can both present eminent scholars and producers who take different sides. Which is why I called for a recognition that there is a difference of opinion among scholars of equal worth And qualification. I do not wish to continue this argument you call 'tiresome' (and which actually began with a two line quote from the great Jewish composer Mahler and which was picked upon for lengthy reposts) so *I do wish you would let it rest* and agree that there is a difference of opinion in the real world here.


Oh dear... I thought the matter already HAD been left to rest when KenOC requested that we not continue it. I know I had no intention of continuing it. And then you popped back up, said "Yes..." and :trp: --- _continued it!_ You've also continued to tell me that I don't accept that there are differences of opinion when I've just told you that I do accept that - that, in fact, _everyone_ does.

Do you plan to respect KenOC's request or not? No, don't answer - please!


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## Boston Charlie (Dec 6, 2017)

Jacck said:


> "What about musicians who played in the Soviet era in (at least tacit) support of the regime?"
> 
> what about them? I was born in a communist country, although I was only 10 when the regime collapsed. Not everyone is brave enough to stand up openly to a dictatorial regime and be prosecuted (go to jail, let the whole family suffer etc). And we are talking about the better days from the late stage of the regime. It was much worse during stalinism. Read the Gulag Archipelago to get an idea about the milions of dead that perished in gulags. So most people learn to live a double existence. You know that the regime is bad, and you cooperate on the surface in order not to be hassled, not to go to gulag etc.
> *And especially Russians have a peculiar attitude towards their country. They know that their country is corrupt but they still love it.* That was the case with Prokofiev. He could have stayed abroad and avoid stalinism, despite that he chose to return and compose symphonies for the regime.
> ...


History is written by the winners. While it seems only natural that people should be as defensive when it comes to their own country, as they are when it comes to their own mother; we tend to question nationalism when we are taught that the regime is the enemy, as was the case with Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union; while here in America we uplift patriotism and nationalism despite the fact that our ostensible egalitarian ideals have always been countered by a history that involves the enslavement of Africans, the genocide of Native Americans, and an imperialist agenda that continues to exploit countries where people tend to have darker skin. In my view the issue has nothing to do with taking down statues of dead men or banning the music of a dead musician. To me, that's a BS approach that may make us feel good for the moment but does not really solve the injustices that continue to this day. If morals concern us that much, then why not place some of our time, technology and other resources into changing things for the better right now?


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## Tallisman (May 7, 2017)

*Skip to 9:54 for Wagner stuff*

I'm neither expressing agreement nor disagreement with this. Just putting it out there. Norman Lebrecht has to be taken with a pinch of salt, too, for multiple reasons.


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## Strange Magic (Sep 14, 2015)

Thus, from the linked article on Prokofiev:

"I have on my desk the programme for a Sunday afternoon concert given by the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Sir Adrian Boult "in honour of Stalin's birthday". The date is 21 December, 1941, and the main item on the menu is Prokofiev. I have other papers of that period in which Walton, Bliss and Malcolm Sargent are cheerily serenading Stalin.

The whole of Western civilisation went doolally for a smile from Uncle Joe and, as Martin Amis justly contends, has never admitted its guilt in inflating the monster's megalomania. Prokofiev, by dying with Stalin, is buried with him in our collective subsconscious. We avoid most of his music because of the associations it evokes, and the Russians treat it circumspectly because the evil is still alive."

I recall hearing vague rumors of some sort of a war involving the possible extermination of Western civilization at the hands of Nazi Germany, at about the time mentioned above. Is it possible that, in the face of daily destruction, the Western allies thought it better to aid and encourage the Russian bear than to chance Hitler seizing the additional oil, soil, and resources of the USSR, then grabbing the Mideast oilfields, and finally linking with Japan? The praise of Stalin was designed to sweeten the bitter pill of collaboration with the perceived lesser evil in order to crush the greater. One must ask: what would the better alternative have been?


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## Jacck (Dec 24, 2017)

"I have other papers of that period in which Walton, Bliss and Malcolm Sargent are cheerily serenading Stalin."

there were a lot of useful idiots in the West (for example Berndard Shaw). They were naive, leftist intellectuals. 
if you have time, watch some videos by Yuri Bezmenov (KGB defector) about how they built potemkin villages for them.


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## Star (May 27, 2017)

Strange Magic said:


> Thus, from the linked article on Prokofiev:
> 
> "I have on my desk the programme for a Sunday afternoon concert given by the BBC Symphony Orchestra and Sir Adrian Boult "in honour of Stalin's birthday". The date is 21 December, 1941, and the main item on the menu is Prokofiev. I have other papers of that period in which Walton, Bliss and Malcolm Sargent are cheerily serenading Stalin.
> 
> ...


Churchill on his collaboration with Stalin during WW2: "If Hitler invaded hell I would make at least a favourable reference to the devil in the House of Commons."
Churchill of course ended up very disillusioned at the end of World War II as Poland, the country we had gone to war to save, was enslaved by another totalitarian regime. However we probably did the right thing instead siding with Stalin as the lesser of two evils


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## DavidA (Dec 14, 2012)

Jacck said:


> "What about musicians who played in the Soviet era in (at least tacit) support of the regime?"
> 
> what about them? I was born in a communist country, although I was only 10 when the regime collapsed. Not everyone is brave enough to stand up openly to a dictatorial regime and be prosecuted (go to jail, let the whole family suffer etc). And we are talking about the better days from the late stage of the regime. It was much worse during stalinism. Read the Gulag Archipelago to get an idea about the milions of dead that perished in gulags. So most people learn to live a double existence. You know that the regime is bad, and you cooperate on the surface in order not to be hassled, not to go to gulag etc.
> And especially Russians have a peculiar attitude towards their country. They know that their country is corrupt but they still love it. That was the case with Prokofiev. He could have stayed abroad and avoid stalinism, despite that he chose to return and compose symphonies for the regime.
> ...


So what about the musicians who played for the Nazis? Do we judge them similarly? It is a point of history that, especially during the post war period of 60s-70s, it was OK among intellectuals to side with a totalitarian left wing dictatorship but terrible to side with a right wing totalitarian regime. The attitude still prevails. So it was considered OK for Oistrakh, Mvravinsky, etc, to play for totalitarian Russia but now it's not OK for Gergiev to conduct for Putin. Is this consistent? I'm asking this generally for comment.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Tallisman said:


> *Skip to 9:54 for Wagner stuff*
> 
> I'm neither expressing agreement nor disagreement with this. Just putting it out there. *Norman Lebrecht has to be taken with a pinch of salt*, too, for multiple reasons.


Poor Norman Lebrecht! Another Jew who's stuck forever viewing the universe through the filter of the Holocaust. What are we to make of his statement that Meyerbeer and Mendelssohn were the chief formative influences on Wagner? What musician would agree with that? But those composers were Jewish, so Lebrecht needs them to "explain" Wagner. Then the interviewer portentously intones: "Vahgnah - and the concentration camps!" Of course Norman is thrilled to affirm that the two can never be separated. Even to imagine that they could would wreck his worldview.

Anyone who knows Lebrecht knew what to expect here.


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## Triplets (Sep 4, 2014)

Woodduck said:


> 52 years of immersion in Wagner's works, analyzing them as musician and scholar, starting at age 16. Is that formal enough, or do you want a degree from Trump University?


No, but if you are going to repeatedly harangue posters such as Starr from not 'benefiting ' from the wisdom of posters such as yourself, it might help to know what the origins of that wisdom are.
If you are describing yourself as a scholar, and explicitly stating that the quality of wisdom that informs your posts is better than those of us who do not specialize in Music but are merely interested in it, then hit me over my blockhead with the details. Just a brief list of your academic degrees, published works, and teaching appointments, and professional accomplishments We don't need the whole magilla.
And of course you could lie like a certain U.S. President and I'd have no way of fact checking since I don't know your true identity, but having read your posts through the years I think that you have the integrity to refrain from that temptation


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## Tallisman (May 7, 2017)

Woodduck said:


> *52 years of immersion* in Wagner's works


52 years! I'm seriously impressed. The most I can manage is 20 minutes.


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## Tallisman (May 7, 2017)

Woodduck said:


> Flamme said:
> 
> 
> > Wagner never advocated the persecution, conquest, domination or oppression of any people.
> ...


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## KJ von NNJ (Oct 13, 2017)

Norman Lebrecht is entitled to his own opinion. However, one cannot simply tell the future from the times of Richard Wagner's life, to what became many years later, the sick machine known as the third reich. I have always felt that Wagner would have balked at the whole thing if he had witnessed the brutal psychopathic hatred of Nazism. Wagner was a pretty mixed up guy prone to self-contradiction often in his life. I like to think that Wagner himself would have been deeply troubled by the rise of the Third Reich and the ways in which it destroyed millions of lives. I can't imagine Wagner being a hand puppet for Hitler or his henchmen. Nor can I imagine him producing art at their bidding. Wagner's views were from another time and they should best stay there.
Lebrecht gave us "Mahler Remembered". A good book.


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## Tallisman (May 7, 2017)

Woodduck said:


> That's what they want. Then nobody will have to listen to "The Ride of the Ashkenazi Valkyries."


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Tallisman said:


>


:lol: Do I hear a hint of Klezmer? Ho-jo-to-ho...OY!


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## Star (May 27, 2017)

Tallisman said:


> *Skip to 9:54 for Wagner stuff*
> 
> I'm neither expressing agreement nor disagreement with this. Just putting it out there. Norman Lebrecht has to be taken with a pinch of salt, too, for multiple reasons.


Lebrecht has to be taken with a pinch of salt as he tends to make the sweeping connections that ultimately destroy his own arguments. Wagner's paranoidal personal hatred of Meyerbeer is explored briefly here - the Wagner grovelling to Meyerbeer and later turning on the man who tried to help him

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-e...ures/the-man-who-made-wagner-mad-8368165.html

The one thing I would say Lebrecht gets right is that Wagner did give an artistic legitimacy to the Nazis because of his nationalism and antisemitism. These goons were quick to latch on to the worst elements of Wagner. I am puzzled when he says that the only opera Hitler liked was Lohengrin. I was pretty sure Meistersingers was one of his favourites too. I must confess myself to be amused when you look at pictures of Bayreuth during the Nazis period of these goons - many of them whose only culture was the beer hall - going to attend five hours of Wagner to please their chief. They look as if they are going to a painful visit to the dentist!


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## KenOC (Mar 7, 2011)

Star said:


> ... I must confess myself to be amused when you look at pictures of Bayreuth during the Nazis period of these goons - many of them whose only culture was the beer hall - going to attend five hours of Wagner to please their chief. They look as if they are going to a painful visit to the dentist!


Don't know the truth of it, but I've read that Hitler's favorite music was the operettas of J Strauss and Lehar, not those big operas of Wagner.


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## Star (May 27, 2017)

KJ von NNJ said:


> Norman Lebrecht is entitled to his own opinion. However, one cannot simply tell the future from the times of Richard Wagner's life, to what became many years later, the sick machine known as the third reich. I have always felt that Wagner would have balked at the whole thing if he had witnessed the brutal psychopathic hatred of Nazism. Wagner was a pretty mixed up guy prone to self-contradiction often in his life. I like to think that Wagner himself would have been deeply troubled by the rise of the Third Reich and the ways in which it destroyed millions of lives. I can't imagine Wagner being a hand puppet for Hitler or his henchmen. Nor can I imagine him producing art at their bidding. Wagner's views were from another time and they should best stay there.
> Lebrecht gave us "Mahler Remembered". A good book.


I think it is pointless speculating on what Wagner have actually thought of the Third Reich. As many of his views coincided with the German nationalism and anti-Semitism that was being proposed by Hitler then we might consider that Wagner would at least initially have been a huge supporter, especially if Hitler had have sponsored his music. But in this he would only have been one among many thousands of Germans who were initially tremendously enthusiastic about Hitler and his regime. After the humiliation of the defeat of the First World War and the terms imposed on Germany, then Hitler was looked upon by many as a saviour of the nation. Whether Wagner would have become disgusted with the excesses and brutality of the third Reich is only a matter of speculation as we simply don't know. It is better to judge Wagner and his works in the context he wrote them in and not what followed. Whether or not he would have approved of his works (and Bayreuth) being hijacked by the Nazis we simply don't know. What we do know - history teaches this - was that certain of his his immediate family were enthusiastic supporters of Hitler and his regime and leant Bayreuth for the purpose of giving artistic support to Narzism..


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## Star (May 27, 2017)

KenOC said:


> Don't know the truth of it, but I've read that Hitler's favorite music was the operettas of J Strauss and Lehar, not those big operas of Wagner.


You are probably right. It was Wagner that gave the regime its artistic credence though. I know Karajan fell from favour with Hitler when a drunken singer lost his way in Meistersingers and Hitler blamed Karajan for conducting without a score thus desecrating the masterpiece.


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## Taggart (Feb 14, 2013)

Some purely political posts have been removed.


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## Biffo (Mar 7, 2016)

KenOC said:


> Don't know the truth of it, but I've read that Hitler's favorite music was the operettas of J Strauss and Lehar, not those big operas of Wagner.


Hitler hated Vienna and despised operetta as decadent trash. Wagner was his great love and (apparently) Lohengrin was his favourite opera though he loved them all. Some time in the 1930's Goebbels persuaded Hitler to listen to Lehar, Strauss etc and he became hooked. As the war situation got worse he spent hours listening to recordings and spent large amounts of money on lavish productions of The Merry Widow (allegedly his favourite) etc. It must have been some kind of escapism.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Star said:


> You are probably right. It was Wagner that gave the regime its artistic credence though. I know Karajan fell from favour with Hitler when a drunken singer lost his way in Meistersingers and Hitler blamed Karajan for conducting without a score thus desecrating the masterpiece.


What does the statement that "Wagner that gave the [Nazi] regime its artistic credence" mean? Political regimes don't gain "credence" (do you mean "credibility"?) by the fact that their leaders play someone's music. Hitler fancied Wagner a spiritual forbear and imagined himself some kind of mythical hero. How did that gave his actions "credence"? In whose eyes? Nazism would have been neither more nor less than what it was without Hitler's particular aesthetic passions.


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## Woodduck (Mar 17, 2014)

Triplets said:


> No, but *if you are going to repeatedly harangue posters such as Starr from not 'benefiting ' from the wisdom of posters such as yourself,* it might help to know what the origins of that wisdom are.
> If you are describing yourself as a scholar, and explicitly stating that the quality of wisdom that informs your posts is better than those of us who do not specialize in Music but are merely interested in it, then hit me over my blockhead with the details. *Just a brief list of your academic degrees, published works, and teaching appointments, and professional accomplishments We don't need the whole magilla.*
> *And of course you could lie like a certain U.S. President *and I'd have no way of fact checking since I don't know your true identity, but having read your posts through the years I think that you have the integrity to refrain from that temptation


This is nothing but an insult, and your repeatedly asking for degrees and diplomas is ludicrous. It tells me that you are either uninterested in considering reasoned arguments on the subject at hand or unable to recognize them or follow them. If you yourself want to present an argument for something, I'll be happy to take you on.


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## Taggart (Feb 14, 2013)

Political discussion having taken over, this thread is now temporarily closed.

When it re-opens in a day or two, we will monitor its progress. Further political discussion will result in a second, *longer* closure. 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Now re-opened.


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## fluteman (Dec 7, 2015)

Woodduck said:


> Poor Norman Lebrecht! Another Jew who's stuck forever viewing the universe through the filter of the Holocaust. What are we to make of his statement that Meyerbeer and Mendelssohn were the chief formative influences on Wagner? What musician would agree with that? But those composers were Jewish, so Lebrecht needs them to "explain" Wagner. Then the interviewer portentously intones: "Vahgnah - and the concentration camps!" Of course Norman is thrilled to affirm that the two can never be separated. Even to imagine that they could would wreck his worldview.
> 
> Anyone who knows Lebrecht knew what to expect here.


The problem with Norman Lebrecht is not that he's Jewish, it's that he's (in my humble opinion, but also in the opinion of many others), an untrustworthy, disingenuous, sensationalist, and all in all, bad music historian. He has his pet theories, which he rehashes over and over, often with a not-too-close regard to the facts. I hate to restart a thread like this by devoting even a brief post to him, an honor he does not deserve, but I frankly find it offensive that you use him to make a negative comment about Jews generally.


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## Star (May 27, 2017)

fluteman said:


> The problem with Norman Lebrecht is not that he's Jewish, it's that he's (in my humble opinion, but also in the opinion of many others), an untrustworthy, disingenuous, sensationalist, and all in all, bad music historian. He has his pet theories, which he rehashes over and over, often with a not-too-close regard to the facts. I hate to restart a thread like this by devoting even a brief post to him, an honor he does not deserve, but I frankly find it offensive that you use him to make a negative comment about Jews generally.


I agree with your comments about Lebrecht. He is a good news gatherer but appears to enjoy scandal. I also agree that the comment about Jews was offensive.


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## Triplets (Sep 4, 2014)

I didn't realize that Lebrecht was Jewish but I can't see that it matters. And the offensiveness of the comment should be obvious to everyone except to the poster that made it.


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## Ralfy (Jul 19, 2010)

"Classical musicians with ties to Plácido Domingo arrested in Buenos Aires"



> Classical musicians who have been publicly linked to disgraced opera star Plácido Domingo have been arrested in Argentina or are still wanted by police in connection to an alleged crime ring. The group, which operated as the Buenos Aires Yoga School, was headed by 84-year-old Juan Percowicz. The group is accused of sexual trafficking, including of minors, as well as extortion and money laundering. No charges have been brought against Domingo.
> 
> At least three of the individuals whom Argentine prosecutors have identified as part of the alleged crime ring have performed or collaborated with Domingo since at least 1995, and have performed professionally with other major classical music artists and ensembles as well.


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## fluteman (Dec 7, 2015)

KenOC said:


> We seem to have a recurring idea around here that composers, conductors, or performers of classical music must be on the side of the angels to be thought worth listening to. Were they anti-Semitic? Nazi sympathizers? Communists? Even child molesters (yes, we have some of those)? Aligning with the wrong side seems to make them pariahs in our eyes. If we want to enjoy them, we have to somehow see them as hidden resisters (yeah, DSCH, I’m talking about you!)
> 
> Does this make any sense at all? I‘ll happily suggest: it doesn’t. It’s a kind of silly season we can’t seem to escape.
> 
> What do you think?


It isn't always true, but great artists often concentrate their best characteristics on their art, leaving their worst inclinations and weaknesses to come to the fore in their personal (and business) lives. Thus, in their art they are energetic, imaginative, broad minded, creative, disciplined, hard working, brave, honest, and honorable, but in the rest of their lives, often narrow minded, arrogant, self-absorbed, cowardly, lazy, irresponsible, dishonest, and dishonorable, or even criminal.

This trend first became noticeable to me when I read the Autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini, a great Renaissance artist who as it turns out was an arrogant, self-absorbed womanizing pig, but still, gave great insight into his world in this great and famous autobiography.


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## fbjim (Mar 8, 2021)

Ralfy said:


> "Classical musicians with ties to Plácido Domingo arrested in Buenos Aires"


As a certain ex-president once said, when you're a star, you can get away with it. Same with a disgraced ex-Met conductor as well.


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## superhorn (Mar 23, 2010)

Star said:


> Jewish people might be a bit more sensitive as to the meaning:
> "I am convinced that this figure [Mime] is the embodied persiflage of a Jew, as intended by Wagner (with all the traits which he gave him: his petty cleverness, greed, and all the complete musically and textually excellent jargon [Yiddishized German])." (Gustav Mahler)


 Britten was accused of being a pedophile during his lifetime , but this hasn't been proven . He was a gay man, but. being gay is not the same thing as being a pedophile , and the vast majority of gay men do not molest young boys, just as the vast majority of heterosexual men do not molest young girls .


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## fbjim (Mar 8, 2021)

I think the most common thing I hear about Britten is that he had sexual hangups involving young boys but did not act on them, though I believe he did have relationships with some that many would consider at least highly inappropriate.


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## Nate Miller (Oct 24, 2016)

This is just stupid. Why on Earth would you even care what the musician/composer did after the show?


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## fbjim (Mar 8, 2021)

It depends on how you view artists. If your view on them is primarily appreciation of the art they created, you may not care, but when they're brought up as eg paragons of civilization, it may become relevant.


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## fluteman (Dec 7, 2015)

fbjim said:


> It depends on how you view artists. If your view on them is primarily appreciation of the art they created, you may not care, but when they're brought up as eg paragons of civilization, it may become relevant.


I think it would be a mistake to look on the greatest artists of a society as its greatest or most admirable people, but that can be an easy trap to fall into. As I said in another but related context in a couple of lengthy threads here, sometimes quoting and/or citing David Hume, the great artists of a civilization usually are remembered long after its other leading figures are forgotten. It's tempting to give them the status of heroic standard bearers of the traditions and values of their society. But "hero" frequently isn't the best term to describe them.


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## Nate Miller (Oct 24, 2016)

yes, I wouldn't hold up musicians as the most admirable people in society

unless you need to hold them up to keep them from falling down drunk


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