Re: why play wagner?


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Posted by a different GC on July 04, 2002 at 13:23:09:

In Reply to: why play wagner? posted by gc on July 03, 2002 at 22:38:19:

I have never met or heard of a human being who was not flawed in one way or another. It seems that creative geniuses are often laden with extremely serious problems of one kind or another, and I have often wondered about the connection between creativity and their difficulties. If Wagner's anti-Semitism disturbs you, by all means don't listen to him (I find his chromaticism irritating, personally). However, you can't deny his influence or the worth of his works. The tuba pieces in question are part of the mainline repertoire, so you may as well get used to it.

Growing up in the South, I heard people downgrade all black musical artists who weren't standards-mainstream types. I have heard people denigrate music by homosexuals, Asians, Africans, Middle Easterners, punks, old people, young people, us pathetic middle-aged WASP (or SAWB) types, Jews, Gentiles, Catholics, Protestants, Buddhists, Hindus, Muslims, athiests, etc., etc. because of its composers' origins or connections. Music should be judged by itself and its origin ignored. If it specifically carries messages that offend you THAT WERE BUILT INTO IT BY THE COMPOSER (not just by the listener's prejucides), then protest it, ignore it, or whatever. But don't look for perfection in the human beings who compose our music; you won't find it.

By the way, anti-semitism was pandemic in European cultures of the time, and Wagner's viciousness was shared by a large portion of his contemporaries. There's a very enlightening (and upsetting) essay by Mark Twain, "Concerning the Jews", that has a number of interesting points about the history of anti-Jew prejudice in Europe and is worth reading. I'm not trying to excuse what I personally consider an abominable attitude in Wagner or others, but Wagner' bigotry did not exist in a vacuum or spring into place all by itself.


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