Klarinet Archive - Posting 000049.txt from 2007/05

From: Fred Jacobowitz <fbjacobo@-----.net>
Subj: Re: [kl] SV: Orff, Wagner and Nazi's
Date: Mon, 07 May 2007 10:34:59 -0400

Dan,
As I remember reading, Orff was an opportunist with a very =
minimal set=20
of morals. He joined the Nazi party for the same reason many Russians=20
joined the Communist party: to get ahead. While other artists such as=20
Bruno Walter and Paul Hindemith left rather than deal with the Nazis,=20
he stayed and prospered. I have not heard that he had anything to do=20
with murders and deportations, etc. or that he was an ardent flag=20
waver, but he was willing to benefit from the artistic vacuum created=20
by the departure of the leading artistic lights. This in itself earned=20=

him the scorn and derision of the musical world. After the war, he was=20=

spurned by the musical community. By contrast, Strauss was an old man=20
and by some accounts, not all there mentally. Even he finally broke=20
with the Nazis when they banned Mozart's music.

Fred Jacobowitz

Kol Haruach Klezmer Band
Ebony and Ivory Duo
On May 7, 2007, at 10:19 AM, Curtis Bennett wrote:

> Dan - this thread started with regard to Orff. Is there anything on
> the background of Orff as it pertains to the Nazis?
>
> On 5/7/07, dnleeson <dnleeson@-----.net> wrote:
>> It is an exercize in futility to argue if Wagner would have
>> behaved similiarly during the Nazi regime. There is no way to
>> conclude on that attempt at a historical contrast.
>>
>> But, Paolo Leva is incorrect when he wrote: "[Wagner] never
>> preached violence in a way even close to what Nazi did." That is
>> not the case.
>>
>> Wagner explcitly offered a proposal that all Jews should be
>> forced to commit suicide during a performance of "Isaac the
>> Wise." That was a play that had become popular during that period
>> in which the character of the Jew, Isaac, was shown in a
>> non-demonizing way.
>>
>> That attitude can be seen in no other light thatn preaching
>> violence.
>>
>> And while antisemitism was a plague then (and is to, perhaps, an
>> ever greater degree of a plague today in the Muslim world),
>> Wagner was the only composer who incorporated his hatred as part
>> and parcel of his music dramas. He disguised his bigotry because
>> he did not want his operas to be seen as political pamphlets, but
>> his greatest masterpieces, "Meistersinger," three of the four
>> operas in "The Ring," and others, are rife with his toxic
>> thinking.
>>
>> Dan Leeson
>> DNLeeson@-----.net
>>
>>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: Paolo Leva [mailto:paolo.leva@-----.se]
>> Sent: Monday, May 07, 2007 2:34 AM
>> To: klarinet@-----.org
>> Subject: [kl] SV: Orff, Wagner and Nazi's
>>
>>
>> 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
>> >
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> kalender. Dessutom 250 MB gratis, virusscanning och antispam. F=E5
>> den p=E5: http://se.mail.yahoo.com
>>
>> -----------------------------------------------------------------
>> -
>>
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>>
>
>
> --=20
> Curtis Bennett
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------
>

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