Israeli conductor Barenboim wants to 'liberate' Wagner from Nazi association

[Violet_Crumble]

MILAN - Israeli conductor Daniel Barenboim says the perception of Richard Wagner is unjustly influenced by the fact he was Hitler's favorite composer, infuriating a Holocaust survivors group which blasted the argument as a moral failure.

"We need one day to liberate Wagner of all this weight," Barenboim told reporters Friday. He is conducting Wagner's Die Walkuere for the gala premiere of La Scala's season in Milan next week.

"I think a bit of the problem with Wagner isn't what we all know in Israel, anti-Semitism, etc... It is how the Nazis and Hitler saw Wagner as his own prophet. ... This perception of Wagner colors for many people the perception of Wagner."

Barenboim said Wagner, who died in 1883, was politically on the left and could not have foreseen the Nazi Holocaust that killed 6 million Jews during World War II.

He said the point is not to forget the horrors of the Holocaust, but rather not to be influenced by perceptions.

Barenboim, a Jew born in Argentina, has long been a champion of Wagner's artistic merits. He angered many Israelis when he played some of the composer's music in Israel in 2001.

http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/israeli-conductor-barenboim-wants-to-liberate-wagner-from-nazi-association-1.328713

[laconicsax]

1. Good for him.

Wagner was a great composer. The fact that he was an anti-semitic jackass doesn't change his music.

[azurnoir]

2. That is "odd" at best Wagner may have been a great composer

however he was also a raging antisemite and racist he wrote "Das Judenthum in der Musik" as a condemnation of Jewish composers

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4. What's odd? Sorry, I'm not understanding n/t

[Violet_Crumble]

8. Kick for Az...

What's odd?

[azurnoir]

10. That Barenboim would want to liberate Wagner

if it was only that he had been co-opted by the Nazi's it would be one thing however his writings speak for themselves, but I guess a dead antisemite is more acceptable to some than a one that is said to but still living

[Violet_Crumble]

13. I disagree. I believe he should be judged on his music, not his views...

If we were to start judging artists based on their views instead of their art, there probably wouldn't be much left for us to listen to, especially old stuff from hundreds of years ago when people did tend to have views that are now considered quite rightly to be unacceptable....

[azurnoir]

15. a couple of things here

first we see it here all the time ie Roger Waters

secondly it surprises because it does offend or stress Holocaust survivors which is why I found it odd, however that being said if he wishes to revive Wagner then he is free to so but should expect the reaction he has gotten as whether I approve or not I don't like Wagner it brings forth only the image of Brunhilde to me sp really I don't much care

[Violet_Crumble]

17. I don't think Roger Waters is the same at all...

Wagner was a composer who was an antisemite. Roger Waters is a musician who doesn't hold or espouse any bigoted views, but who was quite wrongly accused of antisemitism recently by the ADL. They're two completely different things.

Y'know, I hate to sound blunt, but if Wagner's music offends or stresses any Holocaust survivors, they're free not to listen to his music. I don't listen to it coz classical music is only good for being used as annoying ringtones and in general it bores me to tears. But I would never attack anyone for listening to Wagner. It reminds me of the antiabortion kiddies at the old Rock For Life forum where they used to have their list of 'proabort' bands and would plan CD burnings and other fun and zany Christian activities...

[LeftishBrit]

16. I don't think that the point is that Barenboim thinks Wagner was a good man, or not antisemitic

The point is more that the music should be separated from the politics. Wagner was antisemitic, but his music wasn't; it was just music.

Though I'm not a great fan of Wagner's music just as music.

[azurnoir]

18. Nor do I, however Barenboim is mistaken to believe that Wagner will be liberated from

being associated with Nazi Germany regardless of the rightness or wrongness of that

[bemildred]

3. A sound move.

(pun intended)

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5. Two can play at that game...

I think Barenboim conducts himself very well!

[bemildred]

7. Heh. nt

[Ken Burch]

12. OK....somebody's gotta say it...."Kill The Wabbit, Kill The Wabbit..."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQlmXU1zqfc

[Ken Burch]

6. A lot of people don't know this, but Theodor Herzl was a fan of Wagner.

(for the record, I'm not. Not only was the man an antisemite, his music was pompous and overblown, and that's probably why, in the Ken Russell film "Lisztomania", Wagner is depicted as the first "glitter rock" star).

[azurnoir]

11. Wagner was most definately an antisemite his essay "Das Judenthum in der Musik"

showed that

The essay attacked Jewish contemporaries (and rivals) Felix Mendelssohn and Giacomo Meyerbeer, and accused Jews of being a harmful and alien element in German culture. Wagner stated the German people were repelled by Jews' alien appearance and behaviour: "with all our speaking and writing in favour of the Jews' emancipation, we always felt instinctively repelled by any actual, operative contact with them." He argued that because Jews had no connection to the German spirit, Jewish musicians were only capable of producing shallow and artificial music. They therefore composed music to achieve popularity and, thereby, financial success, as opposed to creating genuine works of art.<172>

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Wagner

[ProgressiveMajority]

19. If you're going to bar anyone expressing that level of hostility

Towards another race, you'll be left with almost no classic composers, artists, or authors. Prior to about 1900 such opinions about other races and groups were run of the mill. Frenchmen thought the same about Germans, English about the Irish, Germans about the French, Catholics about the Protestants. The point is that it's nonesense to hold Wagner accountable for relatively common opinions and the actions of others that came well after his lifetime, actions which he clearly wouldn't even have approved of given his writings.

[aranthus]

9. He should be judged on his music, which is not terrible.

Personally, I agree with Oscar Wilde's assessment. The good thing about Wagner is that it's loud, so that one can talk the whole time without people hearing what one says.

[Violet_Crumble]

14. I'm not much of a fan of classical music, but I agree with most of what you said...

At least loud and bombastic classical music would keep me awake, I guess :)