Re: Kol Isha/Miriam's Song/Wagner

[avi finegold <afinegold...>]

--- "Alex J. Lubet" <lubet001 (at) umn(dot)edu> wrote:

> BTW, our conference on Wagner's anti-Semitism was
> very successful, with the best part the
> distinguished cast of Jewish studies scholars. 
> Anyone deeply interested in this subject should read
> Richard Wagner and the Anti-Semitic Imagination, by
> Marc Weiner.  His great-grandson, Gottfried Wagner,
> our featured guest, wrote his dissertation on Kurt
> Weill and was at one time the head of
> the Kurt Weill Foundation, which would seem to
> indicate that not all the Wagners were/are
> anti-Semites.
> 


ok time to throw my two zuzim into a non-KI related
issue. 
i just finished reading "the tristan chord: the
philosophy of wagner" by bryan magee

he has a whole appendix on wagners antisemistism which
i had a hard time getting through, not because it was
dense (on the contrary, it is supremely readable),
rather because as much as i am growing accustomed to
the idea that i can listen to the music of someone who
was a deeply commited antisemite. i mean if the
central premise of the book is that you cannot listen
to wagner without having a decent grasp on his
philosophy, and that of schopenauer, because it
informs the muisc in so many ways, then why should i
reject the notion that his views on jews might have
informed his writing as well? his points are valid
that most arguments against wagner are unfounded; i.e.
the supposed antisemitic characters in his operas and
his adoption (way after his death) by hitler as
nationalistic works, but he seemed to sidestep the
above idea.

any takers??


avi

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