Satoshi Akima <[log in to unmask]> wrote:

>Any claim that Wagner's spiteful anti-Semitism also found it's way into
>Wagner's music dramas OUGHT to be an attack on Wagner.  Because if these
>accusations were indeed true then Wagner's music dramas would deserve
>universal condemnation.

To me, it can well be true that there are some antisemitism in Wagners
works, but I would certainly not condemn the works for that.  I can't
see why I should.  See downunder.

>It would justify the ban on his music imposed in Israel.

This ban on Wagners music in Israel was a shame, and is to me just an
uttering of the same kind of hatred and intolerance that can be find in
"Ueber das Judentum in der Musik".  It is not an inch better.  However
I have heard that they since a few years back play Wagenr in Israel.

>To suggest otherwise would be nothing less than the defence of Hitler's
>perverse anti-Semitic distortions imposed upon Wagner's music dramas, and
>for all practical purposes an indirect defence of Hitlerism.  Anti-Semitism
>is not something to be tolerated, and if Wagner's music dramas are
>anti-Semitic they too MUST not be tolerated.

This is just intolerant rutabaga.  It is not at all an indirect defence of
Hitlerism.  As I pointed out in an earlier post; it is not the same kind of
antisemitism (although I probably sprung from similar grounds in Wagner and
Hitler, but thats another story).  As I wish Mr.  Webber could see more of
the symphonic patterns in "The Ring", I wish Mr.  Akima could see more of
the man Richard Wagner.

>To see anti-Semitism then one has to say the Nibelungen were not dwarves
>but that despite no indication to that effect that 'we all know' that
>they are really nothing but Jews.  As for Parsifal being an expression
>of race superiority, I find this especially bizarre.  Does this mean that
>the knights of the Holy Grail aren't really knights but again despite no
>indication to that effect they are in fact Storm Troopers?

No.  But the knighthood and all its ornaments is just requisita.  Wagner
could as well as having composed "Parsifal" had produced the opera about
Buddha, which he had in mind at the same time.  And as far as I know Buddha
wasn't a Christian Knight.

>Or is it the fact that they are defenders of the Christian faith that
>makes the work anti-Semitic?

The work "Parsifal" doesn't have much to do with Christianity, as I see it.
It is requisita.

>In which case so is Bach's St Mathew Passion.  Please don't put forward
>anything so comical as the suggestion that Klingsor is Jewish:)

I don't know for Klingsor, but Kundry seems to be a semit, and Parsifal is
half semit (The libretto mentions an arab father to Parsifal, and the name
"Fal Parsi" means "Pure Fool" in Arabic).

Christopher Webber writes:

>>Next, go to the archives to confirm Wagner's instructions to the original
>>singer to use "semitic gestures" in the role.  Enough?

I have never seen any evidence for this, although it is possible. Could you
point on any source that verifyes this?

>But then of course I prefer to study Wagner as a fascinatingly flawed human
>being who wrote marvellous operas, rather than as an enskied and sainted
>Cult Deity.

Well well, funny world indeed Mr.  Webber!  Let me point out the following:
I have not meant that Wagner was a saint, but what I react to is that he
get hanged when he shouldn't becasue he wasn't worser than anyone else.

>I'll leave aside the fundamental theme of racial superiority, which is all
>too apparent both within and without the operas (Parsifal especially) to
>need further tedious space-wasting.

This should need an exkurs.  What are the racial elaments you find in
"Parsifal"? Often people argue that Gurnemanz saying about the semit Kundry
that "she will get blessed through serving us"=Arbeit macht frei.  But what
not is noticed is that Kundry in the end is allowed to enter the
Graalknioghts ceremony in Akt III, and is blessed she too.

>A note on Alberich to add to Mats Norrman's on the Nibelung brothers.
>First, read the text out loud - trying hard not to think of Schopenhauer -
>and pick up on Alberich's Jewish-German diction.  Next, go to the archives
>to confirm Wagner's instructions to the original singer to use "semitic
>gestures" in the role.  Enough?

Not a rare trick by theatermans to secure success. I'd be interested in
your exact source.

>The homo-erotic strand in "Tristan and Isolde" is neither sublime nor
>ridiculous; but it is certainly intense enough, particularly on the
>Tristan-Mark-Melot axis.  Without this, I doubt whether the opera would be
>quite as richly suggestive as it is about the complexities of human love
>and desire.

I agree.

>Isolde herself is highly aware of Tristan's ambiguities when she taunts
>him in Act 1 ... "I cared for the injured man, so that when he recovered
>he might be slain in vengeance by the man who won him from Isolde" - which
>is precisely what happens, when slayer-Melot dies with Tristan's name on
>his lips.  (King Ludwig became increasingly obsessed with the sexually
>tormented Tristan, compared his relationship with Wagner to that of his
>hero with Mark, and called his lover Prince Paul 'Melot', by the way.)

In the Bavaria time people made much fun of the relationship Ludwig-Wagner,
and Wagenr got the nickname "Lolette" (Ludwig I of Bavaria's lover was
called Lola).  However Wagner was never caught in bed with Ludwig II, and
I doubt that Ludwigs love to Wagner was sexual.  Rather in might have been
Platonic admiration.  Gays after all don't want to go to bed with every man
just because theyre homosexuals.  Do you really think a man of +20 would
like to go to bed with a 60 year old ugly man?

Satoshi Akima again:

>The translation that of Tristan he cites as proof is also just frankly
>completely wrong:
>The original German text in my version of the score from p147 Dover, 1973
>reads:
>
> Ich pflag des Wunden
> dass den Heilgesunden
> raechend schluege der Mann,
> der IsoldEN IHN abgewann.

That is a correction by the publisher.  In Wagners original it is written:

   "der Isolde ihm abgewann"

>If one were to accept the text/translation of the text quoted by Mats
>Norman it still does not necessarily imply anything homosexual at all:

No it doesn't need to mean. But I wish it did.

Donald Satz <[log in to unmask]> nukes us with a gigant rutabaga in response
to Mats Norrman:

>>First of all let me point out that Mr. Akima was talking about race
>>theory in Wagner's WORKS, not in Wagner.  And that's a big difference.
>
>Perhaps, but I think it very unlikely that a masterful composer wouldn't
>put himself into his works.  Stating that Wagner was a disgusting
>anti-semite is not a reflection of the quality of his music, just the
>quality of the man.  And I am tired of hearing these flimsy excuses for
>Wagner's views.

I don't get exactly what you are barking about. Is your famous wife having
menstruation today so you have to dump off your frustration on me? If you
read my message again, you might see or not see the fact that I was talking
about how I interpreted Mr. Akimas post, not stating an own opinion per se.
And ""Stating that Wagner was a disgusting anti-semite is not a reflection
of the quality of his music" is not too far from what I said myself, so
where do you want to go with this?

>>...what I plead is that we can UNDERSTAND Wagner even if we feel we cannot
>>always DEFEND him.  We do right in trying to understand Wagner, as he had a
>>great demand for being understood by his environment (think of Lohengrin).
>
>I'm not interested in Wagner's "demands".  And I'm not interested in
>understanding why the poor fellow just had to "knock" the easy-target Jews
>after his negative Paris experience.  What difference does it make why a
>person is anti-semitic or bigoted?

If you not take interest in that, Mr Satz, you are hardly interested in
most of opera either, and probably you percieve much music different than
I do.  You might have a limited and poor experiance of many works, and many
people if you are so narrowminded concerning such things.  Of course this
is my subjective statement, I can always overinterpret too - but somehow I
am just happy with the situation.

>Once a person is known to be in that category, it's time to watch your
>backside and protect yourself from such stupid and mean-spirited people.

Your sayings are a good example on that kind of hatred you are accusing
Wagner for.

>What Hitler did was just one extreme end of bigotry; both he and Wagner
>had a similar mindset concerning Jews - use them for self-serving purposes,
>then lash out at them and/or discard them at the right time.

What you say here has no support by facts.  Wagner had several mutual
Jewish friends who respected him for what he were.  Could you provide
examples that support your statement I would be very interested.

>I think this is all pretty simple.  A person either judges other
>individuals on a case-by-case basis or makes the judgements based on group
>identity.  If the latter, you've got a bigot to deal with.  Wagner was a
>bigot, and bigots are dangerous/hazardous to the health of a nation and the
>world.  Matt can do his best to try to understand the sources of Wagner's
>anti-semitic views; he can also chastise us for picking out certain
>writings of Wagner which fit our own perceptions of the man.  I don't see
>it that way.  When a jerk writes hateful things about a race of people,
>he has to absorb the results while he is alive and his reputation has to
>absorb them after he's dead.

One could of course argue that Herr Wagner was a very intelligent man,
and therefore he should have known what he said.  But most of persons
have emotions too, and some people have stronger emotions than other, or a
lesser good ability to deal with them.  Life is more difficult, Mr.  Satz,
for people who are neurotic, than for people who are not.  I'll be intimate
confessatory here, I could reveal that I am myself sometimes doing and
saying things that I don't actually wouldn't do or say another day.  That
I can stand for, but I don't want to be judged solely on them, and none of
my friends do either.  But it is important to understand such things!  For
Wagner one could see it so that his antisemitism wasn't actually an attack
on Semits in the outher world, but he was fighting against forces that were
inside himself.

- - -

I have sometimes played with the thought that also such a thing as
Racehatred stems from genetic grounds.  I wouldn't be surprised if it were
so.  Imagine; there are for all people, other people you like better or
lesser, but where does the limit go? Most people wouldn't consider altruism
for saving ants, or parrots, or chimps - because they are far enough from
them in the percent of common genes.  Soem people don't want to go to bed
with a mentally retarded, or a person with a different skin colour, what
shouldn't be more strange than you don't want to go to bed with your
neighbour, just because you don't like him.  The example I don't find too
bad (I am aware that differences in genematerial is bigger on an individual
level than racial), some people don't like humourless people, some doesn't
like strongly emotional people, soem doesn't like redhairs, and some
doesn't like darkskinned people.

But I have a point with this; If Rickard Wagner thanks to his own genetic
coding didn't like semits, isn't it as bad to blame him for that then, as
it is to blame Mats Norrman for being a semit? To me, it is exactly the
same kind of argument.

>Matt and the other list member whose views are similar seem to want to
>minimize this negative aspect of Wagner's personality because they love
>Wagner's music.  All I'm saying is that one can love the music and detest
>the man.  Please don't minimize one to protect and/or promote the other.

Objection!  I certainly have no need to withewash Wagners person to be able
to love his music.  I am just finding it annoying that a person who had bad
sides and good sides like any other person has to bear so much shit on his
shoulder, when so much is just plain innuendo.  Wagners antisemitism was
foul of course, but why not for once stop overexaggerte it and for once
see the mans good sides too.

I love Wagner music more than anything else, that is true, but I also
like for example Hitlers paintings, and I am not claiming that he was a
good person, nor I sympathisize with his political standpoints.  But I find
it annyoing and intolerant and narrowminded to refuse to regard the good
things in people just because thay had bad sides, and such intolerance is
just what doesn't lead to anything good for anybody.  No, I prefer to try
to understand rather than condemn.  And I am a semit myself by the way...

But, as Zorba the Greek so wisely says, "Good or bad, what does it
matter?"...

Wise words.

Mats Norrman
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