Re: Wagner, again

[Francesco Spagnolo <yuval...>]

>Wagner has always been an interesting question to me.  I can't stand the
>man's music myself, however my father, who was a Buchenwald survivor, loved
>it.  He maintained that Wagner himself was not an anti-Semite.  His argument
>was that Wagner's wife, Cosima (Liszt's daughter), was a vicious anti-Semite
>and engaged in some serious historical revisionism after her husband died
>(therefore it does not surprise me that Hitler was a guest at their home).
> Another argument of his was that Wagner's favorite conductor was a Jew.  I
>don't remember all of his proofs for his views, but my wife, who has a Ph.D.
>in music, told me that my father's argument was very plausible.  I'd be more
>than happy to dismiss Wagner as anti-Semitic trash, but in honor of my
>father, I merely hate his music.
>
>Jeffrey Schanzer

Dear Jeffrey Schanzer, and Dan,

I'm writing to you from Europe (Italy), and probably from a different
perspective. I basically agree with Dan, and his provocative "Hitler as the
great painter" argument.
Here are the facts:

- Adolf Hitler was an anti-semite (do we know this!), and he sure was no
good painter... (he was good at other things - definitely smart as a
politician, and a great public speaker: Roy Hart, a German Jew, created a
vocal art based on observing Hitler's speeches...) but that doesn't make
up... I'm positive we all agree on that.

- Richard Wagner WAS and anti-semite, too, and way before Hitler. In a
different context (although a context that help Hitler in later years: read
historian Georg Mosse and his studies on the cultural origins of National
Socialism to fiure out the whole thing). But an antisemite: he wrote a
pamphlet called Judaism in Music, where he was at the very least full of
anti-Jewish poison; moreover, a lot of his music is  based on anti-semitic
themes (just as the music Dan plays is on "Jewish themes"?).
Still, there is NO REALISTIC WAY to dismiss Wagner's music as "anti-semitic
trash"! He is one of the great European musicians -- period.
If Nazism has succeeded in forcing us to abandon all love for culture, than
it has won (and this is quite possible, although Germany lost WWII...
here's the European speaking...).
Moreover, think of Arnold Shoenberg's music: it cannot be understood
without Wagner's ideas of Gesamtkunstwerk and dissolving tonality (as in
Tristan's Ouverture). One does not need to like his music, but still his is
an extremely important contribution to modern and conteporary (music)
culture.

Regards,
Francesco Spagnolo