Klarinet Archive - Posting 000257.txt from 2001/01

From: Daniel Leeson <leeson0@-----.net>
Subj: [kl] Revisiting a topic of two weeks ago
Date: Mon, 8 Jan 2001 17:53:04 -0500

Several weeks ago, there was the beginnings of an acrimonious debate on
the subject of Richard Strauss and his behavior during the period
1933-1945. Upon realizing that the discussion had turned ugly, everyone
withdrew from it, myself included. It is not my intention to reopen
that discussion but rather to note the printing of a book on the much
broader subject of German composers during the period of WW 2.

Specifically I speak of Michael Kater's "Composers of the Nazi Era:
Eight Portraits," as published by Oxford University Press in 2000 (ISBN
0-19-509924-9, $35) and which I just finished reading.

The eight men who are examined are Werner Egk, Paul Hindemith, Kurt
Weill, Karl Amadeus Hartmann, Carl Orff, Hans Pfitzner, Arnold
Schoenberg, and Richard Strauss. I add that this is the third book in a
trilogy by Kater that deals with music and musicians during the Nazi
era. The first was "Different Drummers: Jazz in the Culture of Nazi
Germany," (1992), and "The Twisted Muse: Musicians and Their Music in
the Third Reich," (1997) both published by Oxford University Press.

I conclude with a somewhat obscene phrase that I often heard used by
European musicians of an age old enough to remember WW2 when they speak
of Carl Orff. It should give you an idea of the disdain in which he was
(and is, to some degree) still held because of his casting of his lot
with the Nazis, though he does not seem to have had deep political
convictions on the matter. Instead, he was just a toady.

The phrase is "Leck mich in Orff" which is meaningless by itself
(translation: Lick my [= Kiss my] Orff) and only becomes clear when one
realizes that it is a polyrhthmic duplicate of the German, "Leck mich in
Arsch" (or "Lick my [@-----. So using "Leck mich in Orff" is
a disparaging remark with Orff as the object of the disparagement. It
is very difficult to find that kind of a jibe in English, but in German
it is very insulting.
--
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** Dan Leeson **
** leeson0@-----.net **
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