Rick Mabry wrote:
>What a complex thing this is. I suppose we tend to look to the great
>people of any era to stand up against the tyrants and oppressors. You
>have to admire the ones who do and did take such risks. But I think it
>is unfair to condemn those who do not, especially if they stayed and
>faced the harsh music.
Sorry, but people like Strauss didnt "face the harsh music", they lived
comfortably under the regime. I really cannot see how he can be seen as
a victim.
>It isn't necessarily cowardly to preserve oneself. What effects would
>your resistance have on your family? On your friends? On your fellow
>musicians?
What effect did Strauss composing and conducting for the Entartete Musik
exhibition on his fellow musicians? They were driven out of their
country, threatened with violence and death and then had to see that
their "fellow musician" were capable of writing some music to all this.
>Would it do any good, even if you risked only your own life and mind?
>If you are a famous musician living under Stalin, should you risk being
>disappeared?
No. But for most famous musicians living under Hitler it was possible
to emigrate. And as Thomas Mann said about his fellow writers it was
their moral and political duty to do so.
>Suppose so and suppose the worst happens. Did your sacrifice have
>a positive impact, or did it further chill those who survive to see
>the result? Your art, which might have given comfort to your fellow
>citizens, is now lost, wasted.
Sorry to talk so about music but doesnt music play a pretty minor role
in such a situation? And I really cant believe that Strausss music, so
often vain and self-centered, could really give comfort. On the contrary:
stuff like Heldenleben and Zarathustra was easily usable as propaganda
music for the regime.
>Are those who remain emboldened and given heart by your sacrifice or
>are they even more suppressed and depressed? Especially in the case
>of a famous person, I think this is very hard to know.
Read the biographies of Eisler and Weill and Zemlinsky and Schonberg.
It is not so hard to know.
>If an artist is entirely devoted, perhaps selfishly so, to his or her
>craft, then I can imagine doing anything to preserve whatever relatively
>safe enclave one has, be it in Stalin's Russia or Nazi Germany.
I can imagine this, too, but I cannot see that it is the right thing to
do. There are times when it is everyones duty to speak up against
injustice and tyranny, dont you think?
>On the other hand, escaping to a safe country, which some would say
>is cowardly, might be the most effective means of achieving change.
>At least you can make known what is happening (again with unpredictable
>consequences), and even though some art disappears from your homeland,
>perhaps never to be known to those who remain, it still survives in the
>world.
Exactly.
>On the other other hand (you need lots of hands for such arguments),
>
>Vivent les dissidents!
I prefer not to call people who accepted money and safety from the Hitler
regime dissidents. Followers is a better word.
Robert
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