Klarinet Archive - Posting 000210.txt from 1998/10

From: "Dan Leeson: LEESON@-----.edu>
Subj: Re: RE: [kl] Re: Wagner
Date: Sun, 4 Oct 1998 18:19:05 -0400

> From: MX%"klarinet@-----.41
> Subj: Re: RE: [kl] Re: Wagner

> From: MorgyJr@-----.com>
> >I also recall Tchaikovsky having some skeletons in his closet.
> Unfortunately
> >don't we all. It's sad when we find out horrible things about people
> we once
> >admire. Like Dan, there are parts of Wagner's music that are amazing.
> It
> >breaks my heart that he was overtly such a bigot.
>
>
> The overt bigots/racists don't bother me nearly as much as the subtle
> ones ...
>
> This discussion of Wagner, at least to me, has been an eye-opener
> especially as I am not and never have been a formal student of music
> history.
> ----
> Mark Charette@-----.org
> Webmaster, http://www.sneezy.org/clarinet
> All-around good guy and devil-may-care flying fool.
> "There can be no freedom without discipline." - Nadia Boulanger

Mark's point is well worth pursuing for I find myself bigoted against
some composers simply because I don't like the details of their
personal life. And that is not only wrong, it is stupid of me.

Let me give you an example.

Schubert has been accused of being a pedophile. Even more, than
merely a molester of little boys, he is also suggested of being
what is referred to as a "chicken hawk" which implies that he
not only molested little boys but he pursued them as an adult
realizing the enormous advantage he had.

Now I should say up front, that this allegation is far from being
proven. It is the assertion of one man, Maynard Solomon, who wrote
a brilliant paper called "Franz Schubert and the Peacocks of Benvenuto
Cellini."

And ever since I read that paper, I began thinking about it whenever
I played something of Schubert. Of course I am sad if the story is
true, but his personal sex life should not influence the way I look
at his music, providing that he is not using that music to shove
his sex ideas down my throat (excuse the metaphor).

Another is Percy Grainger, who was my friend and a man who I admired
very much. After he died, a number of Grainger's letters (about which
I knew nothing) were published and they exposed him as a man who
wanted very much to have children so that he could whip them. He never
did, but that he wanted to and that there was some sexual overtones to
his writings on this matter has never left my head. I have Percy's
picture done by John Singer Sargeant that he gave to me and signed
with a loving, friedly statement, and yet I never look at it without
thinking about this aspect of his psyche.

Sometimes, knowing a lot of music history has a bad side.

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

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