Felix Delbruck from the little place down-under lays this trap:

>... my eye was caught by the ranking of 'greatest conductors' made
>by Andrew Carlan just a few days before I joined the list:
>
>>1. Hans Pfitzner
>>2. Mengelberg  ...
>
>Now I know these ranking lists should never be taken too seriously, but
>I'm still very curious why Furtwaengler isn't on there.  What have you
>got against him? Since Pfitzner and Mengelberg are your nos.  1 and 2,
>anti-Nazi prejudice can't be the reason for your excluding him.

Maybe they should be taken seriously be sensible people, but that wouldn't
restrict me.

Pfitzner? He was a founder of the Dusseldorf branch of the Deutsche
Freiheit Gezundheit.  He was also a founder of the Gruen Party long before
its time had come.  As for Mengelberg, the man was an Anglophile.  I read
this in Lebrecht's book.

Seriously, you found me out.  No one else thought of raising this as a
defense against to my attack on Wagner.  Pfitzner was a political jerk.
But that's no excuse, so was Wagner as well as perfecting that skill in
other ways.  Mengelberg was a little more sinister.  He fostered Mahler's
music as no one else did.  But he saw the writing on the NEAR wall.  Too
bad, he was so shortsighted.  He should have read Admiral Yamamoto who told
Hirohito, who was no figurehead despite what the establishment historians
tell you, that he would fight for his country to his death like Robert E.
Lee but death it would be.  The United States was bound to come in on
Britain's side now that Tojo and the other ninnies were dumb enough to wake
up the sleeping giant with enough natural resources to put their hands in
their armpits and wear Japan and Germany down.  Well, it came a little
closer; both Axis powers were banking on a swift but limited victory that
would give them lebensraum.  Well, maybe not Hitler, his cards told him
"the world." He was too excited to notice he was reading them upside down.

All I can is that I'm as bad as the rest of you.  Maybe, at least, looked
at from a certain angle, these guys were PERFORMERS.  Pfitzner recorded the
most hilarious and therefore greatest Beethoven Eighth.  I kept saying to
myself, "how could someone who could understand that Beethoven was poking
fun at himself take that inflated Corporal seriously? All right, to fear
him, but to be inspired by that dreary man, that's beyond my imagination.
Mengelberg recorded the second-greatest Eighth, where he has the music
wheezing as if it has asthma or is an elephant trying to put on ballet
slippers and dance, shades of Ponchi----, well you know who and who cares
whether the spelling is right!

Maybe, these men were worse than Wagner.  Wagner was mesmerized by his own
spell, poor man.  But these great conductors had to know that otherwise
they couldn't have interpreted Beethoven as they did.  And Pfitzner's
Pastoral is another unbelievably simple, straightforward and prayer-like
expression of that glorious work.

Furtwangler sometimes tripped over his own seriousness.  Often his tempi
were so flatfooted; it sounded like he was conducting in cement shoes.  Of
course, there were many times when he hit if off and he was stupendous but
not as often as most imagine and not as often as some of these lesser
"revered" conductors.

God, are you lucky to live in New Zealand where the brown trout average 20
lbs.  So be kind to stupid people like me.

Andrew E. Carlan <[log in to unmask]>
Standing Up For Nielsen