Klarinet Archive - Posting 000041.txt from 2007/05

From: Paolo Leva <paolo.leva@-----.se>
Subj: [kl] SV: Orff, Wagner and Nazi's
Date: Mon, 07 May 2007 06:34:11 -0400

I feel the need to enter this debate and underline the
crucial difference between composers who consciously
served the abominous Nazi regime, and composers who
have been (ab)used by that regime.

No secret that Wagner was antisemite and generally
behaving chaotically in his private and political
life, but we cannot assume that if he'd known Hitler
and the Nazi he would have supported them. After all
he deeply was a humanist and, as long as I know, he
never preached violence in a way even close to what
Nazi did. We should also remember that he fought with
the left activists in Dresden against the regime, in
protest to the fact that the parlament had been
dismissed by the king. For what we know, Wagner might
as well turned out to be a fierce opponent of Nazism.

We'll never have answer to this question, this is what
makes Wagner so very very different from Orff. We are
all entitled of disliking Wagner, his music and his
ideas, but considering him a supporter of Nazism and
associating him with people like Orff is false from an
historical point of view.

Once Wagner wrote that he could not think as clear in
his private and political life as he could do in his
artistic work. This seems to me to be a very good
picture of this man.

//Paolo

> Date: Mon, 7 May 2007 00:37:11 +0200
> To: "klarinetlijst" <klarinet@-----.org>
> From: "Rien Stein" <rstein@-----.nl>
> Subject: Orff, Wagner and Nazi's
> Message-ID:
> <001901c7902f$16c83270$6402a8c0@rien94hk64swup>
>
> My father was a great admirer of Carl Orff's music,
> especially the Carmina
> Burana. He was half Jewish, and did not know mauch
> about Orff. My
> grandfather was an (amateur) expert on Wagner: after
> three notes he
> recognized him, which opera, in which scene, and as
> far as I know was always
> correct, even if it concerned such an (at least in
> the first half of the
> previous century) unknown work as say Rienzi. My
> grandfather possessed the
> complete writngs of Richard Wagner, and that
> includes not only his opera
> texts, but also what he wrote else on theoretical
> issues and so on. Writings
> I felt troubled of. Thanks to Dan Leeson I now
> understand it was the
> antisemitical background of this man. To me that was
> a good enough reason to
> become interested in the attitude of many German and
> Austrian composers
> towards Hitler and his bent.
>
> I decided not to listen to, nor to play, music
> composed by some composers:
> Wagner and the in my opinion much lesser composer
> Orff. Strauss indeed was a
> stupid fellow, not really understanding what was
> going on, but Orff was
> aware off it all! He was not the composer of such
> really badly intended
> trash as Horst Wessel wrote, but he should have
> known better! Actually he
> knew better, but was indifferent to it, as far as I
> know.
>
> I assume Dan Leeson refused to play music written by
> Wagner and Orff, and
> some other composers as well?
>
> Rien
>

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