Israel, Germany, and Wagner

[Biggs]

I heard this story on the radio today - about the Israel Chamber Orchestra violating a cultural taboo and performing Wagner at Bayreuth - and thought it might also interest some of you.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2011/07/ ... 3494.shtml

Personally, I believe the de facto Wagner ban to be ineffective and damaging, but, since I don't get a vote, it really doesn't matter what I think.

[TexTuba]

"Music is not anti-Semitic; music is music," Barenboim reasoned.

This article almost makes it seem that Wagner was right next to Hitler planning the holocaust.

[Ken Herrick]

I am not buying into the politics of this situation or making any value judgements. Just a brief account of what was said to me years ago.

In 1967, Jake was approached by Antal Doratti to recommend somebody for the Israel Philharmonic tuba position. I had a phone call from Jake asking if I'd be interested and advising that he had arranged an audition for the next morning at Orchestra Hall with Maestro Doratti. Of course I went through the usual Wagner excerpts. At the end he said (maybe not in these exact words) Very nice. You do realise that while you are with the orchestra you will not be playing Wagner.

My own view has always been rather like the motto on the back wall of the Kreskge (sp?)
auditorium at Interlochen.......something to the effect of Peace Through the Universal Language of the Arts. And there, in my humble opinion lies a truth, though some may disagree.

[tubeast]

No, of course Wagner didn´t assist in the planning of the Holocaust. However, some of his writings (rather not concerning music) are said to have had impact on the weltanschauung of those who did.

Both ideas, the one banning his music from the programs of Israeli concerts as well as the one encouraging the opposite are backed up by good reasons in debate. Chances are, this debate will lean towards the latter with increasing distance to WWII.

Just imagine strange characters in the most recent world history had created major contributions to various artforms, as well as inspiring other, even sicker people to take desastrous actions against democracy.
Would You embrace their paintings to be displayed in the vicinity of Ground Zero or their plays performed on Norwegian islands ?

Hans

[TexTuba]

Just imagine strange characters in the most recent world history had created major contributions to various artforms, as well as inspiring other, even sicker people to take desastrous actions against democracy.
Would You embrace their paintings to be displayed in the vicinity of Ground Zero or their plays performed on Norwegian islands ?

Hans

Yes, Hans, I would.

[tubeast]

I might, as well. But this is strongly dependent on the arguments used in the process and what kind of people do the performing or displaying.
Especially with performing, the set of mind or spirit present within the performer plays an important role. To me it does, at least, because it deeply influences the message conveyed to the recipient.

[nimrod480]

It is important to know that Wagner was the first one to bring the idea of two races, superior and inferior.
Although he was only the mind behind this theory, he also wrote a book called "Judaism in Music" (Das Judenthum in der Musik).
The book was published around 1850 and in this book he explains him self better, attacks Giacomo Meyerbeer and Felix Mendelssohn in particular, and strongly suggests wiping out the Jews as they are a threat to German culture.

As an Israeli, a grandson to holocaust survivors (from both sides of the family), I DO understand why people DO NOT want to hear Wagner in Israel, a lot of holocaust survivors are attending concerts, and I believe this is the last thing they will want to appear in a concert, I believe most of them want to forget these days more than anything.

Just another point of view,
Nim

[Rick Denney]

It is not censorship for the Israel Phil not to perform Wagner because of cultural and historical sensitivities. Wagner is dead and will suffer no harm from that decision, and playing that music there is not likely to fill minds with ideas of peace. Anybody in Israel wanting to hear Wagner can buy recordings of his works easily. This is a decision by the orchestra, one presumes, in consideration of their audience. It is not a government action.

Censorship of the arts is when living artists are prevented from presenting their art by government prohibition. There are many examples of when this is acceptable, such as when the work is obscene (and I'll leave it to the courts to define that, so I don't wanna hear it here), although doing so is severely restricted here and in most western democracies.

There are many cases where it would be considered insensitive to present particular art for cultural reasons. Not many places would be accepting of much of post-modern art, for example, particular when the work has sexual or violent connotations, and even when it is specifically disrespectful of religious heritage. The works of Mapplethorpe are the easy and obvious example of where it blew up into a controversy, but it was controversial because it was on the boundary. There is stuff far more offensive than that. While I don't believe in general censorship, I do believe a museum or orchestra ought to be able to be sensitive to those issues so as not to alienate their primary audience, particularly when the affected artist is dead anyway. Other musuems and orchestras will usually be at hand to provide the alternative venue.

I agree with Joe that we are selective in our pronouncements, but there is a difference between a composer who operated under the auspices of an evil regime (e.g. Prokofiev, Shostakovich) and an artist whose written philosophies were used, in part, as the basis for an evil regime, as was the case with Wagner.

Rick "and, yes, Soviet Communism has more blood on its hands than does the Third Reich, and much of it Jewish blood, too" Denney

[ArnoldGottlieb]

Just seems like the free market at work to me. Israeli's don't want to hear it, the Orchestra ain't gonna play it. I guess we all take requests.

[Uncle Buck]

It is not censorship for the Israel Phil not to perform Wagner because of cultural and historical sensitivities. Wagner is dead and will suffer no harm from that decision, and playing that music there is not likely to fill minds with ideas of peace. Anybody in Israel wanting to hear Wagner can buy recordings of his works easily. This is a decision by the orchestra, one presumes, in consideration of their audience. It is not a government action.

Very important distinction.

A few years ago when there was a sniper loose in Washington D.C. and it was all over the national news with concerns about copycats, etc., I was driving to work one morning. I called the radio station to mention that I didn't thing it was the most appropriate time to broadcast Queen's "Another One Bites the Dust."

The D.J. got pretty offended (predictably), accused me of trying to "ban" songs I didn't like. I explained I wasn't talking about banning anything - I was just one listener expressing my preference.

He hung up on me and I changed the radio station, which is probably all I should have done to start with.

[knarfman]

I wonder if the music of Russian composers music who "got along with" the mass-murderous Lenin/Stalin regimes should be banned.

Wagner was the first one of "what" ?

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jso ... agner.html

I wonder how many composers' works would be banned were we to ban performances of all composers who believed that the Negro race is inferior to the Caucasian race.

On that point, there are certainly people (I'm not one of them) who feel that Henry Fillmore's "trombone family" ("Lassus Trombone", et al.) shouldn't be played (if not actually banned) because of racist associations.

[Mitch]

Get out your favorite recording of Meistersinger.

Turn it on. Crank it up, if you like.

Now, sit down in a chair and close your eyes.

Imagine you are standing in a line. It moves slowly forward. Women and girls to the left, men and boys to the right. You are herded into a room where you are told to undress so you can take a shower to get clean. Except it's not a shower. Instead of water, what comes out is Zyklon B.

You cannot consider this situation without considering that it wasn't just Wagner's writings that were held in high esteem by the Nazis. Meistersinger was played over the loudspeaker as people were marched to their deaths. Wagner's music provided a soundtrack to genocide. In a country populated, created, out of a need for a people to have one place in the world they can feel safe, they should have the opportunity to enjoy their culture without having the music of hatred and death put in their collective face.

I heard a story a long time ago. It was about the time that Barenboim put Wagner on the program. He was not the first to try it. I can't remember for certain, maybe it was Zubin Mehta, but someone was going to perform Wagner in Israel. Before the start of it, a man stood and walked to the stage. Right up to the podium. He pulled back his sleeve to show the number tattooed on his forearm. He exclaimed something, like, "Never," or something like that. The piece was not performed.

You cannot separate Israeli culture from Jewish history. They don't, so we can't. Go ahead and argue the high ground about censorship or artistic merit. Then call you local synagogue and ask if there are any Survivors in your area who might speak with you. Ask them about how their village disappeared from existence. Ask them about how they saw the other members of their family get off the train at Sobibor, never to see them again. Then ask them about their feelings about Wagner.

It's not about principle, it's about experience. It's about how that music was held as a symbol of the principles that were used to justify genocide.

Just a thought.

[Michael Bush]

This started out as a story about an Israeli orchestra playing Wagner in Germany, not the other way around. It's been some time since I first saw this post and read the article, and now I don't remember the rationale. But it could be a powerful message.

I can certainly understand holocaust survivors and their families not wanting to hear Wagner.

And at the same time, if we're going to decide at the cultural level that we don't want to hear, read, play, see, or whatever, the work of artists who hold or held distasteful political or religious opinions, the loss of cultural assets is going to be surprisingly costly.

[Mitch]

It could be costly, indeed. Valid point.

At the same time, if the majority of a democratic nation says, "We don't want that here," there you have it.

Then the question turns to the role of a group from that nation, representing that nation, and whether they represent the nation accurately when operating outside the cultural "norm."

Again, for the Israeli people, I don't think you can separate the experience from the principle. There are still a lot of survivors there, who remember hearing that music over the loudspeakers. If I recall correctly, some of them said the only time they heard Wagner, they knew someone was being gassed. It wasn't like it was just played whenever; it was played as the theme song for murder.

[Michael Bush]

The idea of the music's symbolic associations also intrigues me. Given time, these associations wear thin. It sounds like that is beginning to happen with Wagner and the Holocaust, but the process is just starting and may have a long way to go.

I saw an example of how these things can get broken last month. I played in the orchestra for a patriotic musical/visual wingding in a big baptist church nearby. Driveway to driveway, it's maybe 30 or 35 miles from that church building to the house where South Carolina's articles of secession were signed. And yet when "Battle Hymn of the Republic" came up on the program, the audience at one of the performances actually stood up, as if it were the national anthem or something. And here I had expected a chilly reception for it!

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, when I was a pastor, the first fourth of July at my second church (in Alabama) I had us sing that, and the largest annual giver (in that church or any other I've ever heard of) told me that if it ever happened again, he would not be back!

So these symbolic associations break down over time.

[Rick Denney]

And at the same time, if we're going to decide at the cultural level that we don't want to hear, read, play, see, or whatever, the work of artists who hold or held distasteful political or religious opinions, the loss of cultural assets is going to be surprisingly costly.

Indeed. But that is not the question. The question is whether it is appropriate for an orchestra to play music that a significant portion of the audience will find traumatic. (Even if that audience is back home reading about it.) Not all composers who were wackos outside of music are associated with traumatic experiences on the part of audiences. No all wacko composers provided the anthems of mass human extermination. That distinction is being too easily missed in this thread, even by conductors who should know better. Barenboim (I think it was) made the point that one cannot understand the history of western music without Wagner. I agree. But as a conductor, educating the audience about the history of western music isn't his primary role. His primary role is to perform music that moves the audience, not music that forces them to relive real trauma.

This is not a question about whether music history professors should be prevented from discussing Wagner's role in the history of western music. That would be censorship.

Rick "noting the difference between being mildly offended and being tortured by memories of terror" Denney

[Mark]

Why play something that will alienate your audience and your donors? That is not good business and not in good taste.

I also wonder what Israelis and Jews think about Liszt's Les Preludes? The Nazis used to play the fanfare at the beginning of radio propaganda. Since Liszt had been dead for 50 years when the Nazis aproprated his work, he had very little say in its use. If I were planning a program for a concert in Israel, I would be very hesitant to program this work.