Re: Wagner and friends

[Eliott Kahn <Elkahn...>]

Dear Mr. Jacobowitz:

You never talk about music. Just ideas. If you wish to make these grand 
statements about someone's music, please cite musical instances. If you wish to 
discuss someone's ideas, please say you are doing so.

Wagner's music is certainly motivic but it is still organized around tonal, 
triadic harmony. Very chromatic, and with added tones and suspensions, but, 
nevertheless, tonal and triadic harmony.

I am talking about music, therefore I cannot quote chapter and verse. That 
would be talking about words and ideas. I do know a little about how the tone 
row system works, and that it selects certain pitches within our twelve 
tempered tones and then repeats them. It repeats them across staves and 
instruments. I believe this is called serial music, and Schoenberg used it as a 
means of musical organization. This method of organization repudiates the 
organization of music along tonal methods of scale and triadic harmony. 
"Repudiates" is a better word than "discredit," but, nevertheless, this is 
still an extraordinary break with a 500-year old system, and not just "a matter 
of taste."

Again, please tell everyone--citing movement and measure, or at least by 
utilizing theoretical language--where Wagner's "music is inextricably bound 
with his anti-Semitism," or else, kindly refrain from making such grandiose 
statements.

I don't profess to know what "evil looks like." Perhaps I was not blessed with 
your extraordinary moral judgement. 

Eliott Kahn 



At 01:38 PM 2/27/03 -0800, you wrote:
>B"H Munich
>
>--- Eliott Kahn <Elkahn (at) JTSA(dot)EDU> wrote:
>> I've always found the assignment of "meanings" to
>> musical material idiotic. 
>Really? And when the composer is the assigner?
>
>How someone can
>> "institutionalize decadence" and "intentionally
>> destroy morals" with a delayed cadence or a
>> chromatic melody is beyond my comprehension.
>Sorry. But you could read Wagner. That just
>might help your comprehension.
> 
>> If anything, Wagner's music still utilizes triadic
>> harmony, a distinct holdover of the tonal system
>> that had been developing since the late middle Ages.
>> Schoenberg's music does not.
>Half-wrong on both counts. Some of Wagner´s music
>is triadic, some not. Same with Schoenberg. And
>it´s good that you bring up Hindemith, because
>that´s part of the same analogy - that "normal"
>harmony had run its course, and that the system
>needed to be reinvented to prevent itself from
>falling into cliches. It´s no coincidence
>that both Hindemith AND Schoenberg wrote treatises
>on harmony (!). Wagner couldn´t have cared less.
>He  was a leitmotif man.
>
> Perhaps you find this
>> "democratic." Hindemith, in his compositional
>> method, argued for the preeminence of the triad
>> based upon the natural intervals in the overtone
>> theory. While I do not agree with everything
>> Hindemith believes in--and wish I were more familiar
>> with his methodology--it would seem foolish to deny
>> the natural order of the harmonic or overtone
>> series.
>Not foolish at all, just a different taste.
>Please recall the difference between tempered
>and pure tuning, and you´ll realize just where
>such an argument could disagreeably drag you.
>
> Schoenberg did this by discrediting the
>> organization of melody along tonal, modal, or
>> triad-harmonic lines.
>DISCREDITING! Where? Quote chapter and verse,
>please, or take it back! Choosing a different
>direction for himself in NO way discredits harmony.
>Does writing "Survivor from Warsaw" discredit
>Strauß? No way...
> 
>> This is far more disturbing and disrupting than what
>> Wagner did.
>Matter of taste. But, I believe, you´ve lost the
>point. Wagner´s taste - including his anti-Semitism -
>is inextricably bound with his music. Yes, his music,
>not merely his text!
> 
>> Please cite SPECIFIC instances how Wagner's MUSIC
>> did all this. 
>did all WHAT, pray  tell? And what´s the benefit
>from separating the man´s text from his words?
>Shall we judge Mein Kampf purely on artistic merits,
>and ignore the political reality based inside?
>Ah, but you could say that Mein Kampf was clearly
>innocent, written before the author could have
>possibly known that a world war was coming. Right?
>No. Same language. Same country. Same land (Bavaria),
>a mere two hours away (Munich and Bayreuth in both
>cases!)
>How dare you ignore what´s so obvious?
>
>I certainly would understand if his
>> dramatic themes were overtly anti-Semitic, how he
>> could poison the German population's minds. But,
>> again, it is unfathomable to me how such gorgeous 
>> music--yes, gorgeous--could actually be responsible
>> for the Holocaust.
>responsible in which sense? Morally? Absolutely,
>though not solely. Legally? No.
>But you should be better read in German
>anti-Semitism before you ignore the signs.
>By the way, what do you THINK evil looks like?
>Most of the world seems to think that Saddam
>Hussein is less of a danger than George Bush.
>Leveling the playing field - removing the morals -
>makes ignoring a problem so much easier, hm?
> 
>> Charles Manson scrawled HELTER SKELTER on the walls
>> of his murder victims' home. Then did Paul McCartney
>> kill Sharon Tate? We can seek to purge all
>> "dangerous," "aggressive," or "sensuous" sounds from
>> our music, but, in the end the twisted people will
>> still find evil in it.
> Better still, did Jodie Foster shoot Ronald
>Reagan? But we´re not talking about individual
>sins here, chap. We´re talking about 50 million
>dead.
>
>> I agree heatliy with Albert Combrink. If I were to
>> morally judge artists, I'd have to kick my Woody
>> Allen habit. Something I'll never do.
>A valid point would be WHOSE morals. For some,
>Woooooody is over the line, but he doesn´t seem
>to think so. Personal choice. In Waaaaagner´s case,
>genocide is clearly over the line for you- isn´t it?
> 
>> Eliott Kahn#
>Alex Jacobowitz 
>
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