Re: Edward Said, Daniel BArenboim

[givas <givas...>]

Dear Prof. Lubert
The ongoing discussion re Richard Wagner and performances in Israel is
really a non-issue.  When I went to the Tower Record Shop on Hillel Street
in Jerusalem this past June, they stocked no music written by Israeli
composers.  However, they had a whole section of music conducted by Herbert
von Karajan who joined the Austrian Nazi party in 1933 and the German Nazi
Party in 1939.  One of their best selling recordings is Carmina Burana by
Carl Orff who was Dr. Goebbels favorite living composers.  When I was in the
Opera House in Tel Aviv and visited the record shops, they did not have a
recording of the opera commissioned  to open the opera, 'Joseph' by a
composer named Joseph Tal.  However they had all the recorded operas of
Richard Wagner and the best seller was Tristan and Isolde conducted by
Furtwangler and sung by Flagstad... Sincerely  Ed Eisen
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Alex J. Lubet" <lubet001 (at) umn(dot)edu>
To: "World music from a Jewish slant" <jewish-music (at) shamash(dot)org>
Sent: Friday, September 26, 2003 8:32 AM
Subject: Re: Edward Said, Daniel BArenboim


> What makes their coverage of Jewish music a 'non-issue'?  What makes this
> thread 'flailing'?
>
> BTW, among those of us who do work around Wagner's anti-Semitism,
Barenboim
> has quite a reputation as an apologist.  In Israel (according to Naama
> Sheffi, an Israeli historian who has an essay on Wagner in Israel in the
book
> I'm editing), he has a reputation for making a larger claim of Israeli
> identity than he deserves and using it only to criticize Israel in ways
that
> even a leftist like my colleague Naama find disturbing.  I don't suppose
this
> negates this project with Said (there have been others), but it goes on
the
> balance with everything else, a lot of which doesn't provoke the senses in
a
> positive way.
>
>
>
>
>
> Judith R Cohen wrote:
>
> > Speaking of the New York Times (and truly, I think their coverage or
> > non-coverage of Jewish music is pretty much a non-issue, though I expect
> > it will be flailed about here for a while); anyway, speaking of the NYT,
> > their obit of Edward Said
> > http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/25/obituaries/25CND-SAID.html?hp
> >
> > - like other obituaries I've seen so far - omits his  recent (1999)
> > collaboration with Daniel Barenboim, creating an orchestra , The East
> > West Divan, of talented young Israeli and Arab musicians. It was based
> > in Seville this past year,  and received a lot of very POSITIVE
> > attention in the Spansh press, in fact won the prestifious Prince of
> > Asturias prize, at a time when coverage of anything Jewish was anything
> > but positive. So, whatever else one feels about his writings and
> > activities, I think this work with Barenboim was fantastic.
> > among other places, read Barenboim and Said's comments at:
> >
http://lists.econ.utah.edu/pipermail/rad-green/2003-September/010061.html
> >
> > Judith
> >
>
> --
> Alex Lubet, Ph. D.
> Morse Alumni Distinguished Teaching Professor of Music and Jewish Studies
> Adjunct Professor of American Studies
> University of Minnesota
> 2106 4th St. S
> Minneapolis, MN 55455
> 612 624-7840 612 624-8001 (fax)
>
>
>
>


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