Re: Barenboim and Wagner

[Trudi Goodman <goobietheg...>]

   Yes, Wagner's concertmaster was a Jew. However, Wagner wrote several 
infamous treatise in which he said that Jews did not have the musicality or 
intellectualism to perform music. There's no making Wagner an innocent 
victim of Cosima. Cosima's own father, Franz Lizst thought them both totally 
reprehensible for their political and racist pronouncements and said so to 
interviewers and in print.
    Trudi the G


>From: JeffSchan (at) aol(dot)com
>Reply-To: jewish-music (at) shamash(dot)org
>To: World music from a Jewish slant <jewish-music (at) shamash(dot)org>
>Subject: Re: Barenboim and Wagner
>Date: Thu, 12 Jul 2001 06:30:54 EDT
>
>For the most part, I agree with Yoel's points.  Wagner is not such a black
>and white issue for me.  I can't stand his music, personally, but my father
>(a Buchenwald survivor) was a great fan of his.  He saw the Ring at 
>Bayreuth
>and the whole nine yards.  My father's contention was that Wagner's
>anti-semitic reputation was really due to his wife, Cosima's work in 
>revising
>his reputation after his death.  My father said that Wagner's favorite
>conductor was a Jew.  I have been told that this argument doesn't really 
>hold
>up to modern information, but that's what he believed.
>
>So while I agree that Baremboim was wrong in breaking his agreement not to
>perform Wagner -- those who choose not to hear it shouldn't have to -- the
>idea of cultural censorship more offensive to me that Wagner is.
>
>Jeffrey Schanzer

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