Robert Peters continues replying to me replying to him.  I want to
address mainly one point he made: that Furtwaengler, Orff, and Strauss
could "easily" have emigrated.  I really don't know how easy it would
have been.  I don't have the facts for that time.  On the other hand, I
live right now in a country which has gone pretty far to the right, and
there are disturbing signs of theocratic Fascism.  Can I "easily" emigrate?
Not really.  Who the hell would take me and my wife?  Canada's balking.
What about the rest of my family I leave behind?  Do I have the *money*
to emigrate?  My country's policies in several areas horrify me.  The
only thing I believe possible to me right now is wait it out, hope and
work for something better.  I'm not optimistic.  Right now, I can write
this sort of thing with impunity -- that is, right now no one will toss
me in prison.  That doesn't mean later this won't happen, and you really
don't want to be put in an American prison, particularly one in Louisiana.
It seems to me that I'm not a follower of anybody.  On the other hand,
I will do everything I can do to stay out of jail and to protect my wife,
my father, my sister, my brother-in-law, my nephews, etc.  etc.  It's
not heroic, but it's not particularly dishonorable, either.

>>Yeah.  And he wrote the Olympic Hymn to glorify Aryan athletes at the
>>expense of athletes of "inferior races." Again, what I've read in Del
>>Mar leads me to conclude he did it to get the Party off his back.
>
>That is your conclusion. My conclusion is different.

I refer you to the three-volume study by Norman Del Mar.

>>Was it brave?  No. But a refusal might have had consequences for people
>>he wanted to protect.
>
>The usual line of arguing.  Now we all know that Strauss was a rich man,
>famous.  He could have emigrated with the people he wanted to protect.
>Other composers acted so, he did not.  He preferred to stay in a country
>which made a travesty of human rights.

Yes, but if you follow the usual line of arguing plus your own admission
that the country made a travesty of human rights, what is so hard to
believe that reprisals wouldn't have been taken?

>>First, you're talking in hindsight.  A lot of people did leave, but a
>>lot of people were politically more astute than Strauss.
>
>Sorry but in times of tyranny it is a sin not to be politically astute.
>By the way, "youre talking in hindsight" is one of the typical lines of
>arguing against critics of Nazi Germany.  I know since I am German.

And I've lived in Germany, though I can't claim to know it as well as
you.  The only thing I can tell you is that you have a big book of
sinners.  Mine's a little thinner.

>>Second, he accepted the mostly-figurehead position in the early days
>>of the regime.  He very quickly regretted it, although not enough to
>>antagonize that regime.  Even so, his private letters were read, and
>>he was warned.
>
>Dont you think that it was relatively free of danger for him to resign
>from this post?

Obviously not.  See Del Mar.

>And dont you think that the regime was pretty nasty
>even in its early days?

It was *less* nasty.  Even the Nuremberg Laws were less nasty than the
camps.

>No, Strauss was driven by vanity and naivety
>to accept this post and never corrected this mistake.

Again, see Del Mar.

>I didnt mean to see a hero in Ullmann (I dont believe in heroism). I
>wanted to say that Orffs "ordeal" (three days questioning) has to be
>seen in perspective (gas chamber).

So if Orff had been sent to the gas chamber, it would have been morally
better for him?  This I don't understand.

>Sorry but I think that you do the very thing you accuse me of.  I am
>talking about the killing of composers because of their very "race" -
>and you are talking about the minor inconvenience of having an opera
>banned.

I am talking about the constant threat of death.  That composers, writers,
artists, and even non-composers, non-artists, etc.  were killed for
something they didn't do, but because of what they were, created an
atmosphere of terror.  What about the night of the long knives?  These
were *Nazis* who were killed by other Nazis.  I think all of those men
you dismiss were aware they and their loved ones could have been erased
on a whim.  Are you old enough to remember that time?  I'm not.  I'm
getting this second- and third-hand.

>>According to you, this must be in the music as well.  If you're simply
>>telling me that Strauss and Orff wrote some bad, boring pieces, I'll
>>agree, but why judge artists by their worst?  What's the point?  And,
>>if we do that, we should extend that practice to Mozart, Beethoven,
>>Wagner, and Schubert.
>
>I simply (again simplistic) dont see that much bad quality in Mozart,
>Beethoven, Wagner and Schubert as I see (and hear!) in Strauss and Orff.

I certainly do in Wagner's portrayals of Beckmesser and Mime, both of
which seem to me to come from a fairly ugly and extensive part of Wagner's
soul.  On the other hand, there's the wonderfully humane Hans Sachs and
the tortured, tragic Wotan.  In Strauss, you have an empty hymn, but you
also have Don Quixote and Eulenspiegel, as well as the Marschallin and
Barak, Danae, and the Empress.  However, I don't make the equation that
worth of music = worth of character.  I tend to think that creating art
is largely a skill.  If a composer writes a lousy piece, he's not
necessarily an SOB, and an SOB can write a great piece.  I'd prefer to
keep character out of it, since I don't know where it comes into creation,
and concentrate on the brilliance or the flaws of specific works.

Steve Schwartz