Klarinet Archive - Posting 000067.txt from 2007/05

From: "Rien Stein" <rstein@-----.nl>
Subj: [kl] art and "circumstances"
Date: Wed, 09 May 2007 17:52:55 -0400

It will be clear that there has always been an uneasy relationship between
art and the life situation of the artist. From the very first moment I got
acquainted with Messiaens masterpiece "Quator pour la fin du temps"
(quartett for the end of times) I considered it a masterpiece. My
appreciation for it however greatly increased when I learned about the
situation in which Messiaen composed it. I was so happy to be informed by th
Maestro himself, and whenever I hear it (and I hear it on any occasion I can
hear it!) I remember what Messian told me about it.

But when I read poems of Latin poets from the beginning of our christian
era, I often am well aware that those poets mainly wrote what thay wrote to
move a sponsor to open their purse, wallet, or whatever people had at that
time to keep their money in. And that sometimes increases my appreciation
for them, usually however it makes me sharper for recognizing fill-ups.
Funnily: the real great poets do not suffer from this!

Probabely that is why my appreciation for Richard Strauss is great, for
Richard Wagner and Carl Orf is low. Mengelberg, the conductor of the
Concertgebouw orkest in Amsterdam, can be compared to Strauss: both seem to
have been hardly aware of what really was going on. Strauss continued to
compose under the Nazi regime, Mengelberg continued to conduct the "gebouw".
From Mengelberg it is know he tried to save Jewish musicians, but not on the
grounds they were humans, but because they were unmissable in the
orchestra -- an argument the anticulturist Nazi's were insensible to.

Richard Strauss can be compared to Mengelberg. What was going on in the
"real" world was not important, only their art's world was real.

Wagner however was a real antisemite. As I wrote before, my grandfather was
a great admirer of him. He possesed his complete works, but obviously never
had read them all: Wagner writngs were sufficiently clear to expose his
antisemitism. Even as a child I felt uneasy on reading them.

Ciao

Rien

------------------------------------------------------------------