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Date:
Tue, 11 Jan 2005 00:11:10 +0100
Subject:
From:
Robert Peters <[log in to unmask]>
Parts/Attachments:
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Denis Fodor wrote:

>There were quite a few German composers who took their nazism more
>seriously than those named above.  Pfitzner and Webern are exemplar of
>German/Austrian musicians who really sided with the Nazis --at least for
>a time.

I am sorry but it is nonsense to say this about Webern whose avantgarde
compositions brought him disdain by the Nazis.  Webern worked for the
Singverein and the Vienna Workers Symphony Concerts till 1934, both
organizations sponsored by the Social Democratic Party.  He got poorer
and poorer because the ruling party banned his music.  The most critical
thing one can say about Webern is that he was politically uninterested
and didnt emigrate.  To write that he took Nazism more seriously than
Strauss who profited from working for the regime is simply wrong.

>And then there were the orchestras.  Both Vienna and Berlin
>were loaded with party members and the fact that the Berlin orchestra
>voted in Karajan, has something to say about that, though admittedly not
>everything (Karajan's ascension took place back in the day when postwar
>allied military government and its cultural officers also has some say
>in the matter.)

Karajan profited a lot from the emigration of the best conductors.  He
stayed in Germany, taking posts, becoming a party member, conducting for
the regime, getting famous.  Charakterlos, devoid of character.

Robert Peters

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