Klarinet Archive - Posting 000120.txt from 2007/05

From: "dnleeson" <dnleeson@-----.net>
Subj: RE: [kl] A Deeper View of Wagner's Background
Date: Mon, 14 May 2007 13:48:48 -0400

Good summary Audry, but there is no complete ban on Wagner's
music in Israel. It is only the IPO that plays no Wagner and has
not since for some time. He is on the radio there and there is
talk of performing one of his operas, but the reason behind that
ban was not originally due to Wagner's music. The history is
this:

The ban on performance of Wagner's music by the Palestine
Orchestra (later the Palestine Philharmonic and, still later, the
Israel Philharmonic Orchestra), began on Nov. 12, 1938. The
closing work of the program was to have been the prelude to
Meistersinger. Following the intermission of that concert, the
chairman of the orchestral association announced that "because of
the antisemitic excesses and disturbances in Germany," the Wagner
work had been removed from the program by public demand, and
Weber's overture to the opera Oberon had been substituted.

The most significant factor in this action was due, NOT TO
WAGNER, but to Kristallnacht which had taken place three days
earlier, Nov. 9, 1938. It would appear that the use of the name
"Nuremberg" and its connection with both Nazi party conventions
and anti-Jewish laws was the aggravating factor; i.e., the
restrictive ordinances were made by the Nazis in that city in
explicit deference to Wagner's opera. As such, this was not a
wholesale condemnation of Wagner by the management or the
personnel of the Palestine Orchestra, and for the fourth concert
of the season, the orchestra played the "Bacchanal" from Wagner's
Tannhauser, though not in Palestine but on tour in Egypt.
However, beginning Nov. 12, 1939 and continuing until this day --
with one significant exception -- the orchestra, has performed
no music of Wagner.

Dan Leeson
DNLeeson@-----.net

-----Original Message-----
From: Audrey Travis [mailto:clr91nt@-----.ca]
Sent: Monday, May 14, 2007 7:10 AM
To: klarinet@-----.org
Subject: [kl] A Deeper View of Wagner's Background

Very good article, Joe. However, the author washes over the idea
that
Wagner's ideas/ideology regarding Jews were part and parcel of a
well
established political and cultural background of his time. A
book I
mentioned about a week ago, The War Against The Jews 1939 - 1945
by
Lucy Davidovitch details the history of political parties in
Germany
and Austria going back at least 200 years. She shows that there
were
well established, mainstream parties with written language in
their
party platforms that either:

(a) supported the idea that Jews were the cause of the
evils/problems
in their society and should be barred from certain livelihoods
and
parts of society (very well known in other countries as well)

(b) started with idea (a) and strongly advocated that Jews should
be
expelled from their country (Judenrein - well known and acted
upon
inother countries))

or (c) started with idea (a) and strongly advocated that Jews
were
subhuman and should be physically exterminated (murdered)

All these ideas were well accepted in those countries well before
Wagner was even born. He grew up with these ideas as part of his
social education. Therefore, Wagner was NOT the source of Nazi
ideology, nor was Hitler himself. Because so many people do not
know
history, Hitler is often thought of as an aberration of history
with
wild and exceedingly deadly ideas/ideology that came out of
nowhere but
his own tortured and insane mind. Not so. Both Wagner and
Hitler were
products of the political and cultural background of their
society.

It is the fact that Hitler and the Nazis used the music of such a
public figure as Wagner that has given rise to the ban of his
music
being played in Israel.

Audrey

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