Robert Peters replies to me replying to him:

>>>...  This is Richard Strauss: a vain artist who sold himself to the
>>>Nazis and helped them ridicule his colleagues.  Poor, isnt it?  And you
>>>know what: this naive, sentimental and unpolitical stance can often be
>>>heard in Strausss music.
>>
>>You know, I'm always a little suspicious of the righteous indignation
>>that comes from a politically comfortable seat. The Nazis had a terror
>>state on a level most of us can't conceive.  Assuming I wasn't rounded
>>up for the camps, I have no idea how I'd have reacted under such a regime
>>- probably as cowardly as anyone else.
>
>And I am alway a little suspicious of apologies for vain people.

Okay, vain but not evil.  I mean, you're dismissing the man (although
I hope not the music) because he was vain.  By that criterion, you also
dismiss quite a few other composers (although not Schubert).

>that Strauss was driven to his shameful working for the Nazis out of
>fear of the camps - I think he just liked to be powerful and comfortable
>and liked.

Golly, so would I, given the chance that no one has offered me.  I don't
think Strauss was worried for himself, but, as I've said, for his
daughter-in-law, his grandchildren, and her family.  This was a REAL
threat -- one that was made to him by officials of the Reich.  Even vain
people have genuine concerns, after all.

>>...  Everything I've read about Strauss - including Del Mar's definitive
>>3-volume study - tells me that he was an SOB much of the time.  ...
>>He was certainly not an anti-Semite and I strongly doubt, considering
>>his contemporary, *written* opinion of Nazis as cultural louts, that he
>>had much sympathy for their artistic agenda.
>
>But the fact remains that he composed this piece of music for an
>exhibition which ridiculed his colleagues.

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.  Was
it brave?  No.  But a refusal might have had consequences for people he
wanted to protect.

>There was always the honourable way of leaving this country.  He chose
>to stay and thus get involved with this regime.

First, you're talking in hindsight.  A lot of people did leave, but a
lot of people were politically more astute than Strauss.  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.

>>Besides his Festival Prelude, he also composed an Olympic Hymn for the
>>Berlin games, as his letters show, really to keep them off his back.
>
>The problem is that we have to believe him.  I wonder if he, vain as he
>was, really just composed this stuff to get them off his back.  I doubt
>that he felt flattered.

Do you mean "I do not doubt"?  That would be more consistent with your
view of him so far.  Actually, we don't have to believe just him.  It
was customary of the Gauleiters to ask wealthy residents in their districts
for financial contributions to the Party.  Strauss's Gauleiter went to
his door for such a contribution, only to be met by Pauline: "My husband
has already composed for you his Olympic Hymn." Then she shut the door
in his face.

>...  Why is it that great artist are so often pretty small people?

Perhaps because there are so many small people, artists or not.

>>We can say the same thing for Orff, another composer branded as a Nazi.
>>The people who accuse him apparently have little idea that, first, he
>>moved in Bonhoeffer's circles and, second, so many of his friends were
>>implicated in one of the plots to kill Hitler, that the Gestapo picked
>>him up and questioned him for, if I recall correctly, three days.
>
>Sorry, but what is this compared to people like Ullmann who were gassed?

Ullmann didn't have a choice.  An heroic act implies a choice.  I can
think of other heroic acts Ullmann carried out, but being shipped off
to the camps to be killed wasn't one of them.

>Orff composed a medding march as a substitute for Mendelssohns which was
>forbidden.  I dont feel that much pity for people who stayed in Germany,
>enjoyed privileges and then got into minor trouble.

Excuse me, implication in a plot to assassinate Hitler and interrogation
by the Gestapo is minor trouble?  If he had been killed, would that have
been better?

>>Furthermore, he also got into trouble for the plot of Die Kluge (an
>>irrational tyrant is brought low), and the Nazis took the step of banning
>>the work.
>
>Again: minor trouble.

See above.  The opera was banned.  Recordings of the opera were siezed.
Possession of such recordings was a punishable offense.  All this in a
state not particularly known for legal protections of human rights.
Artists and writers were killed because of what they created (as well
as because of who their parents were).  I think you're trivializing the
situation.

>>I strongly suspect that the people who began these charges either were
>>engaging in "pious lies." That is, they disliked the music, envied the
>>career, or simply had other personal animus.  Certainly, when grad-student
>>me expressed a favorable opinion of the music, my professors brought up
>>Hitler, as if that trumped everything else or even spoke to the point.
>
>Actually I think that a lot of Strausss and Orffs music is pretty hollow.
>And I see music as a mirror for character: Beethovens fervent energy,
>Mozarts vitality, Schuberts friendliness, Wagners hysterical eccentricity
>- they are there in the movie.  And Strauss and Orff are in their music,
>too.

I think this incredibly simplistic.  In other words, because you like
the music, you seem willing to overlook personal flaws.  I'm willing to
give Schubert's personal character a pass, but what about Mozart's
arrogance, Wagner's arrogance (and worse), Beethoven's arrogance?
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.

Steve Schwartz