# Wagner and Israel



## aleazk (Sep 30, 2011)

I was reading in the news a new polemic because there are plans for interpret the music of Wagner in Israel. As all we know, Wagner was an antisemite, and Hitler was his admirer. Of course, I have the position that the artistic value of Wagner's music is independent of his racists ideas. But I'm not jew. I try to think in their side and is hard. How you reconcile your admiration for a person who have ideas against your own people?


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## Couchie (Dec 9, 2010)

The Israelites have reason to ban a good many things... like _Ford _cars who's founder was Hitler's single greatest inspiration and the host of German and American companies who exploited Jewish slave labour and helped make the German front and Holocaust possible.

That they go with a composer who died half a century before any of this is a bit odd.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

aleazk said:


> I was reading in the news a new polemic because there are plans for interpret the music of Wagner in Israel. As all we know, Wagner was an antisemite, and Hitler was his admirer. Of course, I have the position that the artistic value of Wagner's music is independent of his racists ideas. But I'm not jew. I try to think in their side and is hard. How you reconcile your admiration for a person who have ideas against your own people?


As a white male Evangelical Christian and citizen of the USA, no one has ever really been able to do more than resent me. "My people" haven't experienced anything like the Jews have. And it's impossible to separate music from culture.

But I think it's perfectly possible to love the art of an enemy people. Perhaps not right during the war, but years afterwards....

There used to be a bit of this kind of thing in Korea with Japanese culture. But eventually they got over it. I think the thing that makes it harder for Israelis is that Wagner is not merely foreign: his music is closer to something inside them, European culture, and a big part of the pain over the holocaust is a sense of betrayal. So it's not just an enemy people's music, it's something deeper.


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## Hesoos (Jun 9, 2012)

The main point is the music.

Napoleon was an evil creature and like Hitler and Stalin caused a lot of dead. But Napoleon spread the French Revolution equality ideals.

Wagner was a rascist, but he spread a wonderful music.

Is the Wagner's music rascist? I don't think so... But his music is really wonderful. 
You can not admire Wagner like a person (he was untruthful to all the people), but like a genius is admirable... and that is the point


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## Hesoos (Jun 9, 2012)

science said:


> As a white male Evangelical Christian and citizen of the USA, no one has ever really been able to do more than resent me. "My people" haven't experienced anything like the Jews have. And it's impossible to separate music from culture.
> 
> But I think it's perfectly possible to love the art of an enemy people. Perhaps not right during the war, but years afterwards....
> 
> There used to be a bit of this kind of thing in Korea with Japanese culture. But eventually they got over it. I think the thing that makes it harder for Israelis is that Wagner is not merely foreign: his music is closer to something inside them, European culture, and a big part of the pain over the holocaust is a sense of betrayal. So it's not just an enemy people's music, it's something deeper.


Wagner admired Meyerbeer. Meyerbeer helped Wagner (I think Wagner became rascist because he was jealous to Meyerbeer). Mahler admired Wagner a lot. Mahler just thought of Wagner's music I think, no matter what like of person Wagner was.


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## aleazk (Sep 30, 2011)

Hesoos said:


> The main point is the music.
> 
> Napoleon was an evil creature and like Hitler and Stalin caused a lot of dead. But Napoleon spread the French Revolution equality ideals.
> 
> ...


Yes, you are right, I agree, it's a valid objective analysis. But that's not the question. The question is about the internal conflict of the hypothetical listener. You feel admiration for the person, but at the same time you know that this person has an irrational hate for people like you. I mean, all that objective analysis is nice, but I think is not that easy. Since the good is more memorable than the evil, I suppose that Science is correct. I think that the conflict will puzzle the listener but in the long term will be sufficiently moved by the music as to forget the issue.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

The British actor Stephen Fry made a fascinating documentary about this a few years back called _Wagner & Me_. HERE is the trailer on youtube. Mr. Fry is speaking about these inner conflicts as both a Wagnerite and a person of Jewish heritage who lost relatives in the Holocaust.

My personal take on this is that anti-Semitism does creep through in Wagner's music. _Parsifal _is the best example, its megalomania has been criticised by many writers on music, even those who praise its music. Listening to that, one is not surprised how some Wagnerites take this guy's pseudo religion and turn it into their own 'religion,' even though it ain't no real religion. But anyway.

I've said this a million times on this forum, Wagner's personal ideology was based on the pseudo scientific racialist theories of de Gobineau and H.S. Chamberlain. Both where admirers of Wagner's music, Chamberlain (a Brit) even took up German citizenship as a result of his worshipping German culture and Aryan 'race.'

I'm not Jewish yet I detest this guy and all he stood for. The only thing of use was his innovations in music, that's basically it. In any case, I think his operas are long-winded and badly needed editing. If you think that's going too far, well I think a good deal of people think this (I've talked to some), but they won't admit it openly, as Wagner has to be idolised as a God.

His middle period operas I'm okay with to a degree, eg. _Tannhauser_ or _Lohengrin, _but I think in_ The Ring _and esp. _Parsifal,_ he went too far. He turned music into a pseudo religion which I think is as I said, megalomania.

Other thing is I think it's his political exile in Switzerland that may have turned him bitter and in need of a scapegoat. I don't think it was Meyerbeer, to be honest. In Switzerland, Wagner wasted like 5 or 10 years writing anti-Semitic tracts. He would have been better to spend time writing music, methinks.

A complex man indeed. But if Israel doesn't want to play his music (although it's no longer banned there, thanks to the efforts of Daniel Barenboim decades ago), I don't think they're missing out on much, to tell you the truth.

There you go, a totally biased opinion.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

Sid James said:


> The British actor Stephen Fry made a fascinating documentary about this a few years back called _Wagner & Me_. HERE is the trailer on youtube. Mr. Fry is speaking about these inner conflicts as both a Wagnerite and a person of Jewish heritage who lost relatives in the Holocaust.
> 
> My personal take on this is that anti-Semitism does creep through in Wagner's music. _Parsifal _is the best example, its megalomania has been criticised by many writers on music, even those who praise its music. Listening to that, one is not surprised how some Wagnerites take this guy's pseudo religioan and turn it into their own 'religion,' even though it ain't no real religion. But anyway.
> 
> ...


But you have listened to his music and done your darnedest to give it a fair shot, which is what I would ask of future generations if I ever produce anything I consider "great art" and find that my worldview becomes detestable to them.


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## aleazk (Sep 30, 2011)

Sid James said:


> The British actor Stephen Fry made a fascinating documentary about this a few years back called _Wagner & Me_. HERE is the trailer on youtube. Mr. Fry is speaking about these inner conflicts as both a Wagnerite and a person of Jewish heritage who lost relatives in the Holocaust.
> 
> My personal take on this is that anti-Semitism does creep through in Wagner's music. _Parsifal _is the best example, its megalomania has been criticised by many writers on music, even those who praise its music. Listening to that, one is not surprised how some Wagnerites take this guy's pseudo religion and turn it into their own 'religion,' even though it ain't no real religion. But anyway.
> 
> ...


I will see Fry's documentary, that's precisely what I was looking for.


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## Chrythes (Oct 13, 2011)

Couchie said:


> The Israelites have reason to ban a good many things... like _Ford _cars who's founder was Hitler's single greatest inspiration and the host of German and American companies who exploited Jewish slave labour and helped make the German front and Holocaust possible.
> 
> That they go with a composer who died half a century before any of this is a bit odd.


Ford is not banned in Israel. Ford Focus is actually one of the most popular cars to be given to workers in big companies.

Recently there were some plans to include Wagner in a concert in Israel, but as always it was canceled. The main opposers are actually the Holocaust survivors, which is perfectly understandable sine Wagner's music was also heard in the concentration camps. I believe that in 20 years the situation there will change .

BTW - Is it really impossible to be antisemite, write an essay about the "Judaism in Music" in a negative sense, and then write operas and not include even a bit of your ideology in your libretto?


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## emiellucifuge (May 26, 2009)

The Fry documentary is really not that interesting and is very centered on "him". In the end he concludes that even if Wagner was a bit of a *******, his music is fundamentally good, and then Mr. Fry happily wanders into the Bayreuther Festspielhaus to attend his first Bayreuth production.

I disagree with the general gist of Sid James's post.

Wagner was indeed a very complex person, often unpleasant, as many genii are, and thoroughly selfish. To me it seems one of the prime catalysts for his ideas on race and particularly Judaism come from his jealousy of succesful Jewish composers such as Meyerbeer. He was for a long time, a wanted man, in exile, running from vast debts, neglected by the artistic community, and at the same time Meyerbeer was a celebrity, earning huge amounts and his artworks, which Wagner saw as dead-end and artificial were being performed everywhere.

It is important to remember, that Wagner only ever spoke of race and judaism in a cultural context. He never believed in the absolute superiority of any one race, but held the opinion that the races were different and that mixing them could only have negative consequences, _"the ruin of the white races may be referred to their having been obliged to mix with them; whereby, as remarked already, they suffered more from the loss of their purity than the others could gain by the ennobling of their blood". _Jews are jews, and Germans are germans - Jewish art can have no meaning to a German, nor can German art have meaning to a Jew. In his later years, Wagner said (recorded in Cosima's diaries), _"If I were to write one thing about the Jews, it would be that I hold nothing against them, it is just that they descended on us Germans too soon". _

He held many of the same opinions on the French, who were the dominant culture at that time in Europe. His grudge was that the true German art was necessarily different that that of the French, and that it was being oppressed by their cultural domination. He saw that German art was just maturing, and wasnt ready to absorb the Jewish influence which he mentions in the quote above.

It is untrue that Gobineau's ideas have infiltrated into Wagner's works. Wagner and Gobineau only met briefly in 1876, and then again 1880, by which time the libretto of Parsifal was long finished. In 1880 Gobineau stayed at Wahnfried for a while and the two frequently argued. Cosima recorded an incident where Wagner _"Positively exploded in favour of Christianity as compared to racial theory."_ Christianity, a religion he regarded as fundamentally built, albeit corrupted, on Schopenhauerian compassion, he explained in an essay written in response to Gobineau's book; _"To us Equality is only thinkable as based upon a universal moral concord, such as we can but deem true Christianity elect to bring about."_

The influence of Chamberlain is also debatable. Wikipedia says he moved to Austria in 1889, and that his ideas on race began to take shape after this. By this time, Wagner had been dead for 6 years.

I am glad that you admit it is only a personal take, when you propose that Wagner's operas and music are filled with anti-semitism. This is something you will be hard-pressed to back-up. Wagner was nothing if not keen to justify his choices, and the process of composition and writing was recorded in great detail in essays, books, letters and in Cosima's diaries. In developing his later operas, he talks of politics, Schopenhauer, religion, love, death, but never race.

Further, Wagner never took public action against a Jew. Some of his greatest friends were Jews, including the first conductor of Parsifal, Hermann Levi - Wagner described this as one of the _"most beautiful friendships of my life"_. Yes it is true that Wagner wanted Levi to convert to Christianity before he conducted Parsifal, but this again comes from his belief that a Jew would not fully understand the German work based on Christian principles of compassion.

One must also be aware that anti-semitism far worse than that espoused by Wagner was socially acceptable and widespread.

*I dont wish to defend or justify anti-semitism of any kind. *Wagner's theories are disgusting, and completely false. I only wish to put his ideas into its context, and provide some more detail, which is often lacking in the light of the past centuries events.

The above is all an awful part of his personality, but it is just one part. His dramas all show concepts based on love and compassion, a central pillar of Schopenhauer. Parsifal is explicit in redemption through love and compassion, as is Tannhauser. The Ring is a political and metaphysical work expounding the foundation of a society based on love and common good. These all seem to be fundamentally good lessons, and if you adopt Schopenhauers view of the world they are irrefutably good and moral, further Schopenhauer's morality is not something many in the world will disagree with as a whole.
To this end he was a vegetarian, and he worked hard to ensure animals were treated compassionately and had rights. In Cosima's diary you can read that for a long time he was involved with campaigns working to end vivisection.

For him it was necessary that art be an expression of philosophy, that it have a higher purpose and more influence than had been usual up to that point. You may consider this megalomania, but to myself and many others this is part of what makes his dramas so powerful and attractive.

Again, I just want to emphasise that I am not an anti-semite, and that the above is not a defence of anti-semitisim in general, nor of Wagner's antisemitism. This is a very touchy subject, and I have tried to tread a thin line.


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

Wagner's music has absolutely nothing to do with rascism. Wagner's music dramas were not written as hateful curses to Jewish people. It's always baffled me why people don't like Wagner because Hitler liked him.


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## Hesoos (Jun 9, 2012)

aleazk said:


> Yes, you are right, I agree, it's a valid objective analysis. But that's not the question. The question is about the internal conflict of the hypothetical listener. You feel admiration for the person, but at the same time you know that this person has an irrational hate for people like you. I mean, all that objective analysis is nice, but I think is not that easy. Since the good is more memorable than the evil, I suppose that Science is correct. I think that the conflict will puzzle the listener but in the long term will be sufficiently moved by the music as to forget the issue.


I was too much rational, the hate is not rational, you are right.
I hope in the future the jews don't matter about if Hitler liked Wagner. 
All is Hitler's fault!!! But why Mahler admired Wagner or Wagner admired Meyerbeer?? I don't understand... maybe the artists don't worry abaout rascism when the point is art...


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## Arsakes (Feb 20, 2012)

Hesoos said:


> The main point is the music.
> 
> Napoleon was an evil creature and like Hitler and Stalin caused a lot of dead. But Napoleon spread the French Revolution equality ideals.
> 
> ...


Napoleon was a genius and I'm one of his admirers at least until his defeat in Russia 

And about Wagner and 19th century Germany .. It was true that Jews has many financial powers in the country and may had helped and employ their Jew brethren more than christian Germans. But It was a harsh reaction to call them inferior and hate them, raising the antisemitism. Raising the taxes for would be enough! ...


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## superhorn (Mar 23, 2010)

Much of the hostility toward Wagner after WW2 has been the result of guilt by associatopm .
While we shouldn't condone Wagner's undeniable anti-semitism , we need to remember that Hitler read much
into Wagner's works which simply is not there . 
As reprehensible as Wagner's Anti-semitism was, it was nowhere near as extreme as Hitler's ; Wagner disliked Jews in prinicple and claimed that they were intrinsically incapablew of creating great art . He was always making disparaging comments about them either in speech or in print, but he never advocated genocide for any group of people .
The problem is that Hitler read his own insane ideas into Wagner's works . Take the Ring ; it does NOT glorify Germanic chauvinism or celebrate any teutonic victory over Jews and Judaism. It takes place in a mythical ancient Germany ruled the supreme God Wotan and contains no Jewish characters. Some musicologists and critics have described the dwarfs Mime and Alberich as racist caricatures of depicting stereotypical Jews as well as the obnoxious and pedantic Beckmesser in Die Meistersinger, but this is extremely questionable .
Furthermore, the Riing ends with the cataclysmic destruction of Wotan and the Gods through his own 
lust for power and riches , hardly a glorification of Teutonic racism . 
If you go through the librettos of all the Wagner operas you will not find a single Jewish character , no discussions of Jews and Judaism and not a single statement by any character which could remotely be construed as anti-semitic . 
In th e first act of Die Meistersinger there is a reference to David and Goliath in the Bible, but it's just a passing reference, and there is nothing anti-semitic about it .
In the second act of Parsifal, there is an indirect reference to the crucifixion of Jesus ; Kundry , trying to seduce Parsifal , recalls how she was cursed to live a horrible existence throughout eternity, constantly being reborn as different woman in horrible circumstances because she laughed at Jesus while he was suffering on the cross . In her firstincarnation when she committed this blasphemous act, she may or may not have been a Jewess, or possibly a Roman woman. This is not specified .


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## superhorn (Mar 23, 2010)

Oops. That should read "guilt by association". Finger slip .


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## Hesoos (Jun 9, 2012)

Napoleon was a genious causing dead, he didn't interest the human lifes and so sacrificed a thousands of souls. Before Napoleon such a slaughter in Europe never was seen.


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## emiellucifuge (May 26, 2009)

I dont think Napoleon was a genius, see Tolstoy.


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## TxllxT (Mar 2, 2011)

1) Anti-semitism itself is a concept that I distrust. 'Semitic' defers to almost all the people in the Middle East: both Jews and Arabs regard themselves to belong to the sons of Sem. Thinking about it further, I dislike the stress on 'semitism': it smells of some 19th century popular pastime of dividing humankind into all kinds of 'races'. Nonsense & underbelly stuff. Because of this fuzziness inside the concept I just keep to: hatred towards Jews.

2) Why were & are Jewish conductors among the best interpretors of Wagner's works?


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

Hesoos said:


> Napoleon was a genious causing dead, he didn't interest the human lifes and so sacrificed a thousands of souls. Before Napoleon such a slaughter in Europe never was seen.


The 30 Years' War was pretty terrible.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

The elephant in the room here is that Wagnerites will always defend Wagner, cos they love his music. Simple as that. They will know all the details of his life and writings and all that, the subtleties. But the OP is asking why is Wagner controversial in Israel. Well, the obvious reason is because he was a racist, simple as that.

In any case, Wagnerites are just as biased for Wagner as I am against.

Below, a long quote (in italics) from a book on music by Jeremy Nicholas, published 2007. Details at googlebooks HERE. Please note that in this chapter on Wagner, most of it is on Wagner's music, his life and inspiration, etc. So Nicholas does give credit for Wagner being a great composer, no doubt about that. It's just these _other things_, these _skeletons in the closet _that really can't go without saying if one is talking or writing about Wagner. How is that so hard to accept?

_Wagner, as is well known, was the favourite composer of the Nazis. What is not as well known is that half a century before Hitler's rise to power, in 1881, Wagner was advocating 'racial cleansing' (Rassenreinigung). His polemical book Das Judenthum in der Musik was written because of his deep-seated resentment of any Jews who achieved success in his field. Even Hitler's concept of the Final Solution was adapted from Wagner's term Die grosse Losung, though Wagner called only for the expulsion of Jews from Germany. Chillingly, he also suggested that during a performance of Lessing's pro-Jewish play Nathan der Wiese, the theatre should be filled with Jews, locked and burnt down. The Nazi slogan 'Deutschland erwache!' ('Germany awake!') was coined by Wagner - Hitler was merely quoting. The faeces-coloured uniform worn by Hitler's brown-shirt thugs was, most appropriately, inspired by the title of Wagner's diary, The Brown Book._


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

TxllxT said:


> ...
> 2) Why were & are Jewish conductors among the best interpretors of Wagner's works?


Good enough point, but the majority of people in Israel are not conductors or even musicians. They're not like Barenboim or Solti. They are not all intellectuals like Stephen Fry. Many of them, ordinary people who probably had relatives or knew people who went through the Holocaust, that is what's on their mind. That history.

Opera is probably the last thing on their mind. Plus, many troubles in that region. So I'd extrapolate, who gives a hoot if Wagner isn't performed in Israel? Same as say in other trouble spots around the world (eg. Iraq or Afghanistan). It speaks to Eurocentrism in a way. What we value, others have to value. Well, not really. But that's another issue I'm throwing into the mix here.


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## AmateurComposer (Sep 13, 2009)

aleazk said:


> I was reading in the news a new polemic because there are plans for interpret the music of Wagner in Israel. As all we know, Wagner was an antisemite, and Hitler was his admirer. Of course, I have the position that the artistic value of Wagner's music is independent of his racists ideas. But I'm not jew. I try to think in their side and is hard. How you reconcile your admiration for a person who have ideas against your own people?


The polemics about attitude toward music and its composer is not limited to Wagner and Israel. For example, the conductor Hans von Bulow admired Wagner and performed his music until Wagner betrayed him with his wife, Cosima Liszt, and married her away from him. Did von Below perform Wagner's music after this traumatic event?

Another example. Liszt and Brahms did not get along with each other, and even though each of them admired the music of the other, did not perform it.


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## StlukesguildOhio (Dec 25, 2006)

My personal take on this is that anti-Semitism does creep through in Wagner's music.

And so, Sid... does this antisemitism also find its way into the music of Chopin? Bach? Haydn? Liszt? Anyone having the slightest grasp of history would recognize that most of the great composers, artists, writers, architects, etc... up through the 19th century were raised in environment where antisemitism was prevalent. Chopin, Liszt, and Wagner all made public comments of an antisemitic nature... and yet at the same time, all of them worked with Jewish composers, musicians, and conductors, and had Jewish supporters and friends. Wagner was even known to have had a Jewish lover.

Discerning antisemitic elements in Wagner's music... or Chopin's or Liszt's... involves a lot of speculation and invention upon the part of a critic who has approached the music with a set agenda or bias. There is nothing in the music that clearly conveys an antisemitic message and to suggest otherwise says more about the critic than the composer.

His middle period operas I'm okay with to a degree, eg. Tannhauser or Lohengrin, but I think in The Ring and esp. Parsifal, he went too far. He turned music into a pseudo religion which I think is as I said, megalomania.

He went too far in what way? He turned music into a pseudo-religion? Really? Or did his followers do this? You know enough about art history to know that the 19th century turned the arts as a whole into a sort or "pseudo-religion"... to replace the religion that the Enlightenment and Science had destroyed. In America it was the vast vistas and overwhelming natural splendor that was the source of spiritual experiences, while in the cities and in Europe it was the museums and theaters that became a source of spiritual experience... that replaced the churches.


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## StlukesguildOhio (Dec 25, 2006)

Is it really impossible to be antisemite, write an essay about the "Judaism in Music" in a negative sense, and then write operas and not include even a bit of your ideology in your libretto?

How many composers, artists, writers from across the span of time were raised in a culture that taught that the Jews, blacks, women, Arabs, Asians... or individuals of other nations were inferior beings? How often do these themes become central to their artistic expressions? Those who continually bring up Wagner's antisemitism imagine that this was a central aspect of who he was... as if he were Hitler himself... plotting daily about the "Jewish Question."


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## StlukesguildOhio (Dec 25, 2006)

The problem is that Hitler read his own insane ideas into Wagner's works . Take the Ring ; it does NOT glorify Germanic chauvinism or celebrate any teutonic victory over Jews and Judaism. It takes place in a mythical ancient Germany ruled the supreme God Wotan and contains no Jewish characters... the Ring ends with the cataclysmic destruction of Wotan and the Gods through his own lust for power and riches , hardly a glorification of Teutonic racism .

I've always wondered if the reality of the _Götterdämmerung_ the apocalyptic destruction of Germany and the Reich as a result of Hitlers "Will to Power" eventually struck him as he sat in the bunker those final hours as the Russians neared... street by street through Berlin?


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## StlukesguildOhio (Dec 25, 2006)

The elephant in the room here is that Wagnerites will always defend Wagner, cos they love his music. Simple as that. They will know all the details of his life and writings and all that, the subtleties. But the OP is asking why is Wagner controversial in Israel. Well, the obvious reason is because he was a racist, simple as that.

Is it really as "simple" as that? Wagner is controversial in Israel because he was racist? So why not Liszt and Chopin and Haydn and Bach and almost every composer born before the Enlightenment... if not before WWII?

In any case, Wagnerites are just as biased for Wagner as I am against.

The difference is that those who are "biased" in favor of Wagner are simply biased because they love his music, even while admitting that they reject his politics and even his personality... but most of those who are biased against Wagner are rather dishonest about their bias. Rather than simply saying that they just don't like his music, they need to justify this dislike by painting him as a megalomaniac and a proto-Nazi. I don't particularly like Schoenberg... but I don't need to use his personal life to justify my dislike. It's the music not the artist that I am listening to.


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## Couchie (Dec 9, 2010)

Sid James said:


> I've said this a million times on this forum, Wagner's personal ideology was based on the pseudo scientific racialist theories of de Gobineau and H.S. Chamberlain. Both where admirers of Wagner's music, Chamberlain (a Brit) even took up German citizenship as a result of his worshipping German culture and Aryan 'race.'


This is not only wrong, but hugely and dangerously wrong. Completely wrong.

- Chamberlain was 28 when Wagner _died _and had not yet published a single work, so that's just rubbish.

- There's no evidence that Wagner had read or was even aware of Gobineau's ideas prior to 1880, a few years before his death and well after the librettos to all of his operas had been written.

A critical point is that Wagner's anti-semitism, was *not* racialist, as _Das Judenthum in der Musik_ would testify it sprouted because the Jews dominated the Parisian opera scene, a scene which utterly rejected him and he lived many years starving in poverty while watching the trivial, empty music (as he would have seen it) of Meyerbeer and Mendelssohn be celebrated. The rest is simple bigotry although Wagner did make an *** of himself with his pen looking to justify it.

On the other hand the defining nature of Nazism is its root in racialism... If you want to know the prime inspiration of the Nazi party look no further than Henry Ford's _The International Jew; _Hitler had Ford's picture in his office and a well-worn copy on his bookshelf... will there be protests when Ford markets their 2013 lineup in Israel in the fall?



Sid James said:


> Wagner, as is well known, was the favourite composer of the Nazis. What is not as well known is that half a century before Hitler's rise to power, in 1881, Wagner was advocating 'racial cleansing' (Rassenreinigung). His polemical book Das Judenthum in der Musik was written because of his deep-seated resentment of any Jews who achieved success in his field. Even Hitler's concept of the Final Solution was adapted from Wagner's term Die grosse Losung, though Wagner called only for the expulsion of Jews from Germany. Chillingly, he also suggested that during a performance of Lessing's pro-Jewish play Nathan der Wiese, the theatre should be filled with Jews, locked and burnt down. The Nazi slogan 'Deutschland erwache!' ('Germany awake!') was coined by Wagner - Hitler was merely quoting. The faeces-coloured uniform worn by Hitler's brown-shirt thugs was, most appropriately, inspired by the title of Wagner's diary, The Brown Book.


The way that this is written and the failure of some google searching to verify these claims would seem to suggest is that this is utter tripe written by some fool with even less of a concern for academic integrity than yourself.


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## Couchie (Dec 9, 2010)

StlukesguildOhio said:


> He went too far in what way? He turned music into a pseudo-religion? Really? Or did his followers do this? You know enough about art history to know that the 19th century turned the arts as a whole into a sort or "pseudo-religion"... to replace the religion that the Enlightenment and Science had destroyed. In America it was the vast vistas and overwhelming natural splendor that was the source of spiritual experiences, while in the cities and in Europe it was the museums and theaters that became a source of spiritual experience... that replaced the churches.


In fairness, he *did* build a house dedicated solely to his own works, and premiered _Parsifal_ there not as an opera but as a _Bühnenweihfestspiel_, _A Festival Play for the Consecration of the Stage_, banned from being performed anywhere else, and created a yearly festival for which people to make pilgrimage to said house.

You can't say he's blameless.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

^^OMG, who said this was like academic, like an academic peer reviewed journal or something? I was putting Wagner in context, that's it. Plus adding what I said was my own biased opinion (just as yours is, if you get off your high horse for a minute). Maybe I should have said Wagner's racist ideologies mirrored those of pseudo scientists like the ones I named.

Yeah, I have absolutely ZERO integrity, cos I don't like the music that you like. Well, that's an opinion of integrity (NOT!).

Anyway, forget it. Forget the whole thing. In a way, you are right. One would have to research properly why Wagner is not much liked in Israel, or controversial there. Or look at the other sources you mention. But he's generally controversial, it seems many either love or hate him, not much in-between. But whatever.

So boils down to, ask the Israeli people, why don't you? Go there and ask them. Maybe you would get answers like 'that was the music that was being played while my relatives where gassed in Auschwitz,' or 'while that happened, Wagner's descendants where dining or watching a Wagner concert with the Fuhrer.'



Couchie said:


> ...
> The way that this is written and the failure of some google searching to verify these claims ...


Not everything is on the net. & google is very basic searching, there are specialized databases, but I don't have time. Anyway, I read as many books on music as possible, there is much info there that is scarce on the net, stuff you don't read anywhere else.


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## Couchie (Dec 9, 2010)

Sid James said:


> ^^OMG, who said this was like academic, like an academic peer reviewed journal or something? I was putting Wagner in context, that's it. Plus adding what I said was my own biased opinion (just as yours is, if you get off your high horse for a minute).


Wagner's influences are a matter of your "opinion"?



Sid James said:


> Yeah, I have absolutely ZERO integrity, cos I don't like the music that you like. Well, that's an opinion of integrity (NOT!).


You lack integrity in that you slander and are apparently unable to distinguish between the realm of opinion and the realm of historical fact.



Sid James said:


> So boils down to, ask the Israeli people, why don't you? Go there and ask them. Maybe you would get answers like 'that was the music that was being played while my relatives where gassed in Auschwitz,' or 'while that happened, Wagner's descendants where dining or watching a Wagner concert with the Fuhrer.'


Kind of a loaded question. I might show them this:






And inquire why Beethoven is exempt from that kind of thinking?


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

Couchie said:


> ...
> 
> And inquire why Beethoven is exempt from that kind of thinking?


He probably isn't. Neither is Bruckner, whose music was played when Hitler's death was announced on German radio. However, I am making the case that Wagner is a special case.

But what you and others are doing is kind of deflecting the point. Obviously, Beethoven is not banned in Israel. Maybe he was once, or practically avoided. In Czechoslovakia after the war, even the likes of Beethoven where avoided, they tried to avoid a lot of German repertoire the Nazis played. For obvious reasons. Charles Mackerras said that's how they got to playing a lot of their own music, eg. Janacek, Dvorak, Smetana, etc. - to fill air time and concert programmes made available due to a kind of avoidance of their elephant in the room - German music, which they associated with Nazism, whether or not it was common sense (well, looking back with hindsight, its overkill, but that's how they felt).

I know for a fact that Bruckner, due largely to that one radio broadcast, was also heavily avoided in former Nazi occupied countries.

However, neither Beethoven or Bruckner where connected ideologically with Nazi ideology of German or 'Aryan' racial superiority as Wagner was. So he was a special case, for Israel and some other countries as well.

BTW, two other composers banned in Israel where two associated with the Nazi regime. Both for example composed music for 1936 Berlin Olympic games. They were R. STrauss and Carl Orff. We can debate the merits of this type of ban, but fact is that its no longer in operation in Israel as far as I know. But it's like the ARmenians who where massacred - 1 million of them - by the Turks early in 20th century. I doubt whether the ARmenians play a lot of Turkish music on radio or live in concert. Is this so hard to understand? People get emotional about history, about what happened in the past. That's it, let's stop intellectualising.


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## HarpsichordConcerto (Jan 1, 2010)

Damn! If only Richard Wagner was born one hundred years earlier and lived his life span between 1713 to 1783 (instead of 1813 to 1883). Then he would have composed beautiful Baroque and Classical operas, maybe even rivalling George Frideric Handel (I doubt it), and any of his personal, anti-semitic views and screwed-up personalities be largely lost with time and forgotten!

_The Ring_ will premiere in Melbourne, Australia next year. I'm looking forward to the damn cycle. Never attended any of it live. I now have three versions of it on DVD/Blu-ray. My latest version is the very, very weird Blu-ray version under Zubin Mehta. Bought it for the spectacular and weird staging (though generally distractive as far as the plot was concerned).


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## Lenfer (Aug 15, 2011)

Hesoos said:


> The main point is the music.
> 
> Napoleon was an evil creature and like Hitler and Stalin caused a lot of dead. But Napoleon spread the French Revolution equality ideals.


Que? I'm not even going to answer this seriously *Napoleon* spreading "Republicanism"? *Napoleon* the little emperor? If you can spot the flaw I'll give you a cookie...


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## Couchie (Dec 9, 2010)

Sid James said:


> However, I am making the case that Wagner is a special case.
> 
> However, neither Beethoven or Bruckner where connected ideologically with Nazi ideology of German or 'Aryan' racial superiority as Wagner was. So he was a special case, for Israel and some other countries as well.


If you are going to make the case, then by all means _make the case_...

Wagner's connection with Nazi ideology is: ______________________

The evidence that Wagner was the source of this ideology is: ___________________


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## Lenfer (Aug 15, 2011)

aleazk said:


> I was reading in the news a new polemic because there are plans for interpret the music of Wagner in Israel. As all we know, Wagner was an antisemite, and Hitler was his admirer. Of course, I have the position that the artistic value of Wagner's music is independent of his racists ideas. But I'm not jew. I try to think in their side and is hard. How you reconcile your admiration for a person who have ideas against your own people?


Sad to say but a lot of great minds were and still are anti-semitic and or racist, chauvinistic and crackpots. I really don't see how you can judge someone from another time by today's standards. The *Earth* was flat remember if your told this enough most people go with the flow. Yes some are worse than others but I bet *Wagner* was a right _B'stard_ to anyone who didn't happen to be *German* and love *Wagner*...

*Charles Dickinson* was an anti-smite but no one judges his work by it.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

Couchie said:


> If you are going to make the case, then by all means _make the case_...
> 
> Wagner's connection with Nazi ideology is: ______________________
> 
> The evidence that Wagner was the source of this ideology is: ___________________


^^Oh dear, falling back on legalism - of the pseudo variety - maybe read this thread I made on that. Can't have a normal conversation on the net, it seems, well about controversial topics at least. Go on Couchie, DRIVE YOUR WEDGE, DRIVE IT HARD!!!

http://www.talkclassical.com/19402-driving-wedges-pseudo-legalisms.html


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## Couchie (Dec 9, 2010)

Sid James said:


> ^^Oh dear, falling back on legalism - of the pseudo variety - maybe read this thread I made on that. Can't have a normal conversation on the net, it seems, well about controversial topics at least. Go on Couchie, DRIVE YOUR WEDGE, DRIVE IT HARD!!!
> 
> http://www.talkclassical.com/19402-driving-wedges-pseudo-legalisms.html


It's easier to brazenly rant about having to provide evidence for your claims than it is to produce said evidence, isn't it.

I see you have enough rants in reserve now that you don't even need to spend time typing them any more, but can simply refer us to an applicable rant already made.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

Couchie said:


> It's easier to brazenly rant about having to provide evidence for your claims than it is to produce said evidence, isn't it.
> 
> I see you have enough rants in reserve now that you don't even need to spend time typing them any more, but can simply refer us to an applicable rant already made.


I actually validated some of what you said. I am emotional about this, but so what? The fact that Israel banned Wagner's music post 1945 speaks to how its not only about evidence, but also EMOTION. Would you not be emotional if your family was wiped out to the soundtrack of the 'great' German composers? Wouldn't you say 'to hell with that?' Or would you go to some court of law for evidence of those emotions? I mean, this is absurd, it really is.

What was the soundtrack to Leni Reifenstahl's _Triumph of the Will,_ a movie about Hitler? You guessed it. Reifenstahl wasn't a Nazi, but the issue is Wagner's music was everywhere in Nazi Germany and the occupied countries. So was other German composers. They used whatever to further their ideology. Issue is that it doesn't take a PHD to sort out the fact that Hitler saw Wagner as some sort of kindred spirit. The connections are there in terms of ideology at least.

In terms of music it is more debatable. The music can be separated from the ideology. That's obviously what people like Barenboim think. Good for him then, and good for you. I really don't think that, apart from his innovations, he doesn't interest me. It's like music on Viagra, on steroids. But this is another issue, so forget it.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

Couchie said:


> If you are going to make the case, then by all means _make the case_...
> 
> Wagner's connection with Nazi ideology is: ______________________
> 
> The evidence that Wagner was the source of this ideology is: ___________________


The first is known to everyone, and the second is a straw man. And anyway, even if Wagner were THE source of Nazi ideology or if someone were to argue that he was, his music would still be as good as it is, right?


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

So my concern here is that I'd like everyone to acknowledge that it's ok to like Wagner's music and it's ok not to. Of course we all have the right to insist that everyone else share our opinions on music, but to me that leads to no good and so much unnecessary strife and anger.


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## StlukesguildOhio (Dec 25, 2006)

...apart from his innovations, he doesn't interest me. It's like music on Viagra, on steroids.

As opposed to this:
















etc...

*GurreLieder* is a massive cantata for five vocal soloists, narrator, chorus and large orchestra, composed by Arnold Schoenberg, on poems by the Danish novelist Jens Peter Jacobsen. The title means 'Songs of Gurre', referring to Gurre Castle in Denmark, scene of the medieval love-tragedy revolving around the Danish national legend of the love of the Danish king Valdemar Atterdag for his mistress Tove, and her subsequent murder by Valdemar's jealous Queen Helvig.

Schoenberg's melodic, tonal Wagnerian masterpiece _*Gurrelieder*_ calls for one of the largest orchestras ever assembled on one concert platform, including 25 woodwind, 25 brass, 11 percussion, three four-part male voice choirs and a mixed eight-part choir. Simon Rattle fondly remembers it as the "biggest score in Liverpool's Music Library". Some 400 people are involved in its performance.


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## Couchie (Dec 9, 2010)

science said:


> The first is known to everyone, and the second is a straw man. And anyway, even if Wagner were THE source of Nazi ideology or if someone were to argue that he was, his music would still be as good as it is, right?


So that's two people unable to produce any evidence. A strong emotional belief is good enough for Sid, and supporting accusations with evidence is apparently a straw man for oxymoronically-named science. Anybody else?



science said:


> And anyway, even if Wagner were THE source of Nazi ideology or if someone were to argue that he was, his music would still be as good as it is, right?


This isn't a thread on the quality of Wagner's music, but its appropriateness for performance in Israel.


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## StlukesguildOhio (Dec 25, 2006)

And Wagner is not the most controversial composer in the whole of classical music?:lol:


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## HarpsichordConcerto (Jan 1, 2010)

StlukesguildOhio said:


> And Wagner is not the most controversial composer in the whole of classical music?:lol:


I heard they are banning JS Bach's music in Afghanistan.


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## Couchie (Dec 9, 2010)

StlukesguildOhio said:


> The problem is that Hitler read his own insane ideas into Wagner's works . Take the Ring ; it does NOT glorify Germanic chauvinism or celebrate any teutonic victory over Jews and Judaism. It takes place in a mythical ancient Germany ruled the supreme God Wotan and contains no Jewish characters... the Ring ends with the cataclysmic destruction of Wotan and the Gods through his own lust for power and riches , hardly a glorification of Teutonic racism .
> 
> I've always wondered if the reality of the _Götterdämmerung_ the apocalyptic destruction of Germany and the Reich as a result of Hitlers "Will to Power" eventually struck him as he sat in the bunker those final hours as the Russians neared... street by street through Berlin?


Hitler was in possession of a good number of Wagner manuscripts including Wagner's original orchestra sketches for Gotterdammerung. He refused to give these to Wieland Wagner in the final days and it's unknown whether he hid them some place or whether they perished with him in the bunker. So it was probably at the forefront of his mind actually, although with his very sick and skewed misinterpretation of Wagner's works it probably wasn't the lucid realization of irony you're imagining.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

Couchie said:


> So that's two people unable to produce any evidence. A strong emotional belief is good enough for Sid, and supporting accusations with evidence is apparently a straw man for oxymoronically-named science. Anybody else?
> 
> This isn't a thread on the quality of Wagner's music, but its appropriateness for performance in Israel.


Do you actually deny ANY connection between Wagner and anti-Semitism, or are you just trying to waste my time?

If neither, then explain how else I'm supposed to understand your post.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

StlukesguildOhio said:


> And Wagner is not the most controversial composer in the whole of classical music?:lol:


Who ever made any claim that some composer was the most controversial, or specifically said that Wagner wasn't? If you mean to refer to our discussion yesterday, as I suspect you do, then this is another prime example of intentionally malicious misinterpretation of what I actually wrote.


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## Couchie (Dec 9, 2010)

science said:


> Do you actually deny ANY connection between Wagner and anti-Semitism, or are you just trying to waste my time?
> 
> If neither, then explain how else I'm supposed to understand your post.


We were discussing the connection between Wagner and Nazi policy, not anti-Semitism, which has existed for many hundreds of years prior to the Nazis.


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## Couchie (Dec 9, 2010)

Hmmm, I just read an interesting titbit that Theodor Herzl was an impassioned Wagnerian and that the nationalistic themes in the music actually helped him conceive Zionism and ultimately the foundation of the state of Israel itself... anybody heard of this before? I see that a good number of websites and news sources relate this. If true, that would turn the tables so to speak.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

You've 'won,' Couchie. Note that I said that some conductors who were of Jewish background have promoted Wagner, incl. Barenboim in Israel.

Zionism has been critiqued, even by Jews. Not all Jews are Zionist, just as not all Germans are Nazis.

ANyway, to prevent further insults and thread train wreck STOP!...in the name of love...before you break my heart!. :lol:

Let's get down and groove...


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## aleazk (Sep 30, 2011)

Lenfer said:


> Sad to say but a lot of great minds were and still are anti-semitic and or racist, chauvinistic and crackpots. I really don't see how you can judge someone from another time by today's standards. The *Earth* was flat remember if your told this enough most people go with the flow. Yes some are worse than others but I bet *Wagner* was a right _B'stard_ to anyone who didn't happen to be *German* and love *Wagner*...
> 
> *Charles Dickinson* was an anti-smite but no one judges his work by it.


I don't have much problem with the issue, as I said, I have the position that the _artistic value_ of Wagner's music is independent of his racist ideas. I was just thinking that for an actual jew, it must be hard and I certainly can understand their position, which is an emotional one. It's easy to say, "art is universal, etc" and all that, but in the facts, you must confront your admiration for a guy, that would have hated you in a racial sense, with the emotional response that you may have to that hate.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

Couchie said:


> We were discussing the connection between Wagner and Nazi policy, not anti-Semitism, which has existed for many hundreds of years prior to the Nazis.


So, just to be logically thorough, and to humor you in case your sole intention really is to waste my time, you agree that Hitler the Nazis were anti-Semitic, right? And you agree that the Nazis and especially Hitler used and promoted his music, right?

And that's the connection with Nazi ideology, which is what you asked about, not policy. So much for bait-and-switch.



Couchie said:


> If you are going to make the case, then by all means _make the case_...
> 
> Wagner's connection with Nazi ideology is: ______________________
> 
> The evidence that Wagner was the source of this ideology is: ___________________


----------



## Couchie (Dec 9, 2010)

science said:


> So, just to be logically thorough, and to humor you in case your sole intention really is to waste my time, you agree that Hitler the Nazis were anti-Semitic, right? And you agree that the Nazis and especially Hitler used and promoted his music, right?
> 
> And that's the connection with Nazi ideology, which is what you asked about, not policy. So much for bait-and-switch.


I was talking about Wagner's _influence _on Nazi ideology, of which their policy is inexorably birthed from obviously. If Hitler inherited his anti-Semitism from Wagner, or (extremely) got the idea of death camps from Wagner, well that's an entirely different ball game from Hitler enjoying or promoting his music, which just means Hitler had good taste in music.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

Remember when Protestants hated Catholics and destroyed their art? Even five hundred years after the Reformation, I once dated a Evangelical Christian (and not even a very devout one) who was _frightened_ of Orthodox Christian icons. It wouldn't have done a durn bit of good to tell her, "Don't worry. Andrei Rublev didn't hate Billy Graham or anything."

Another who was devout wanted me to throw away food I'd been given at a Hindu temple. Just for the mischief of it, I wish I'd thought to argue, "But that's irrational. Ramanuja had Christian friends."

And I'm a fairly open-minded guy, but the first time I heard a service in an Orthodox Church, I was really uncomfortable. That's with no personal history at all, just an inherited cultural discrimination against Catholicism (which at that time I didn't know how to distinguish from Orthodoxy).

These things go deep. The Armenian/Turkish thing is probably a good example, with the exception that a separation from "Turkishness" could have been easier for Armenians than a separation from German culture would've been for German Jews.

The proprietor of my favorite Middle Eastern restaurant is from the West Bank and I love Amos Oz novels. Especially if, say, his family was turned out of their home by soldiers carrying Amos Oz novels. Would people really expect me to argue with him, "Hey man, that's not Amos Oz's fault, he's one of the good Israelis. You're just closed-minded."


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

Couchie said:


> I was talking about Wagner's _influence _on Nazi ideology, of which their policy is inexorably birthed from obviously. If Hitler inherited his anti-Semitism from Wagner, or (extremely) got the idea of death camps from Wagner, well that's an entirely different ball game from Hitler enjoying or promoting his music, which just means Hitler had good taste in music.


As I fear more bait-and-switches and hair-splittings and such, let's just clarify this point: do you or do you not acknowledge that the Nazis used Wagner's music and that Hitler promoted it?


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## Couchie (Dec 9, 2010)

Elaborate on "used Wagner's music".


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

Couchie said:


> Elaborate on "used Wagner's music".


This implies that if I were to obey your command to 'elaborate on "used Wagner's music"' you might concede the point. That's enough for me. Feel free to let me know precisely what elaboration of that phrase you would agree to.


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## Couchie (Dec 9, 2010)

science said:


> This implies that if I were to obey your command to 'elaborate on "used Wagner's music"' you might concede the point. That's enough for me. Feel free to let me know precisely what elaboration of that phrase you would agree to.


To my knowledge, Hitler often used Wagner excerpts as a digestif at the Wolfsschanze.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

Couchie said:


> To my knowledge, Hitler often used Wagner excerpts as a digestif at the Wolfsschanze.


I see. Well, since you're not going to be serious, I'm not wasting any more time.


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## Couchie (Dec 9, 2010)

science said:


> I see. Well, since you're not going to be serious, I'm not wasting any more time.


What makes you think I'm not serious? Maybe if you posted your own thoughts instead of this vapid posturing we'd get somewhere.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

Couchie said:


> What makes you think I'm not serious? Maybe if you posted your own thoughts instead of this vapid posturing we'd get somewhere.


I have posted my thoughts, as of course you know perfectly well - no less well than you know about the Nazi's use of and Hitler's promotion of Wagner's music. Your choice to pretend to be unaware of any of this is unfortunate, because you've practically appointed yourself a publicity agent for Wagner. Thoughtful defenses of Wagner and his music are easy enough to make, but you'd rather play around than do so. Of course on some level of consciousness, your goal may even be to turn people off to Wagner so that you can be ever so unique - that's consistent with your behavior on this site, not only in this thread - but it's unfortunate _for Wagner's music_, and unfair to it.

There are a lot of people who have problems with Wagner's association with anti-Semitism but hope to enjoy his music, and I (and any other well-intentioned person) have to hope they never encounter your posts here. The most fervent denunciations of Wagner and his music would do less harm than your evasive, insincere posts, even if you manage to score a debate point or two.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

In that post, "Nazi's" should of course be "Nazis'."


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## emiellucifuge (May 26, 2009)

Did anyone read my post on the first page? A lot of what I said has been repeated...


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## KRoad (Jun 1, 2012)

This has turned into a tedious exercise of academic hair-splitting. Let me digress somewhat and in so doing attempt to explain the discomfort Wagner causes me.

Back in 1968 the Beatles released a tune called "Revolution". Now, Charles Mason always claimed that what "inspired" him to murder Sharon Tate, et al. was hearing in the tune Lennon sing: "But when you talk about destruction, don't you know that you can count me out", claiming that after "out" Lennon can distinctly be heard to contradict himself and sing/say: "in".

Well, the tune was released in two versions: as a single on 45rpm and a different/slower version on The White Album. I was accustomed to the 45 version and listen though I might there was no "in" to be heard, no matter what. I thought what a load of ****** Then years later while listening to the album version there it was: "In", subtle, soft but undeniably there. Mason was right! A very creepy discovery for me. To this day the tune and Manson are inextricably connected with each other in my mind. Result: minor discomfort when I hear the tune.

The issue of Wagner impacts me at precisely this level. It is not explained away with reference to History - which in anycase is always open to interpretation. It is the connection I make between the music and its place in the high culture of a Regime that set out to exterminate a race of people on an industrial scale.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

emiellucifuge said:


> Did anyone read my post on the first page? A lot of what I said has been repeated...


Yes, it was a good post. I'm not knowledgeable enough to confirm any of the detailed points, but it was helpful.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

KRoad said:


> This has turned into a tedious exercise of academic hair-splitting. Let me digress somewhat and in so doing attempt to explain the discomfort Wagner causes me.
> 
> Back in 1968 the Beatles released a tune called "Revolution". Now, Charles Mason always claimed that what "inspired" him to murder Sharon Tate, et al. was hearing in the tune Lennon sing: "But when you talk about destruction, don't you know that you can count me out", claiming that after "out" Lennon can distinctly be heard to contradict himself and sing/say: "in".
> 
> ...


I guess I'm less sensitive about this kind of thing - I wouldn't believe Charles Manson if he claimed that John Lennon had inspired him to be a serial killer, and even if John Lennon had actually intended to inspire serial killers, if the music was good I think I'd like it.

I first faced this issue as a really young kid when I saw a fundamentalist Christian video that informed me that Led Zeppelin and Queen (a bunch of other bands - I only remember Zep and Queen) were Satanic. My parents presented this and expected my siblings and I to throw out our music. I remember a friend who had a party to celebrate the destruction of his cassette tapes of heavy metal music. By the time I was in high school, even though I remained a fundamentalist Christian until the end of 11th grade (my slide _up_ the slippery slope began at that time, though I remained Christian for almost another decade) I'd decided that, Satanic or not, I liked that music and I could enjoy it thoroughly without being Satanic. (Too bad for Carmen and Petra; good for the Eagles and Doors and so on.)

Later in life I had the same problem with hip-hop and other kinds of music from rock to techno: arguably at least it glorified all kinds of horrible things. But I liked the music.

And now that I consider organized religion to be largely an invention of upper-classes for the purpose of persuading lower-classes to accept their deprivations peacefully, I could well have a problem with things like Byzantine or Tibetan chant, or for that matter, say, Bach. But I _love_ Byzantine chant, Qawwali, and of course everything from Gregorian Chant to Golijov's _Pasion segun San Marcos_ (listening to Lassus now). Somehow while enjoying that music I manage not to enserf anyone.

I mentioned Miles Davis earlier, and I wouldn't want to be his friend (nor, probably, he mine) but his music delights me.

So basically, my POV on this is that in all cases whatsoever we can separate the music from just about everything else around it, and that goes for Wagner too. The Ring is brilliant, _Tristan and Isolde_ is beautiful. I doubt anyone unaware of the provenance of the _Siegfried Idyll_ could fail to enjoy it. So, that's good. If we can recognize this, our lives will be a touch richer.

But if not, for whatever reason, hey, that's ok.

The really important thing, at least within the confines of a discussion board like this, is that we _tolerate each other's tastes_. Boy, that would be nice. I hope I live to see the day.


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## Xaltotun (Sep 3, 2010)

science said:


> The really important thing, at least within the confines of a discussion board like this, is that we _tolerate each other's tastes_. Boy, that would be nice. I hope I live to see the day.


Well said. I think it's easy to tolerate each other's tastes, and even the reasonings behind the tastes, if they are aesthetical. If they're non-aesthetical... well, sometimes it's difficult, then. For example, it would be a bit silly if someone liked Mozart's music _only because_ he liked the character of Mozart in _Amadeus_, or outright disgusting if someone disliked Schubert's music _only because_ he thought that Schubert was physically ugly?


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## Couchie (Dec 9, 2010)

science said:


> I have posted my thoughts, as of course you know perfectly well - no less well than you know about the Nazi's use of and Hitler's promotion of Wagner's music. Your choice to pretend to be unaware of any of this is unfortunate, because you've practically appointed yourself a publicity agent for Wagner.


I've heard it all, from Wagner being little more than Hitler's after dinner music to accompanying the cyanide out of the showerheads. I suppose it's somewhere in between. I was interested in hearing your stance so I knew exactly what I was responding to, hence the request for elaboration.



science said:


> Thoughtful defenses of Wagner and his music are easy enough to make, but you'd rather play around than do so. Of course on some level of consciousness, your goal may even be to turn people off to Wagner so that you can be ever so unique - that's consistent with your behavior on this site, not only in this thread - but it's unfortunate _for Wagner's music_, and unfair to it.


Unfortunate for _Wagner's music_, really? :lol: Music that has weathered Hitler and Wagner himself, it's for an unapologetically overenthusiastic poster on the internet that the music lacks fortune? You flatter me.

The bit about wanting to be unique is patent nonsense, I've brought a number of people to Wagner on this site and have always maintained Wagner as one of the most accessible composers. Point that psychoanalytic probe back onto yourself and search for why you were compelled to say that.



science said:


> There are a lot of people who have problems with Wagner's association with anti-Semitism but hope to enjoy his music, and I (and any other well-intentioned person) have to hope they never encounter your posts here. The most fervent denunciations of Wagner and his music would do less harm than your evasive, insincere posts, even if you manage to score a debate point or two.


_Two _debate points for that digestif quip? Allow me to update my excel spreadsheet.


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## Sequentia (Nov 23, 2011)

How many composers living prior to the "atheistic era" held views deemed intolerant? I'm pretty sure Bach thought homosexuals go to Hell; so what? Palestrina almost certainly held similar views. For some reason, people bash Wagner (just to be "trendy" and "politically correct"), while ignoring similar views by other composers.


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## Sequentia (Nov 23, 2011)

Wait, I've got a solution:

Listen to this:






And then forget all the silly debates.


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## TxllxT (Mar 2, 2011)

Today I read about the mother of Anders Breivik (Norwegian killer of 77 people) testifying in court that she was afraid of her son already at the age of four. She sought out all kinds of help to get her son back on track, but he just went on & on into limbo. What worries me most about Wagner & Nazism is the borderline madness that just goes out of control & nobody is able to stop it. Mad king Ludvig of Bavaria raved for Wagner's music, Hitler having his megalomaniac Third Reich visions, and they were just getting more mad everyday.....


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## Xaltotun (Sep 3, 2010)

TxllxT said:


> Today I read about the mother of Anders Breivik (Norwegian killer of 77 people) testifying in court that she was afraid of her son already at the age of four. She sought out all kinds of help to get her son back on track, but he just went on & on into limbo. What worries me most about Wagner & Nazism is the borderline madness that just goes out of control & nobody is able to stop it. Mad king Ludvig of Bavaria raved for Wagner's music, Hitler having his megalomaniac Third Reich visions, and they were just getting more mad everyday.....


I think that cold, smart and calculating people are always much more dangerous to society than extatic, mad and raving people.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

Couchie said:


> I've heard it all, from Wagner being little more than Hitler's after dinner music to accompanying the cyanide out of the showerheads. I suppose it's somewhere in between.


I'll take this charitably to mean that you don't actually deny any connection between Wagner's music and Nazi ideology. You can argue that they interpreted it wrongly or whatever, but you can't deny that Hitler occasionally promoted it or that his party used it. Implicitly, however, you _did deny all of this_ in posts #38 and #43, or at the very least pretended to be unaware of it for the sake of debate, and in every post from that until this one you've been dancing around it, refusing to acknowledge it.

One needn't search long to find excellent articles on this issue; for instance: - http://holocaustmusic.ort.org/politics-and-propaganda/third-reich/wagner-richard/ (All kinds of info on how the Nazis used Wagner's music, but then, this half of the concluding paragraph: "The precise nature of the relationship between Wagner and Nazism, however, is difficult to pin down. Hitler seldom mentioned Wagner in his writings, and rarely in public; when he did make reference to Wagner, it was not in relation to anti-Semitism, but rather as a German leader and visionary. Furthermore, Wagner's music and ideology was not appropriated wholesale, but only where it accorded with Nazi concerns: works like _Tristan und Isolde_ and _Parsifal_, for example, were ignored. Although Wagner's operas reflect a nationalistic world-view that echoes that of Nazism, they cannot legitimately be described as 'Nazi music'." There you go. That's all there is to it. Easy, right?)

So, yes, I still insist your posts hurt the cause of Wagner's music. Denial and playing all the message-board debate games - such as pretending that I meant that your posts were a threat to Wagner's music rather than potentially a threat to some people's enjoyment of it - are counterproductive. People will see through all of that easily, especially if they're suspicious (edit: "nervous" would be better) and genuinely looking for help.

We don't have to choose between "Wagner's music was in no way associated with Nazi ideology" - as your question #1 in post 40 implied, if only for the purpose of debate - and "Wagner's music caused Nazi ideology" - which your question #2 in post 40 implicitly attributed to Sid James.

This is very, very important, IMO. Our society's (I'll assume you're from the "the West") insistence on demonizing--literally in some cases--everything associated with the Nazis doesn't just hurt Wagner's music. It means we can't think seriously about all kinds of much more important issues, from race to the biological study of human behavior to nationalism to the nature and proper limits of corporate and state power. Whenever we can do a little clear thinking about any of this, we'd better. And anyway, even if you really don't care about any of that, it has to be the best way to promote Wagner's music. Denial at the very best just extends the debate unnecessarily.


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## Andreas (Apr 27, 2012)

An interview came out yesterday with Daniel Barenboim, touching on this subject.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/spiegel-interview-with-daniel-barenboim-a-840129.html


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## Chi_townPhilly (Apr 21, 2007)

I was a little worried by the wording chosen here:


science said:


> I'll take this charitably to mean that you don't actually deny any *connection* emphasis mine between Wagner's music and Nazi ideology.


But then I noticed a little more caution in the following sentence:


science said:


> We don't have to choose between "Wagner's music was in no way *associated* (emphasis mine) with Nazi ideology" - as your question #1 in post 40 implied, if only for the purpose of debate - and "Wagner's music caused Nazi ideology" - which your question #2 in post 40 implicitly attributed to Sid James.


I wouldn't say that Wagner's music was *connected to* Nazi ideology, nor should it be understood as *associated with* Nazi ideology [although that phrasing shows an added level of circumspection that is probably best viewed as a step in the right direction]. In sincerity, it's best to recognize that (only certain select portions of) Wagner's music was *expropriated by* Nazi ideology.

Ever consider the following question: Why are there more Wagner Societies than "Beethoven Societies" (or 'Mozart Societies,' or advocacy groups for any other composer?)

I've long subscribed to the view that Wagner is subject to more unreasoning criticism than any other composer... perhaps more than any other creative artist in the history of Western Civilization. If Bach or Mozart were subject to as much unreasoning criticism as Wagner, we'd have more Mozart Societies than Wagner Societies, I believe.

There are people who genuinely believe that Wagner's music had a causative or at least contributory effect on the formation of Nazism. These people have a right to express their opinions and argue their case. They even have a right to lobby for the banning of Wagner's art (as in Israel). However, when their lobbying is successful, they don't do their nation any credit.


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## regressivetransphobe (May 16, 2011)

I haven't read the thread, but have we already covered the fact Israel is an insane apartheid state that's obsessed with racial identity, and that not playing Wagner is the least of their misdeeds?


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## emiellucifuge (May 26, 2009)

Chi_townPhilly said:


> Ever consider the following question: Why are there more Wagner Societies than "Beethoven Societies" (or 'Mozart Societies,' or advocacy groups for any other composer?)
> 
> They even have a right to lobby for the banning of Wagner's art (as in Israel). However, when their lobbying is successful, they don't do their nation any credit.


Well, didnt Wagner found the first societies in Germany to raise money for the Bayreuth theater?

Also, i dont agree that they should have the right to lobby for a ban on Wagner's music. Such a ban impinges the right to free speech of others, not least Wagner himself!


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

Chi_townPhilly said:


> I was a little worried by the wording chosen here:But then I noticed a little more caution in the following sentence:I wouldn't say that Wagner's music was *connected to* Nazi ideology, nor should it be understood as *associated with* Nazi ideology [although that phrasing shows an added level of circumspection that is probably best viewed as a step in the right direction]. In sincerity, it's best to recognize that (only certain select portions of) Wagner's music was *expropriated by* Nazi ideology.
> 
> Ever consider the following question: Why are there more Wagner Societies than "Beethoven Societies" (or 'Mozart Societies,' or advocacy groups for any other composer?)
> 
> ...


Whew! I saw you quoting me, and I thought I was in trouble! Scares me.

Anyway, in context I think it was clear that what I was asking Couchie about was not about anything inherent in Wagner's music, but whether the Nazis and Hitler used and/or promoted it. Whether the latter counts as "connection" or "association" or whatever is a semantic question I didn't mean to raise, and won't address. If you'd like, you can supply a noun that would satisfy you, and I'd almost certainly accede to its use.


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## Chi_townPhilly (Apr 21, 2007)

regressivetransphobe said:


> I haven't read the thread, but have we already covered the fact Israel is an insane apartheid state that's obsessed with racial identity, and that not playing Wagner is the least of their misdeeds?


_Hier, Kunst ist gilt.

Bitte.

Danke._


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## Andreas (Apr 27, 2012)

In the early nineteenth century, Germany was in a desolate state. Humiliated by Napoleon, yet at the same time inspired by the French Revolution. Germans wanted to be a great nation, like France, a proud and modern society. But there was no Germany to begin with. It was just a collection of many different dominions. There was no sense of a common history, of a heritage, of traditions, myths, etc. Since Luther, Germans did not even have a common faith. Nobody had a real idea as to who or what Germans actually were.

So intellectuals and artists began inventing, if you like, a German identity. Tired of Greek and Roman mythology, they were looking for genuinly German stories of heroes and legends. Wagner was instrumental in this. Siegfried, Lohengrin, Tannhäuser, Parsifal. Germans no longer had to get their material from others, from Homer or Ovid or Shakespeare, they had their own marvellous tales!

So in this sense, Wagner contributed much to the German identity as perceived by the Germans themselves. And if this, later, led to a growing feeling of importance and greatness and therefore to the desire to become a military and colonial superpower as well, and if this, in turn, led to World War I and II, then Wagner certainly played a part in it. Obviously he could not have had any idea as to where the road would ultimately lead. But he was one of the midwives, if you like, of the nationalist Germany that sought to challenge France, Britain and Russia for the top spot in Europe.


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## TxllxT (Mar 2, 2011)

Andreas said:


> In the early nineteenth century, Germany was in a desolate state. Humiliated by Napoleon, yet at the same time inspired by the French Revolution. Germans wanted to be a great nation, like France, a proud and modern society. But there was no Germany to begin with. It was just a collection of many different dominions. There was no sense of a common history, of a heritage, of traditions, myths, etc. Since Luther, Germans did not even have a common faith. Nobody had a real idea as to who or what Germans actually were.
> 
> So intellectuals and artists began inventing, if you like, a German identity. Tired of Greek and Roman mythology, they were looking for genuinly German stories of heroes and legends. Wagner was instrumental in this. Siegfried, Lohengrin, Tannhäuser, Parsifal. Germans no longer had to get their material from others, from Homer or Ovid or Shakespeare, they had their own marvellous tales!
> 
> So in this sense, Wagner contributed much to the German identity as perceived by the Germans themselves. And if this, later, led to a growing feeling of importance and greatness and therefore to the desire to become a military and colonial superpower as well, and if this, in turn, led to World War I and II, then Wagner certainly played a part in it. Obviously he could not have had any idea as to where the road would ultimately lead. But he was one of the midwives, if you like, of the nationalist Germany that sought to challenge France, Britain and Russia for the top spot in Europe.


Germany desolate? Humiliated? France had become one big united nation long before Napoleon appeared on the scene. Germany was still scattered in many pieces, Italy the same, the Habsburg empire was a crazy bunching together of many peoples & languages. England was in the process of forming 'Britain' as an united kingdom. What united the Germans was the German language and opera was an ideal carrier for letting this unity be heard on the _Bühne_. 
Your analysis does not give account of the Germans who were seeking unity as a people (the French gave the ready example) and opera was *the* broadcasting medium of this. Now what is or what was so wrong with this nationalist longing for unity?


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## crmoorhead (Apr 6, 2011)

TxllxT said:


> Germany desolate? Humiliated? France had become one big united nation long before Napoleon appeared on the scene. Germany was still scattered in many pieces, Italy the same, the Habsburg empire was a crazy bunching together of many peoples & languages. England was in the process of forming 'Britain' as an united kingdom. What united the Germans was the German language and opera was an ideal carrier for letting this unity be heard on the _Bühne_.
> Your analysis does not give account of the Germans who were seeking unity as a people (the French gave the ready example) and opera was *the* broadcasting medium of this. Now what is or what was so wrong with this nationalist longing for unity?


What your trying to say is that nationalistic feeling was quite normal for the time as a result of the collapse of older empires. The same thing happened, probably as a direct result of this, early in the 20th century it was common to have dictatorships- Germany, Portugal, Spain, Italy, Greece, Russia, Hungary and others. I guess the question is if we think that people are responsible for their own opinions or that history or contemporary politics conspire to make them think that way. Did Wagner use his power or influence to do unconscionable things? I think he undoubtedly did. I don't, however, think that his morals and his musical genius are related at all, however. Many public figures and otherwise inspirational people have done and said very immoral things. Do nations consider banning the music of the Rolling Stones or James Brown for all their antics? For all we know, Monteverdi was a racist, Beethoven a drunk and Bartok a homophobe. Wagner gets an unfair amount of scrutinisation mostly because Hitler liked his music. Israel have, IMO, politicised this issue beyond logic. Couchie makes an interesting point about Ford cars and Henry Ford's antisemitism. It seems especially strange to apply one rule to business and another to art.

Although I presently live in Aberdeen, I am Northern Irish and, I can tell you that in my experience all this prolonged hatred does nobody any good. History is history and it belongs in the past. People should stop erecting barriers around things that, anywhere else, people would think ludicrous. No one who plays Wagner in the rest of the world condones the Holocaust or Antisemitism. I have the Solti Ring cycle on disc and the Barenboim on DVD, the top recommendations of this forum and both, ironically, by Jews. Solti, in fact, fled from the Nazis because he was a Jew. It seems unfit for people to apply the "No true Scotsman" rule here. It is effectively just an unofficial form of censorship. If people in Israel can buy recordings of Wagner, why can his music not be performed. Anyway, I've said more than I intended. I just find the entire situation frustrating.

PS: Thanks to whoever posted the Barenboim interview. Certainly food for thought.


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## Lisztian (Oct 10, 2011)

StlukesguildOhio said:


> Liszt, made public comments of an antisemitic nature...


Just felt the need to comment here - this isn't true. The circumstance in question is his book The _Gypsies in Music_, that has a whole chapter berating the jews. However, it was not Liszt who wrote the anti-semitic content, but rather Princess Carolyne zu Sayn-Wittgenstein, who Liszt trusted with the editing and getting it published. Liszt, as he himself stated, was not an anti-semite.


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## NightHawk (Nov 3, 2011)

Hitler did not 'found' Ford Motor Co. Henry Ford was anti-war, but openly anti-Semitic and unfortunately conducted business with Hitler's Germany - this (below) from a convenient, if sometimes inaccurate, source, Wikipedia.com:

_Beginning in 1940, with the requisitioning of between 100 and 200 French POWs to work as slave laborers, Ford-Werke contravened Article 31 of the 1929 Geneva Convention.[36] At that time, which was before the U.S. entered the War and still had full diplomatic relations with Nazi Germany, Ford-Werke was under the control of the Ford Motor Company. The number of slave laborers grew as the war expanded although Wallace made it clear that companies in Germany were not required by the Nazi authorities to use slave laborers._ wikipedia.com

and further, re Wagner performed in Israel:

_In 2000, the Israel Supreme Court upheld the right of the Rishon LeZion Orchestra to perform Wagner's Siegfried Idyll.[43] At the Israel Festival in Jerusalem in July 2001, Barenboim had scheduled to perform the first act of Die Walküre with three singers, including tenor Plácido Domingo. However, strong protests by some Holocaust survivors, as well as the Israeli government, led the festival authorities to ask for an alternative program. (The Israel Festival's Public Advisory board, which included some Holocaust survivors, had originally approved the program.)[44] The controversy appeared to end in May, after the Israel Festival announced that a selection by Wagner would not be included at the July 7 concert.[45] Barenboim agreed to substitute music by Robert Schumann and Igor Stravinsky.
However, at the end of the concert with the Berlin Staatskapelle, Barenboim announced that he would like to play Wagner as a second encore and invited those who objected to leave, saying, "Despite what the Israel Festival believes, there are people sitting in the audience for whom Wagner does not spark Nazi associations. I respect those for whom these associations are oppressive. It will be democratic to play a Wagner encore for those who wish to hear it. I am turning to you now and asking whether I can play Wagner." A half-hour debate ensued, with some audience members calling Barenboim a "fascist." In the end, a small number of attendees walked out and the overwhelming majority remained, applauding loudly after the performance of the Tristan und Isolde overture._ wikipedia.com



Couchie said:


> The Israelites have reason to ban a good many things... like _Ford _cars who's founder was Hitler's single greatest inspiration and the host of German and American companies who exploited Jewish slave labour and helped make the German front and Holocaust possible.
> 
> That they go with a composer who died half a century before any of this is a bit odd.


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## Taneyev (Jan 19, 2009)

That's because jews never forgot nor forgive. A thousend years for now (if jews and humanity still exists), the Holocaust will still be remembered and mourned.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

science said:


> ...Whether the latter counts as "connection" or "association" or whatever is a semantic question I didn't mean to raise, and won't address...


Well some people on this forum have a tendency to end up talking semantics and not music. Rather than get to the 'guts' of an issue. Similar to this thread, which i think is now disappearing up its own backside fast, to be brutally honest.

The overall picture is that if you like Wagner (whether you're Jewish or not), you will in some way put his anti-Semitism under the carpet. Music is separate from politics and all that. Well that's the ideal, but it doesn't always happen like that in reality.

Conversely, if you hate Wagner's music, you're more likely to hate him as a person.

That's it, its all about biases of opinion which people simply won't admit.


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## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

Done deal, decades ago, Barenboim and the Israel Philharmonic. Not news.


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## crmoorhead (Apr 6, 2011)

Sid James said:


> The overall picture is that if you like Wagner (whether you're Jewish or not), you will in some way put his anti-Semitism under the carpet. Music is separate from politics and all that. Well that's the ideal, but it doesn't always happen like that in reality. Conversely, if you hate Wagner's music, you're more likely to hate him as a person. That's it, its all about biases of opinion which people simply won't admit.


I think that the issue is whether or not people have the right to do the opposite. You say the music is the determining factor, or it should be. Assuming that you believe that it should be this way, and that you believe that it shouldn't be politicised, then how can a ban on Wagner's music in Israel have any validity? The right to perform the music had to be taken to the Supreme Court of Israel, which in any other part of the world would be seen as insane. Does it mean that the rest of the world doesn't care about the Holocaust? No, so what makes Israel special?

I think that the main reason for the ban fear of public unrest, and that orchestras that are willing to perform Wagner back out of it because they are afraid to lose funding or attract unwelcome attention from the media. Now the key question is whether or not society in Israel is right to have such a strong reaction to Wagner. Firstly, opera or even orchestral music is really rather far removed from the majority of the population. All they know was that music was played in the death camps. The degree to which it was played is not really clear at all, but it is this assumption that seems to matter to anyone, no matter what factual element there is to it. This gut reaction is illogical and irrelevant, but that is the reality. Society is flawed and largely bases opinions on ignorance, but that is the way things are.

The second assumption is that Wagner is some way, directly or indirectly, responsble for the Holocaust and/or Nazi ideologies. I can't see any link here. For all Hitler's talk about Wagner's nationalistic inspiration, Hitler was insane and the Nazis picked and chose what they wanted from his works. After reading the entirety of this thread, I have some sympathy with Couchie rather simple request for evidence of links between Wagner's music and Nazis. People seem very willing to take hearsay and substitute it for actual evidence or to simple respond that 'it's obvious'. Much that is 'obvious' is unjustified.

Wagner will be performed in Israel, that is only a matter of time. In the minds of many people across the world, Germany is still associated with swastikas and a similar association has been made with Wagner. It is true that Wagner was an anti-Semite and a horrible person, but I find this completely hypocrital when compared to people's other music tastes. James Brown beat his wife, Michael Jackson is associated with child abuse, Jerry Lee Lewis married his 13 year old cousin, many, many rock stars have personal lives and drug habits that make Wagner's private life look saintly, several rappers have been criticised for glorifying violence etc etc etc Yet I'm sure this music sells millions of recordings in Israel and elsewhere. It is almost 70 years since the holocaust, and 130 years since Wagner's death. It's past time to move on, but sometimes things are slower than they should be.


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## Taneyev (Jan 19, 2009)

You should remember what I've said before. To jews, 70 years is nothing, and on the Holocaust, they never are to "move on"; never.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

It's not a Jewish thing. Serbians were able to rally large numbers to remember Prince Lazar, the Orthodox as a whole can get pretty worked up over the 4th Crusade, and you should see how Shiites remember the martyrdom of Hussayn. There are Canadians who know in great detail all about the times the US invaded them in the 19th century. There's a pretty strong memory of the Civil War in many parts of the American South. Plenty of Pakistanis and Indians are still passionate about the events of 1947, and will be for at least a few more generations. The Armenians aren't forgetting their own experience with genocide. 

And so on.


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## crmoorhead (Apr 6, 2011)

science said:


> It's not a Jewish thing. Serbians were able to rally large numbers to remember Prince Lazar, the Orthodox as a whole can get pretty worked up over the 4th Crusade, and you should see how Shiites remember the martyrdom of Hussayn. There are Canadians who know in great detail all about the times the US invaded them in the 19th century. There's a pretty strong memory of the Civil War in many parts of the American South. Plenty of Pakistanis and Indians are still passionate about the events of 1947, and will be for at least a few more generations. The Armenians aren't forgetting their own experience with genocide.
> 
> And so on.


I completely agree. It isn't just a Jewish thing, it is a human thing. It happens with all kinds of races, religions and creeds. In my own experience of having grown up in Northern Ireland, it is Protestant vs Catholic and Irish vs British. Every year the Battle of the Boyne is celebrated with marches in streets in Northern Ireland and that was in 1690. Whether people remember or not is irrelevant, however, compared to the issue of whether they should. It is misplaced anger to still be angry at Germany over WWII or Catholics, Americans or the Yankee States for whatever their greatgrandfathers or grandfathers happened to do. I also think it is equally misguided to end up in a state of censorship in the case of Wagner's music, esp. given the hypocrisy of most people's musical tastes but also because applying todays values to a different time and political situation is inadvisable. In Wagner's time, slavery was still legal in many places and equal rights for women were a fantastical notion. The kind of views were widespread and we are pleasantly ignorant about how many historical figures thought with respect to them. But Wagner's music is still with us because it is regarded by many people to be very excellent, not because of any repellent views he had. I've seen and heard worse art from people who might have been saintly, but that's irrelevant.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

crmoorhead said:


> ...
> 
> The second assumption is that Wagner is some way, directly or indirectly, responsble for the Holocaust and/or Nazi ideologies. I can't see any link here. For all Hitler's talk about Wagner's nationalistic inspiration, Hitler was insane and the Nazis picked and chose what they wanted from his works. After reading the entirety of this thread, I have some sympathy with Couchie rather simple request for evidence of links between Wagner's music and Nazis. People seem very willing to take hearsay and substitute it for actual evidence or to simple respond that 'it's obvious'. Much that is 'obvious' is unjustified.
> 
> ...


Well here are some quotes by Wagner from his diaries (in italics) :

_All Jews should be burned at a performance of Nathan the Wise.

Only one thing can redeem you (Jews) from the burden of your curse: the redemption of Ahasverus -- total destruction.

"cursed Jew-scum"

I have cherished a long repressed resentment about this Jew money-world, and this hatred is as necessary to my nature as gall is to blood.

By removing [Jewish] vermin, I don't necessarily mean destroying them . . . There are many ways, systematic, and comparatively painless, or at any rate bloodless, of causing races to vanish . . . We may take systematic measures to dam their great natural fertility . . . By doing this gradually and without bloodshed, we demonstrate our humanity.

The Jew is the parasite in the body of other nations.

The Jew must not be destroyed, because then "we should have to invent him. It is essential to have a tangible enemy, not merely an absract one."_

The source HERE is heavily biased anti-Wagner, but those quotes are Wagner's. I will not comment on the article itself, other than that it comes across as unbalanced.

However, as I said, why make a mystery out of this? If you were a Holocaust survivor, or had relatives who went through that, it isn't rocket science to figure out why those people don't like Wagner. Whether its right or wrong, that's what it boils down to.

Also, I just thought of this, with Brunnhilde burning herself at the end of _Gotterdammerung_, well that has conotations similar to the Holocaust as well (people being cremated). But what makes it kind of barbaric to me is its resemblance to the practice of sati, which was widely practised in India before the Brits outlawed it.

The other issue is that there are plenty of other composers to perform than Wagner, and their operas are by far more popular and less controversial than his is. I don't need to even give a list of those, but a few are Verdi, Puccini, Bizet, Mozart, etc.

& then there's stuff like Hitler's relationship with Wagner's descendants. Here he was with Weiland & Wolfgang Wagner -










So put yourself in the boots of some Israelis. I'm not saying intellectuals or musicians like Barenboim. I'm saying ordinary people. With all this - and more - why would you blame them for what they feel? AS I said before, it's EMOTION.


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

Odnoposoff said:


> You should remember what I've said before. To jews, 70 years is nothing, and on the Holocaust, they never are to "move on"; never.


Well they still have the 'wailing wall' in Jerusalem, its been there since the a big massacre about 2000 years or so ago. So I think there is a strong element of truth in what you say. About history and memory, I think, not necessarily only related to Wagner. I wish the Europeans for all their 'culture' and 'civilisation' had that memory now. The rise of far right governments/parties there in the last ten years or so is much more of a worry than the lack of Wagner in Isreal. But don't worry, Wagner is allowed to be performed in Europe so they obviously are 'better' & more 'superior' to Israel in so many ways. Being sarcastic there, but forget it.


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## crmoorhead (Apr 6, 2011)

Apologies if this too long, but I like to explain myself thoroughly. First of all, I think should outline where I agree and where I do not.

In agreement:
-Wagner wrote these things in his diary and was, at least some of the time, antisemitic and vitriolic when expressing this (as he was on many issues).
-Putting myself 'in the shoes of some Israelis' I know that they find Wagner disagreeable, even hateful.

Where I disagree:
-Those who support this censorship are justified.
-Playing his music in some way condones any of his opinions or disrespects those who survived the holocaust.



Sid James said:


> Well here are some quotes by Wagner from his diaries (in italics) :
> The source HERE is heavily biased anti-Wagner, but those quotes are Wagner's. I will not comment on the article itself, other than that it comes across as unbalanced.


Glad that you admit it as not being an unbiased source, but I will agree that this is partly irrelevant.

Firstly, these comments don't even seem consistent. Secondly, Wagner worked with and was friends with several Jews, so I can add hypocricy to his many flaws.

Thirdly, let's look at this in historical context. The article that Wagner wrote was republished under his name around 150 years ago. In this time, Germany was asserting its national identity and many people viewed foreigners and people who were 'other' as not being welcome. This has happened all over history, the most recent and supposedly successful version of this being aimed at Eastern European immigrants in the UK. One also might make a comparison between this feeling of suspicion and the treatment of Israeli Arabs in present day Israel, including the disapproval of mixed marriages and general discrimination on several levels. Going back to this time in history, in the US, slavery had _just_ been abolished and the British Empire was busy slaughtering zulus. Also, as I mentioned elsewhere, women's rights were openly laughed at. Throw a stone in those times and you would be likely to hit someone with hateful views. I am not trying to be an apologist here, because intelligent people should be able to tell the difference no matter when they lived, but if we are using the argument that emotional responses to Wagner's music are valid in Israel to justify a ban, then why can't the same argument be used for people who lived in times gone past when racism, sexism, antisemitism and sectarianism were 'acceptable', equal rights and basic human rights were non-existent and the rich and the aristocracy had a disgusting amount of power. The 'emotional response' to a loss or imagined attack on national identity is to find a scapegoat. This is categorically wrong, but people still do it today, although we live in a highly educated society and people are more careful about their words.

Fourthly, I would be very surprised if many of those against playing Wagner's music (who are not, as you say, academics of musicians) would be able to quote any of what you have posted. I go back to my assertion that most people, if they have even heard of Wagner, know very little other than some association with Hitler and maybe that he was an anti-Semite. When he lived and what he said are not likely to be common knowledge. The vast majority of society is highly likely to be completely indifferent about what is played by an orchestra behind closed doors. When Barenboim played Wagner as an encore in Israel, the disturbance was minor. Isn't this strong evidence that the majority of the audience condoned the public performance of Wagner? There is not, after all, anything inherently distasteful about the music. Take away Wagner's name, and it is just music.



> Also, I just thought of this, with Brunnhilde burning herself at the end of _Gotterdammerung_, well that has conotations similar to the Holocaust as well (people being cremated).


I wouldn't really say that Brunnhilde's immolation has any relation to the Holocaust whatsoever, especially since the former was a willing, if melodramatic, sacrifice. The only real link is the fire element and I believe that it is important to not be oversensitive. But, of course, it is not simply The Ring that is taboo, but rather any of Wagner's instrumental works or music taken from his operas.

Personally, I find the incest more odd. 



> The other issue is that there are plenty of other composers to perform than Wagner, and their operas are by far more popular and less controversial than his is. I don't need to even give a list of those, but a few are Verdi, Puccini, Bizet, Mozart, etc.


The censorship of Wagner in Israel makes as much sense as removing the teaching of the Big Bang theory or Theory of Evolution in schools because of people's religious belief. Could any school of music in Israel simply skip over Wagner's influence in history or avoid mention of his works when discussing the history of music? I would suggest not. The overwhelming opinion in the rest of the world is that people value Wagner's contribution to music. It would be interesting to find out if you can even purchase Wagner's music in Israel. I would be surprised if you couldn't. I have also read that Wagner's music has even been played on the state-owned radio stations. If exposure to Wagner is inevitable in some cases, then why does should the taboo on a public performance remain? My proposition is that it will not. Wagner will be in a programmed performance within the next 10 years.

Wagner's operas are long, so that does mean that they are performed less and in that sense they are 'less popular'. Yet, in almost every list I have seen, his operas are among the highest rated. Being less controversial should never, ever be a consideration, but I guess that is my opinion and up to debate.



> then there's stuff like Hitler's relationship with Wagner's descendants. Here he was with Weiland & Wolfgang Wagner .


Hitler loved Wagner. I'd be surprised if he never had a photo with Wagner's descendants!  If they had been photographed wearing swastikas, it might be slightly more shocking. Regardless, Wagner's descendants have no connotation with the creation or enjoyment of his music. They are largely completely irrelevant to this discussion.



> So put yourself in the boots of some Israelis. I'm not saying intellectuals or musicians like Barenboim. I'm saying ordinary people. With all this - and more - why would you blame them for what they feel? AS I said before, it's EMOTION.


Yes, I do blame them for what they feel. People are responsible for their own rationality. Part of the reason for my very strong views on this is because of my first hand experience of the conflict between Protestants and Catholics in Northern Ireland where I grew up. On one side, who can blame Republicans for how they feel against the British army, against the English and against the Queen. They were an oppressed people, that is a fact, and many injustices were perpetrated against them. People were murdered in cold blood by members of the police service that were meant to protect them and the historic treatment of their people makes for shameful reading. On the other side who can blame many Unionists for feeling a similar pain? The IRA bombed many innocent people, sent death threats to public figures, killed policemen etc etc. The Republicans wanted to impose a national identity on them that was unwanted and went against their own traditions. Or worse still, expel them altogether from a land they had lived in for generations. One side has people that won't wear green, the other people that won't wear blue. And don't even get started on flags and language. Yet, what do we see this week? Martin McGuinness (formerly a member of the IRA and the Queen shaking hands in Belfast with him welcoming her in Irish. A few years ago, Dr. Ian Paisley, who has said some truly detestable things about Catholics and homosexuals were photographed many a time sharing a joke with Martin McGuiness as joint leaders of our local government. Oh, it isn't all rosy, but whenever people talk about emotional responses about things past, I find it a ludicrous suggestion. This is a much fresher conflict than WWII and the Holocaust and almost as old. People aren't entitled to feel enraged about the past, especially when we are talking about those who lived such a long time ago, of events that are decades and centuries past. The past is irrelevant to the modern day and only serves to drag is back to a time which is best forgotten. Wagner is, crucially, not the same as Nazism, but even if the connotations are strong, then the Holocaust happened nearly 70 years ago. At the end of the day, it is only music. Cast your eyes to many idols of 'modern' music and ask yourself if approving with the personal views or actions of other musicians and bands is necessary in any way for it to be performed or enjoyed.

One more thing. To say that it is fine for Wagner to be taboo in Israel implies that the rest of the world is morally wrong to allow performances of his music and that we are indifferent to both the Holocaust and Wagner's repellent personal opinions. This, I believe, is ridiculous logic.


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## Couchie (Dec 9, 2010)

Sid James said:


> Well here are some quotes by Wagner from his diaries (in italics) :
> 
> _All Jews should be burned at a performance of Nathan the Wise.
> 
> ...


Some more quotes from Wagner's most notorious _Judahism in Music_:
_
"As *we fought for the emancipation of the Jews*, we were nonetheless fighters for an abstract principle"

"The misery of the Jews through history and *the predatory bestiality of the Christian-Germanic power-brokers towards the Sons of Israel*"

"We ought to refrain from the denunciation of Christian civilisation, which has kept the Jews in their violent detachment. On the other hand, on no account do *we have any intention of blaming the Jews for the success of this alienation*, that we have hereby touched on."_

_"From his special position as a Jew he appeared before us seeking Redemption: He found it not. he was forced to realise that it could be found only if it came *along with our own Redemption into a genuine humanity*._



Sid James said:


> Only one thing can redeem you (Jews) from the burden of your curse: the redemption of Ahasverus -- total destruction.


The quote in context:

_We still have to name one Jew, who appeared amongst us as a writer. From his special position as a Jew he appeared before us seeking Redemption (Erlösung): he found it not. He was forced to realise that it [Redemption] could be found only if it came along with our own Redemption into genuine human beings. To collaboratively become human with us, means to the Jew nothing less than: stop being Jews. That Börne fulfilled. But straight away Börne also learned how redemption cannot be attained in the indifference of cold comfort, but, just as it does for us, it would cost sweat, distress, fear and be full of pain and suffering. *Ruthlessly take part in this redemptive work of self-annihilating rebirth, so that we will be united [einig] and without difference [ununterschieden]!* Consider, however, that *only one thing can be the Redemption from the curse that burdens you: the Redemption of Ahasver, the Untergang [going under/destruction/apocalypse]*_

To construe this quote as a call for the holocaust, is utter intellectual poverty given the sentence just before he clearly speaks of_ rebirth and unification_. Clearly Wagner is speaking of the utter destruction of the Jewish cultural identity if the are to successfully integrate with German society (compare to the contemporary issue of assimilation vs multicuturalism for Muslims in Europe).

In the 1869 version he adds this commentary:

_If, by comparison, this element is *assimilated *in this manner, so that together in community with us, it helps to mature the development of a loftier humane establishment, the most candid disclosure of the difficulties of *assimilation *is surely more desirable rather than its concealment._

Remember that "redemption through destruction" is a prevalent theme in Wagner's operas: the Flying Dutchman, Wotan, Isolde, and Kundry all meet their destruction: it is not to purge their evil, but so they may be gloriously enlightened.

The essay also makes it clear that Mendelssohn's inability to write true music is not due to his race but the fact he is displaced from his cultural roots and attempts to write German music while maintaining a Jewish cultural identity:

_"A language, its expression and its higher education, is not the work of a single individual, but that of a historical community: only that person who has grown up unknowingly in this community can take part its artistic creativity. The Jew stands outside of this community, alienated with his Jehova in fragmented, groundless national roots. *As a result of which all their developments misfire, as the peculiar Hewbrew language of this tribe remains dead to them.*"_

Altogether Wagner in "Jewishness in Music" is more sympathetic to the Jew's homeless plight than most people realize. Another very interesting quote:

_"In pure politics we never come into real conflict with the Jews; we do not even begrudge them the establishment of a Jerusalemic realm, and have even more reason to regret in this regard, that Herr von Rothschild was too ingenious to make himself King of the Jews, whereas, as is well known, he preferred to remain "the Jew to the Kings"._

Here it would seem Wagner regrets that Rothschild of the famous German-Jewish banking dynasty was satisfied with a luxuriant living in Germany rather than using his influence to help establish a home for the Jews! Couple this with the fact that Theodor Herzl was a fervent Wagnerian and *I probably have more to go on that Wagner was a proto-Zionist than Solomon has that Wagner was a proto-Nazi. *


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## Sid James (Feb 7, 2009)

Thanks for the reply, but due to time limitations, I will respond only to your final point -



crmoorhead said:


> ...
> One more thing. To say that it is fine for Wagner to be taboo in Israel implies that the rest of the world is morally wrong to allow performances of his music and that we are indifferent to both the Holocaust and Wagner's repellent personal opinions. This, I believe, is ridiculous logic.


Well I am certainly against banning music, I created this thread on it -
http://www.talkclassical.com/17881-music-banned.html

But it only reached the grand total of two pages! Seems people don't care about what was banned, apart from Wagner. If Wagner is banned, we argue till the cows come home. What about all the music the Nazis banned? & confiscating royalties of great composers like Berg who as a result lived in poverty. Or forcing them out the country, like Schoenberg and Hindemith.

Why weren't people outraged as I am at these facts? Maybe its what I said, the double standards. I don't give a hoot if Wagner is taboo in Israel. Many musicians had taboos regarding politics. Georges Cziffra refused to go back to Hungary, where he had been a political prisoner. Similar with Pablo Casals, the cellist, refused to ever perform in Spain after he left following the Civil War and Franco's takeover.

What I give a hoot about is what's going on politically in Europe now. Its veering towards becoming a basket case, maybe World War III in our lifetimes. That's more disturbing for me, and guess what, they love their Wagner. & tell you the truth, maybe that's part of the problem. They forget history and shove it under the carpet. Shame on them, big shame on them.

But I respect you for talking to me with respect, cmoorhead, seems many people passionate about this topic find that very hard.


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## Couchie (Dec 9, 2010)

Sid James said:


> But it only reached the grand total of two pages! Seems people don't care about what was banned, apart from Wagner. If Wagner is banned, we argue till the cows come home. What about all the music the Nazis banned? & confiscating royalties of great composers like Berg who as a result lived in poverty. Or forcing them out the country, like Schoenberg and Hindemith.
> 
> Why weren't people outraged as I am at these facts?


The Nazis were an evil totalitarian state. That they did evil totalitarian things like censorship is really of no surprise and is not interesting.

Few have suffered worse the effects of state censorship and propaganda as the Jews, that Israel now adopts these tactics is interesting.


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## crmoorhead (Apr 6, 2011)

Sid James said:


> But it only reached the grand total of two pages! Seems people don't care about what was banned, apart from Wagner. If Wagner is banned, we argue till the cows come home. What about all the music the Nazis banned? & confiscating royalties of great composers like Berg who as a result lived in poverty. Or forcing them out the country, like Schoenberg and Hindemith.
> 
> Why weren't people outraged as I am at these facts? Maybe its what I said, the double standards. I don't give a hoot if Wagner is taboo in Israel. Many musicians had taboos regarding politics. Georges Cziffra refused to go back to Hungary, where he had been a political prisoner. Similar with Pablo Casals, the cellist, refused to ever perform in Spain after he left following the Civil War and Franco's takeover.


I also find such facts outrageous, most especially when it comes to Mahler and the Nazis. I'd also add the vicious campaign against Bruckner by his critics (although not politically motivated), who was also later disfavoured by the Nazis, and the censorship of Shostakovich (and other Soviet composers).



> What I give a hoot about is what's going on politically in Europe now. Its veering towards becoming a basket case, maybe World War III in our lifetimes. That's more disturbing for me, and guess what, they love their Wagner. & tell you the truth, maybe that's part of the problem. They forget history and shove it under the carpet. Shame on them, big shame on them.


I think _I'm_ becoming a basket case. History SHOULD be something to learn from, not an excuse to use in new or renewed conflict, in politics, music or elsewhere. The rise of right-wing parties and/or Nationalists in present day Europe is, IMO, an 'emotional response' to blaming present day economic worries on other nations rather than people actually spending more money than they had. As I said, everyone should be responsible for their own rationality. The simple truth is that everybody got into this bloody mess together because spending lots is obviously good for the economy, including money that we might have to owe later. I shouldn't oversimpify, but thats how _I_ feel. I don't think that the right wing parties will get anywhere, but, to be honest, America is a lot more right wing now than what Europe could become in the future. Let's see where we are in 10 years.



> But I respect you for talking to me with respect, cmoorhead, seems many people passionate about this topic find that very hard.


I'm glad you took it as I intended.


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## emiellucifuge (May 26, 2009)

Sid James said:


> What I give a hoot about is what's going on politically in Europe now. Its veering towards becoming a basket case, maybe World War III in our lifetimes. That's more disturbing for me, and guess what, they love their Wagner. & tell you the truth, maybe that's part of the problem. They forget history and shove it under the carpet. Shame on them, big shame on them.


Are you attempting to link an appreciation of Wagner with the current anti-immigration movements going on Europe? I imagine it is very easy to produce such fantasies when you live on the other side of the world.

I live in the Netherlands, a country which probably suffers the most from the xenophobic and thinly disguised racist parasite of people such as Geert Wilders and his Freedom party. Coincidentally, under our current government, which he was instrumental in forming - we only have an official foreign affairs policy toward one other country; Israel, which happens to be overwhelmingly supportive leaning towards zionist. Indeed, it is a fundamental part of his party's ideology that european culture is historically based on Judeo-christian values, and that Islam is now a foreign invader - almost at odds with anything Wagner ever wrote.

Further, the 2.5 million people that voted for him in the previous elections, are overwhelmingly 'lower class' and without higher education. These are not the same people who I saw at the recent production of Parsifal.


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## StlukesguildOhio (Dec 25, 2006)

Well I am certainly against banning music, I created (a) thread on it -

But it only reached the grand total of two pages! Seems people don't care about what was banned, apart from Wagner. If Wagner is banned, we argue till the cows come home.

Perhaps people argue til the cows come home with regard to Wagner because his music is still being targeted. The last I heard, Berg, Schoenberg, Hindemith, etc... were not. I have little doubt that people here are not in favor of banning anyone's music... no matter how much they might dislike it as an individual... but I suspect that the reason they haven't brought up other composers here is that this is a thread on Wagner.

What about all the music the Nazis banned? & confiscating royalties of great composers like Berg who as a result lived in poverty. Or forcing them out the country, like Schoenberg and Hindemith.

What about it? That seems completely irrelevant to the post at hand... or are you suggesting a petty tit-for-tat? Berg, Schoenberg, etc... were mistreated by the Nazis, while they embraced Wagner's music, so now it's just turnabout is fair play? I'll be the first to admit that such censorship was a horrible fact of a dark period in history, but it surely doesn't justify censoring Wagner's music in return.

Why weren't people outraged as I am at these facts? Maybe its what I said, the double standards. I don't give a hoot if Wagner is taboo in Israel. Many musicians had taboos regarding politics.

I'll assume that most people here empathize... sympathize with with those composers who faced censorship... oppression... and yes... even the torture and murder simply because they did not fit into the warped ideology of the Third Reich... but you don't really expect that I should be outraged? We're talking ancient history here. It's been 70 years now. Blood has continued to flow. Other murderous dictators have come and gone. Am I to be surprised? Should I have expected otherwise?

_When the moon is in the Seventh House
And Jupiter aligns with Mars
Then peace will guide the planets
And love will steer the stars

This is the dawning of the Age of Aquarius
The Age of Aquarius
Aquarius! Aquarius!_

I thought the hippies were more than a little naive.

Personally, I don't have the time... or inclination to be be outraged over every composer who had thoughts that might be deemed racist, sexist, nationalistic, antisemitic, religiously intolerant at a time when such thinking was commonplace? Hell, I still think Michael Jackson wrote some damn good music regardless of what he did or didn't do in his private life.

Answer me honestly, how unique was Wagner in his antisemitism? I suspect that the great majority of the older composers you and I like were antisemitic (and sexist, racist, and nationalistic to boot)... but I don't have the time (nor the desire) to dig through their personal journals and other writings to prove as much. If there's a double standard here, perhaps it lies with the obsession to dig up every bit of dirt one can on Wagner because: *I don't like him*... and post these in nearly every thread where Wagner's name shows up.

What it ultimately comes down to is you don't like Wagner (which is all well and fine)... but it is virtually impossible to dismiss his importance within musical history. Wagner is quite likely the most influential composer since Beethoven, and with the possible exception of Mozart (and some might argue Verdi) the greatest operatic composer of all time. In spite of the admitted length... and other challenges... that must be be overcome in recording or staging Wagner's operas (there are far less singers capable of taking on a lead role in the _Ring_ or _Tristan und Isolde_ than in _Carmen, La Traviata_, or _Le Nozze di Figaro_ at any given time), they remain recognized by a great many critics as ranking among the greatest operatic and musical achievements of all time, they are still among the most frequently staged works of opera, and they retain a passionate following.

But of course, it is far easier to sweep all this aside by painting Wagner as a Nazis than it is to argue against his work in musical terms... or simply admit that you just don't like him.

Personally, I'm not overly fond of Schoenberg or Boulez or Stockhausen... but truly, I can't be bothered to dig through their writings and their biographies, and sites on the internet in order to prove that they kicked their dog, or were bad parents, or whatever, in order to justify my dislike of their music.

Wagner, it seems, inspires an obsession both in those who love and in those who hate his music.


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## science (Oct 14, 2010)

StlukesguildOhio said:


> I'll assume that most people here empathize... sympathize with the censorship... the oppression... and yes... even the torture and murder of those composers who did not fit into the warped ideology of the Third Reich...


I'm sorry, is this what you meant to write?


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## StlukesguildOhio (Dec 25, 2006)

Hopefully I have clarified that particular paragraph.


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## Very Senior Member (Jul 16, 2009)

I'm not Jewish myself but one of the main issues of concern to some Jewish people is the notion that Wagner used music as a vehicle for propagating his anti-semiticism, so that the music itself is objectionable or at least some of it is. "Sid" referred to this in one his earlier posts by referring to the article by Solomon where this thesis is set out in some detail, but there are other writers who have written in similar terms. I saw a long thread on this aspect of the case against Wagner on another classical music site several years ago, and I was quite surprised at how important it appeared to be among Jewish people relative to the take up of Wagner's music by the Nazis which tends to dominate discussions, as they have done here all over again.


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## crmoorhead (Apr 6, 2011)

Very Senior Member said:


> I'm not Jewish myself but one of the main issues of concern to some Jewish people is the notion that Wagner used music as a vehicle for propagating his anti-semiticism, so that the music itself is objectionable or at least some of it is. "Sid" referred to this in one his earlier posts by referring to the article by Solomon where this thesis is set out in some detail, but there are other writers who have written in similar terms. I saw a long thread on this aspect of the case against Wagner on another classical music site several years ago, and I was quite surprised at how important it appeared to be among Jewish people relative to the take up of Wagner's music by the Nazis which tends to dominate discussions, as they have done here all over again.


As I tried to state elsewhere, this further illustrates the fact that the bias against Wagner is more motivated by ignorance and the need to find a scapegoat than it is evidence. From what I have read of that article, the main (possibly only) evidence of anti-semitism in Wagner's operas is the character of Mime. Mime, of course, is a dwarf and given the characteristics of that mythical race. It is no more anti-semitic than any dwarf character of Lord of the Rings. Recall that the dwarves in Lord of the Rings (and anywhere else) are greedy creatures with excessive pride and a love for gold. Lord of the Rings is much more guilty of assigning racial stereotypes than Wagner. It will be interesing to see if the upcoming Hobbit movie is viewed as being anti-semitic, esp in the part where the dwarves betray everyone else because of their love of gold after the dragon is defeateOne might say that Mime is ostensibly a creature seeking power, but that doesn't make him Jewish, does it? After all, there exists an entire race of Nibelungs that were enslaved by Alberich and Mime is simply his bitter (and talented) brother.

Mahler's comments are actually rather humorous in that he identifies Mime with _himself_, a Jew, but that says rather more about Mahler than Jewish stereotypes. The rest of the comments seem to be from Cosima Wagner who, with respect, isn't Wagner and her racist commentary on life (and her opinions on he father's operas) aren't really pertinent.

And as for the rest of the many, many, characters in Wagner's musical dramas, where do they fit in with Wagner's antisemitism? That he picks German themes is nationalistic (as Grieg, Sibelius, Vaughan-Williams and numerous others were) but is is not anti-semitic by nature. Neither does the slightest mention of Christianity (and it's implied 'Jews killed Christ' motif) make it at all anti-semitic. Wagner makes a lot less references to Christianity and Christian values than does, say, Verdi or other stongly Catholic composers. Wagner is perhaps the only great composer to never compose religious music.

The other accusation that I have seen elsewhere, though I may have misread the full references, is the idea that the Flying Dutchman refers to The Wandering Jew, which seems a tenuous connection even if the idea of the wandering Jew is intrinsically anti-semitic.

No, I don't think there is anything that obviously exemplifies antisemitism in Wagner's characters or plots. Overanalysis can often just reveal plain absurdity.


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## HarpsichordConcerto (Jan 1, 2010)

What a long-winded thread verging on the comical. Listening to Wagner's music does not make one an anti-semite anymore than listening to Baroque church music converts a non-believer (like myself) into Christianity. If Israel bans Wagner's music, then that is Israel's perogative. And as long as that does not diminish my enjoyment of Wagner's music here in Australia in my humble castle, I couldn't care less.


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## crmoorhead (Apr 6, 2011)

Interesting, I was reading the paper today and came across this:

http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/miss-holocaust-survivor-contest-held-israel-211551097.html

So, Wagner cannot be performed publicly in any way because it risks offence to a few and yet this event went ahead?


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

crmoorhead said:


> Interesting, I was reading the paper today and came across this:
> 
> http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/sideshow/miss-holocaust-survivor-contest-held-israel-211551097.html
> 
> So, Wagner cannot be performed publicly in any way because it risks offence to a few and yet this event went ahead?


Wagner is unofficially banned, but Barenboim heard "ride of the Valkyries" as someone's ring tone at a meeting in Israel. If Wagner can be heard on someone's phone, why can't it be heard in a concert hall?


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## crmoorhead (Apr 6, 2011)

ComposerOfAvantGarde said:


> Wagner is unofficially banned, but Barenboim heard "ride of the Valkyries" as someone's ring tone at a meeting in Israel. If Wagner can be heard on someone's phone, why can't it be heard in a concert hall?


As far as I can gather, Israel's Supreme Court ruled that a performance could be made, but it has thus far been blacklisted from all concert programs. Barenboim performed a Wagner piece as part of an unlisted encore and warned the audience beforehand of his intention. After a small disturbance, only a few people left the hall. Wagner is also played on the state owned radio station.As I say, however, it is only a matter of time before the inevitable happens.


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

crmoorhead said:


> As far as I can gather, Israel's Supreme Court ruled that a performance could be made, but it has thus far been blacklisted from all concert programs. Barenboim performed a Wagner piece as part of an unlisted encore and warned the audience beforehand of his intention. After a small disturbance, only a few people left the hall. Wagner is also played on the state owned radio station.As I say, however, it is only a matter of time before the inevitable happens.


Barenboim got a standing ovation after the performance too!


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## samurai (Apr 22, 2011)

Whereever else this discussion goes re: the musical merits of Wagner and whether they should be at all linked with his anti-semitic views etc., etc., I would just ask that people not include the acts of Napoleon in the same sentence with those of the two prime examples of 20th Century butchers, namely Stalin and Hitler. How anyone could possibly confuse/conflate this with what that German monster did in organizing and carrying out the deliberate, wholesale and ruthless extermination of a people on an industrial scale is quite beyond my rather meager realm of understanding! *Please* try and look at the vast differences involved here before you would think to venture such a comparision. *PLEASE!*


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## samurai (Apr 22, 2011)

regressivetransphobe said:


> I haven't read the thread, but have we already covered the fact Israel is an insane apartheid state that's obsessed with racial identity, and that not playing Wagner is the least of their misdeeds?


NO! Maybe you have and in your own mind believe this, but I for one sure as hell don't!


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## Taneyev (Jan 19, 2009)

Well, what the hell do you care if Wagner's music is banned in Israel?. It's not a thing of your concern. You don't agree with it? OK, you don't. But that is all you can say about it. Jews (some jews) problem with Wagner is their problem, not yours.


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

Odnoposoff said:


> Well, what the hell do you care if Wagner's music is banned in Israel?. It's not a thing of your concern. You don't agree with it? OK, you don't. But that is all you can say about it. Jews (some jews) problem with Wagner is their problem, not yours.


They only hate Wagner's music because Hitler abused it. They should hate Hitler, not music.


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## Taneyev (Jan 19, 2009)

You can't say to others what they should or what they shouldn't love or hate. And certainly not to a people who lost more than a third of all their members by murder. You may not agree with them, but they feel what they feel, and not you nor anybody else has the right to criticise what they feel.


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## MaestroViolinist (May 22, 2012)

Odnoposoff said:


> You can't say to others what they should or what they shouldn't love or hate. And certainly not to a people who lost more than a third of all their members by murder. You may not agree with them, but they feel what they feel, and not you nor anybody else has the right to criticise what they feel.


I tend to agree with you.


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## ComposerOfAvantGarde (Dec 2, 2011)

Odnoposoff said:


> You can't say to others what they should or what they shouldn't love or hate. And certainly not to a people who lost more than a third of all their members by murder. You may not agree with them, but they feel what they feel, and not you nor anybody else has the right to criticise what they feel.


They can hate Wagner if they want to. I don't hate Wagner and I don't see any connection between the Tristan chord and the Holocaust.


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