Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site ulysses.UUCP Path: utzoo!linus!gatech!ulysses!smb From: smb@ulysses.UUCP (Steven Bellovin) Newsgroups: net.music.classical Subject: Re: Music and nazism Message-ID: <1043@ulysses.UUCP> Date: Tue, 13-Aug-85 15:57:46 EDT Article-I.D.: ulysses.1043 Posted: Tue Aug 13 15:57:46 1985 Date-Received: Wed, 14-Aug-85 02:55:49 EDT References: <1516@bbncca.ARPA> <452@olivee.UUCP> <4935@allegra.UUCP> Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill Lines: 31 > I wasn't going to add to this at all - the responses to this have been > quite good and to the point in addition to being informative (I even > agreed with Rosen - egads :-). Music is to be judged on musical grounds, > not political grounds. Performers and performances are to be judged > also on musical grounds. Whether the composer/performer has a particular > political position, is of a particular race, is of a particular religion, etc., > is immaterial, except to the extent that it affects the quality of the > composition/performance. Even her/his personality is completely immaterial > when judging the product. Yes and no; there's at least one real-world exception that comes to mind: Wagner. First, he himself was a notorious anti-Semite. Second, his music was adopted by the Nazis and was used as a symbol of the Third Reich. (He himself was dead by that time.) That doesn't mean that his music is bad; however, many people object to having it played because of the (non-musical) images in evokes in them. For example, Wagner's music is never played by Israeli orchestras. When Zubin Mehta attempted to do so -- he's the conductor of the Israel Philharmonic -- many musicians walked out. An analogy might be the swastika emblem -- it was an ancient symbol with no particular evil connotations; I've even seen it inscribed on the walls of ancient synagogues. But that could never be done now, and rightly so. --Steve Bellovin P.S. Just because I'm explaining this doesn't mean I agree with it; I'm quite ambivalent. An ironic footnote to all this is what happened to the New York Philarmonic -- also conducted by Mehta -- on its recent Asian tour. Malaysia requested that they drop several works by Jewish composers from the program; Mehta initially agreed, but cancelled the visit to Malaysia entirely when folks complained.