I am attaching this to no particular posting because I am not interesting
in attacking individuals but a widely embraced double standard in our
society that is highly corrosive.

I promised myself I would avoid writing on Wagner.  But the unbelievable
double standard that surrounds the discussion of him would make any
fair-minded person go a little zany.  I know I repeat myself.  I find
myself in a unique position.  If Wagner had been _____ (fill in the person
you would hold up as the highest example of virtue) I would still find his
music boring.

My loathing for Wagner does not exclude me from any transcendent
experience.  I wonder why it does anyone.  That is their problem.
Freedom implies the right to wrong, even terribly wrong.

What makes matters worse is that as with Clinton one substitutes a myth so
one can promote their own likes through him.  So with Wagner.  If he was so
magnanimous, please explain why when it was safe he admitted the truth that
he learned more from Mendelssohn, from such works as the Hebrides, than any
other composer? Mendelssohn is all over the Flying Dutchman and other early
works.  Latter, Mendelssohn wrote "Jewish" music and corrupted all things
German.  This is a strange generosity.

Another excuse parallels the defense of Clinton.  Others were as bad even
when that isn't quite true.  But to show with finality that it isn't true
would take me beyond this group's discussion and guarantee this would not
appear.

In our politically correct age some persons and institutions are beyond
criticism no matter how questionable their behavior and others are open
targets no matter how flimsy or distorted the charges.  Christianity is a
safe target among intellectuals.  Judaism is off limits.  So in defense of
Wagner decoys are created from the horrid record of the Meister of Bayreuth
by talking about the blood shed by Christian fanatics.

What a coincidence that I just came across the quite moving lecture series
by George W.  Wittenstein, M.D.  He was invited to deliver it by a Los
Angeles synagogue.

There were too few acts of courage by those who were under the Nazi
boot in all the occupied countries with the exception of Denmark and,
surprisingly, Serbia.  The only two sustained acts of conscience within
Germany that resulted in the death of almost all the participants were by
real Christians.  BTW, I am an agnostic.  No, I forget Rommel.  Where we
the leaders of Weimar who were not Jewish?

Most of us know Dietrich Bonhoffer, the Lutheran minister who was safely
ensconced at Union Theological Seminary in New York.  Yet he insisted on
returning to Germany to bear witness, knowing it would result in his death.
The other group, tragically, is less known.  I wonder why.  It began as a
spontaneous expression of built-up disgust long before it was clear that
Germany would lose the war.  They were mainly idealistic, young medical
students at Munich University who loved the arts, especially music.  They
called themselves the "White Rose." The majority were devout Catholics from
prominent families.

They really did frighten the Nazis.  They boldly distributed leaflets
exhorting the German people to renounce this barbarism for which all but
two were beheaded within hours of their arrests.  One survivor was George
Wittenstein, who was whisked off to Switzerland he knows not why.

Did the co-opted Protestant and Catholic churches collaborate? Yes.  So
did former liberals and most of the artistic and intellectual establishment
that was not Jewish.  I remind those who wish to forget that the name of
the movement was National Socialism.  A center of anti-Semitism in Europe
that helped Hitler rise to power was the socialist government of Vienna,
thought to be among the most progressive.  Few intellectuals want to
mention the underground church, both Protestant and Catholic, which defied
its own bishops.

Judging only Christianity by this absolute standard (perhaps it is
an unconscious compliment and embarrassment) makes it impossible for
intellectuals to understand why it is not stupid to say everything is
political as the Marxists and the left claims, but it is stupid to make
the same claim about art.  Art, too, is a part of life.  It is surely no
more exempt because of its so-called spirituality than is the church or
surely such a sordid trade as politics.

I understand why Tolstoi's "What is Art?" is mocked.  Of course, Tolstoi
himself didn't live up to his ideals, but then neither did Jefferson or
FDR.  Who does? Even if one argues that Wagner was a great artist despite
his lack of conscience, that is not an argument against "What is Art?"
if one reads that essay carefully.  Tolstoi does not say that evil cannot
create good.  Ironically, the central theme of Christianity is the fall of
the devil from grace (which means the highest creativity).  It is not what
Wagner was, it is what he squandered his genius on, what he might have
been, had he embraced all humankind as did Beethoven and Bach and even
Schumann.  Schumann, I remind all the scholars who enjoyed attacking him
in their defense of Wagner, suffered a dreadful mental illness, which does
tend to make one narcissistic.  That is the very sign of mental illness.
That is not what his music is about.  His music is his sanity.  Wagner's
music is his lust for power and on the simplest level of the mastodon
Nuremberg rallies.

This blind spot is one nail pounded into the coffin of classical music.
You don't need Lebrecht to tell you that it was impossible to install a
decent organ in Philharmonic Hall because of the instrument's association
with the church and the general disdain for religion that is the
anti-Semitism of the intellectual.  Catholic baiting is good for humor.
BTW, I read that interpretation in the New York Times a while back.  Try
the same lack of tact on Judaism and you would rightly be banished from
decent society.

It may be comforting not to contemplate that it was this Pope and Reagan
who joined in a decade long covert policy that ultimately allowed the
music world to celebrate the fall of the Berlin Wall with the playing
of Beethoven's Seventh and Ninth Symphonies in the reunited city.

Perhaps, it is just as well that Nielsen goes unrecognized while tin
ears are fussed over.  We ARE known by the company we keep.  No wonder
Lebrecht's book is shunned.  Its bluntness makes a lot of people
uncomfortable.  By the way, in case the reader hadn't noticed Lebrecht
is a man of the left, not of the right.  He is sympathetic to all the
politically correct positions.

Andrew E. Carlan
Leaving Out My Usual Moniker

 [Amazingly, you also left out the kitchen sink.  -Dave]