Stephen E. Bacher of Schindlers List:

>...  In the scene another soldier asks the one at the piano, "Ist das
>Mozart?" I had always felt that the scene takes what could have been a
>trite observation - the Nazis loved classical music - to a deeper level:
>they had so debased their own cultural roots that the common German was
>unable to distinguish Bach from Mozart.  Thus what we tend to interpret
>as a symbol of dichotomous erudition was in fact nothing of the kind.

Having lived in Germany for a time, I can only say "Roger that!"
In general, I found most Germans as classical-music ignorant as most
Americans.  And the home-grown pop music was worse.  However, they
sure had a lot of live classical music going on -- as far as I know,
all state-subsidized -- so a classical musician could make a nice
middle-class living.

Steve Schwartz