Klarinet Archive - Posting 001180.txt from 1998/09

From: "Dan Leeson: LEESON@-----.edu>
Subj: [kl] Wagner
Date: Wed, 30 Sep 1998 18:24:39 -0400

> From: MX%"klarinet@-----.15
> Subj: Re: [kl] Wagner

LOL writes:

> Wagner....gotta separate the man from his music.........
>
> The music is superb,sublime....
>
> The man...most of us would have hated him....
>
> And......who would have liked Beethoven?
>
> LOL
>

It is true that many musicians has despicable characters, and Wagner
was one of them. Schubert is alleged to have been a pedophile.
Delius was said to have been sexually profligate. Grainger wanted
to whip children. And if Wagner's hatred of Jews were not found
within the music, that would probably be the end of it.

But it is not that simple. Wagner's pathological hatred of Jews
was sufficiently great that one can find explicit portrayals of
19th century antisemitic beliefs as part and parcel of the operas.
In effect, his own personal opinion on this matter is found within
the operas, particulary the Ring (except for Walkure), Meistersinger,
and Parsifal.

Now it is one thing to hate, but it is quite another thing to
broadcast that hate as part of one's artistic production.

For LOL to say "who would have liked Beethoven" is not making
a comparison of apples to apples. His supposedly difficult
personality is not a part of his music, and neither is Schubert's
alleged pedophilia, Mozart's scatology, or Chopin's antisemitism
found in their music. There, the art and the negative characteristics
of the artist are separated.

But Wagner's hatred is, and to an unknown but non trivial degree,
the same hatred that influenced National Socialism in Germany from
1922 until 1945, and we all know well what horrid road was travelled
there.

To suggest that the admittedly great beauty of Wagner's music
excuses all is to oversimplify an extraordinarily complex issue.

> -------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
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Dan Leeson, Los Altos, California
Rosanne Leeson, Los Altos, California
leeson@-----.edu
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