Tel Aviv Wagner Concert Cancelled After Wave Of Protest

alas it has happened several other times, in Israel Wagner remains a taboo to this day.

... and just this alone makes me a convinced anti-Zionist. There are ideologies too deeply rooted in Israeli state culture, ideologies that have nothing to do with Judaism...

Has Barenboim not yet managed to break the Wagner taboo in Israel even a little bit?

To say that he is "the worst antisemite" is truly ungenerous...

This is all people who must somehow make people talk about themselves. Wagner, whether directly or indirectly conducted by Jews heading Jewish orchestras, is the stupidest marketing that exists to bring a bit of classical music (and quite a few half-measures) to the fore during periods of crisis.

All of this was damnably born from the commercial trickery of a mediocre person like Barenboim who, out of nowhere, with projects of musical brotherhood that are grandiose only for fools, managed to impose himself on major world attention as a conductor. This alone, in my opinion, has been frankly unbearable (and we deal with all the unfortunate consequences, even today); now we also have to endure the faded clones of the Argentine conductor.

Jewish musicians have no need for Wagner, who is unfortunately already present in every form: instead, they should think about rediscovering and performing Meyerbeer, who has nothing to envy from that odious Saxon, if they want to do something culturally significant.

Meyerbeer was a brilliant Jewish composer slandered by Wagner in an unblameworthy way; someone should take the trouble, but above all the responsibility, to pull this story out of the drawer as well, while making people listen to what is, moreover, a musically stupendous repertoire.

I should preface that I do not love Wagner... however, he is a monumental author as a composer and as a thinker. To say that "Jewish musicians do not need him" is absurd... so then they don't need Perotinus, Monteverdi, Bach, Beethoven either..?!?!?!?!

I know Meyerbeer; Wagner's hatred towards him is not at all a thing of the past, even the walls know it. If we want to talk about brilliant authors who are rarely performed, there would be room for an Umberto Giordano, or a Luigi Dallapiccola, just to give a couple of examples... and Jewishness has nothing to do with it here (goodness... Dallapiccola's wife is Jewish, but I don't believe that this is in any way related to the few performances and few recordings).

And anyway, we were talking about the taboo of performing Wagner in Israel, and the fact that these positions never lead to anything good.

BackSpace wrote:

This is all people who must somehow make themselves talked about. Wagner, whether directly or indirectly conducted by Jews heading Jewish orchestras, is the stupidest marketing that exists to bring a bit of classical music (and quite a few half-measures) to the surface during periods of crisis.

All of this was damnably born from the commercial trickery of a mediocre person like Barenboim who, out of nowhere, with projects of musical brotherhood that are grandiose only for fools, managed to impose himself on major world attention as a conductor. This alone, in my opinion, has been frankly unbearable (and we deal with all the unfortunate consequences, even today); now we also have to endure the faded clones of the Argentine conductor.

Jewish musicians have no need for Wagner, who is already unfortunately present in every form: instead, they should think about rediscovering and performing Meyerbeer, who has nothing to envy from that odious Saxon, if they want to do something culturally significant.

Meyerbeer was a brilliant Jewish composer slandered by Wagner in an unblameworthy way; someone should take the trouble, but above all the responsibility, to pull this story out of the drawer as well, while letting people listen to a musically wonderful repertoire.

To say that Barenboim made his way only through marketing is simply false.

Meyerbeer and Wagner are two different worlds, and Meyerbeer is not performed today because he does not attract an audience and is too difficult to sing and stage.

Last thing and, for me, the most important thing: Jewish and Israeli are not synonyms. The fact that Barenboim is Jewish should interest almost no one

Let's do this, I am submitting to you a somewhat "particular" writing by Schumann ... it's a pity it is little known.

In my opinion, there are the prerequisites to classify it under an anti-Semitic key:

http://www.rodoni.ch/schumann/scritti.html

In essence, Schumann ventures into a forced (if not partisan) comparison between two works that have absolutely nothing to do with one another, yet, using sibylline and clumsy dialectical means (see how he leverages the fact that the two works were written in the same year, something he himself reiterates to muddy the waters) to give us quite a "tall tale"

"the two most important compositions of the time"

(Paulus is Mendelssohn's youthful work and, as praiseworthy as it is in certain aspects, has nothing to do with the importance of the composer's true masterpieces, such as Elias, for example; at least at the time, the importance of each composition was absolutely incomparable)

In reality, the comparison was written ad hoc to disqualify the heretic Meyerbeer in front of the "convert" Mendelssohn.

Besides this, it is interesting to note how Schumann, in dealing with Meyerbeer's work, understands absolutely nothing of the wealth of genius contained within it. For example, the device of the Marseillaise, a true subliminal message ante litteram, or that of the Lutheran chorale transformed into a cry, and many other things.

Of course, these are all things that, to be truly well understood, would need at least a century of aesthetic maturation, against much contemporary cultural resistance. And so I cannot help but notice how even atheism can be a strength in artistic creation...

This is what I said

To say that Barenboim only made his way through marketing is simply false.

Meyerbeer and Wagner are two different worlds, and Meyerbeer is not performed today because he does not attract an audience and is too difficult to sing and stage.

Last thing and, for me, the most important thing: Jewish and Israeli are not synonyms. That Barenboim is Jewish should interest almost no one.

and this was your response

BackSpace wrote:

Let's do this, I submit to you a somewhat "particular" writing by Schumann ... pity it is little known.

In my opinion, there are the prerequisites to classify it under an anti-Semitic key:

http://www.rodoni.ch/schumann/scritti.html

In essence, Schumann ventures into a forced (if not partisan) comparison between two works that have absolutely nothing to do with one another, and yet, using subtle and clumsy dialectical means (see the leveraging of the fact that the two works were written in the same year, something he himself reiterates to muddy the waters) to give us a big "tall tale"

"the two most important compositions of the time"

(the Paulus is a youthful work by Mendelssohn and, as praiseworthy as it is in certain aspects, has nothing to do with the importance of the composer's true masterpieces, such as Elias, for example; at least at the time, the importance of one and the other composition was absolutely incomparable)

In reality, the comparison was written ad hoc to disqualify the heretic Meyerbeer in front of the "convert" Mendelssohn.

Besides this, it is interesting to note how Schumann, in dealing with Meyerbeer's work, understands absolutely nothing of the accumulation of genius contained within it. For example, the device of the Marseillaise, a true subliminal message ante litteram, or that of the Lutheran chorale transformed into a cry, and many other things.

Of course, these are all things that, to be truly well understood, would need at least a century of aesthetic maturation, against much contemporary cultural resistance. And so I cannot help but notice how even atheism can be a strength in artistic creation...

Now... what does that have to do with it???

That Meyerbeer was hated by most German composers from the 1800s onwards (and practically never performed by German theaters) is a fact I have never doubted. But this situation did not only have to do with racial issues; it was above all linked to aesthetic issues, and pretending that this level does not exist is absurd. I mean, guys, we are talking practically about the inventor of Grand Opera, an operatic genre (and even German Romantics did not adore opera) based on a mix of singing, dancing, and scenography (the emblematic opposite of pure music), an expression of the wealthy classes, and on top of that, French!

But when we try to find coherence or, even worse, historical truth in the words of critics (see Schumann or Wagner, who were also composers and therefore had every interest in speaking ill of those who did things different from them) we are always rebuffed... Wagner knew and appreciated the grand operas of Halevy, who was Jewish no more and no less than Meyerbeer. But who wasn't anti-Semitic? Liszt said he wouldn't play if he recognized a Jew in the audience, and meanwhile, he was a friend of Charles Alkan, a famous Jewish pianist.

The issue of anti-Semitism and music is complex. Rather than moving forward with clichés (like Barenboim making his way through advertising...) we should contextualize everything.

http://www.godvine.com/Talented-Little-Girl-Left-the-Judges-Speechless-and-Gets-a-Standing-Ovation-4163.html

Vauro's antisemitism in court does not exist. But it has always persecuted us

...just for ...