Re: anti-Semitic Art versus Anti-Semitic Artists

[avi finegold <afinegold...>]

--- combrink (at) herzlia(dot)com wrote:
> My question to the list is this: why is there so
> much excitement about
> Wagner, Strauss, Orff and the boys and their
> supposed anti-Semitism, while
> there is little talk about other composers who might
> express prejudiced
> statements. And also, is the political affiliation
> of the artist a
> pre-requisite for acceptance of that artist? Is it
> because of the horrors of
> the Holocaust that somehow Anti-Semitism is "worse"
> than other forms of
> prejudice? Why do they perform American music in
> Israel? Was the wiping out
> of North-American Indian culture less critical? And
> why perform Madame
> Butterfly's ode to the American flag when it appears
> that the US could have
> stopped the Burundi Massacres but decided not to
> step in? (I'll not comment
> on the US's present political position) Why perform
> Debussy when the French
> colonials devastated every African economy they were
> involved in? 


you really had something until about here where you
lost it all. i dont think anyone is trying to ban any
music that comes from a country and its supposed
oppresive regime. just because you live in a country
in no way means that you support its regime. however
if you are an ardent supporter of that countires
oppresive regime, that may be something else. and if,
of your own volition you write works that are
sympathetic to the cause, or have prejudiced themes
running through the actual work of art then you start
existing in a very tricky moral situation, and you run
the risk of you art being vilified for good reason
later on in your life.


avi



__________________________________________________
Do you Yahoo!?
Yahoo! Mail Plus - Powerful. Affordable. Sign up now.
http://mailplus.yahoo.com

---------------------- jewish-music (at) shamash(dot)org ---------------------+