Klarinet Archive - Posting 000102.txt from 2007/05

From: "=?iso-8859-1?Q?sarah=20elbaz?=" <sarah@-----.com>
Subj: RE: [kl] SV: Wagner
Date: Sun, 13 May 2007 15:55:41 -0400

Dan,
I am sure that you are very glad that someone gave you the ladder to get off the tree :-)
Sarah

> -------Original Message-------
> From: dnleeson <dnleeson@-----.net>
> Subject: RE: [kl] SV: Wagner
> Sent: 13 May '07 20:08
>
> With Sarah Elbaz's comments that depart from the central issue of
> the Wagner discussion, I now withdraw from further participation
> in what has now become a confused mess. Instead of the problem
> becoming focused, it has become diffused and chaotic.
>
> Dan Leeson
> DNLeeson@-----.net
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: sarah elbaz [mailto:sarah@-----.com]
> Sent: Sunday, May 13, 2007 10:22 AM
> To: klarinet@-----.org
> Subject: Re: [kl] SV: Wagner
>
>
>
>
>
> >  -------Original Message-------
> >  From: Paolo Leva <paolo.leva@-----.se>
> >  Subject: [kl] SV: Wagner
> >  Sent: 13 May '07 08:53
> >
> >  IMHO the complexity of Wagner's Ring really cannot be
> >  reduced to "good characters" against the "evil ones".
> >  There are no characters in the ring that are simply
> >  good and others that are simply bad. I wonder whether
> >  Wagner had any interest at all in concepts like "good"
> >  and "bad", I believe he did not.
> >
> >  This kind of good/bad classification is a
> >  simplification that might be appropriate for Disney,
> >  Tolkien and much of nowadays "action movies" crap, not
> >  for Wagner. The complexity of both characters and
> >  music is much greater than that. The complexity
> >  further increase when you put text and music together,
> >  since often they tell different, even opposite things.
> >
> >  For instance to see Siegfried as the "good" one
> >  prevailing against Mime the "bad" one is to extract
> >  one episode and choose to ignore the context.
> >  Unfortunately this is exactly the simplification done
> >  by the nazi to be able to use the Ring in their
> >  propaganda. I believe and hope that it is now time to
> >  move away from that simplification.
> >
> >  The Wagner of the ring is in many respect the same
> >  person that earlier wrote Tannhäuser and later wrote
> >  Parsifal, a man deeply involved to understand the
> >  human condition, its suffering, its fall and its way
> >  to redemption.
> >
> >  The mix of mythologies (German and other) was the tool
> >  he chose to deliver his message and to represent the
> >  human mind. It was not THE message.
> >
> >  I myself found the book of Robert Donington "Wagner's
> >  Ring and its symbol" quite a stimulating reading to
> >  catch this complexity, but most of all I recommend
> >  people wondering about antisemitism in Wagner's ring
> >  to go and see the whole ring with an open mind.
> >
> >  Paolo
>
> Paolo,
>
> I think that there is a big misunderstanding here.  The debat "
> To Wagner or not to Wagner"
> has nothing to do with his music, it is about the abuse of
> Wagner's music by the Nazis.
>
> The boycott started in Israel in 1952.  Yasha Heifetz played
> Richard Strauss and after the concert
> someone attact him with an  hammer.  Only then people started to
> understand that the surviviors
> can not hear this music and the Israel Phil decided not to play
> Wagner and Strauss.
>
> Wagner was a greart composer, there is no argument about that.
> Dan Lesson can write anything about Wagner
> but when he turns on the television and watches hundreds of
> advertisements, he praises
> Wagner.  After all , what is an advertisement if not a
> leitmotiv?.
>
> Tony and I had a long discussion about that when he was in Israel
> last December.  I told him that
> the boycott against Wagner's music can not stop because for so
> many people the holocaust
> is not over yet.  There are people among us who have no idea when
> and where they were born,
> who are their parents and what is their name.  People with second
> and third generation syndrom
> can not affoerd the luxury of such debats because they need all
> the energy in the world to get up
> in the morning.  I have nothing against Wagner's music , but
> since Israel is a SHELTER and not just another
> state the priorities here are different.
>
> If we want to to have a serious discussion about antisemitism, I
> think that we should face some more
> difficult questions.
> For example:   Amazon .com .  Is there any one on this list who
> didn't buy or sell books and CD's
> through Amazon?   And if I tell you that Amazon sells more copies
> of the" Protocols of the Elders of Zion"
> then the Bible and they refuse to stop spreading this poison
> because of the profit they make from this book, would you still
> buy ans sell through Amazon?
> I would love to get an answer to this question.
> Sarah Elbaz
>
>
>
> >
> >
> >
> >  Sökmotor, shopping, resor och gratis E-post online.
> >
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