Mozart and anti-semitism
Henk van Lingen
>In <3sgu8o$2...@nuscc.nus.sg>, quek chin yang writes:
>
>>I agree with you about RW's music. Part of my dislike for him may be because >of his wife. How she used to be Bruno Walter's wife (rest deleted)
> ^^^^^^^^^^^^
>
>As far as I know, RW's wife was dead by the time Bruno Walter was born. RW ran
>off with Hans von B"ulow 's wife (I think).
>
If I'm right to think this is about Cosima Liszt;
When I remember well, she lived from 1839 'till 1930. So she was certainly
not dead at the time Walter was born. I don't know precisly when Walter was
born, but he knew Mahler ( who died in 1911).
Marc, you are right about Hans von B"ulow. He married Cosima but somewhere
between 1860-1870 (I think) she turned to Wagner.
BTW: Does anyone know if there's a biography written about Cosima ??
Greetings,
--
=========================================================================
HGK Henk van Lingen.
HGK Save the Rain Forest !! Utrecht University.
HGK E-mail:hgkl...@cs.ruu.nl
Ruggero Andrea Ruschioni
: There is absolutely _NO_ evidence that our beloved Wolffie was anti-semitic
: (nor, for that matter, that Voltaire was anti-semitic). There _IS_, however, a
: lot of evidence that RW (whose music IMO is overrated) was anti-semitic. One
: example: when conducting Mendelssohn, RW always put on gloves, because he
: `didn't want to touch that Jew's music with his bare hands'.
: Furthermore I think that Bayreuth should be burned.
: Marc Penninga
: e-mail: mpen...@wi.leidenuniv.nl
: ________________________________________________________________________________
: Books are a triviality. Life alone is great. -- Thomas Carlyle
Nobody is going to address this guy? I mean, everybody is defending WAM here and
what about MY beloved RW? At least I'd like to know where did this guy find this
rubbish about gloves? I've read 1000 pages of letters of RW, two byographies and
NEVER heard about such bullshit!
About burning Bayereuth, Mr. Penninga, why don't you start a movement to do so?
Then we do the following: I'll call your group "Philistines" (all this jew-pig
stuff is terribly demode'); you call my group "Wagnerites". We start a fuckin'
war (this time we film all the atrocities in Technicolor, video, etc... let's
make sure we leave enough material for the next generations to see if at least
*they* learn anything).
If my group wins the fuckin' war we'll make a grand music drama in 4 parts
commemorating the victory of the pure over the philistines;
If your group wins you make a very expensive hollywood movie showing how wicked
and perverse Wagner's music was!
OK?
BTW, there is a lot of evidence that Voltaire was anti-semitic !
I don't know about Mozart, it seems very unlikely...(besides being utterly
pointless!)
RAR
Jeffrey Friedman
(Tom Blackburn) writes:
>
>>>and if I remember correctly, at one point owned a grocery store in
>>>Elizabeth, N.J.
>
>Yes, but when he first arrived in the United States he had a long
stint
>selling mobile phones in Miami.
>
>He was also a successful Amway distributor.
Perhaps under this new subject heading the thread can have a
long and distinguished career, just like the late-
baptised Lorenzo.
--
Jeffrey F. Friedman
j...@ix.netcom.com
je...@friedman.com
M.Penninga
>At least I'd like to know where did this guy find this
>rubbish about gloves? I've read 1000 pages of letters of RW, two byographies >and NEVER heard about such bullshit!
You've probably read books about RW that were written by his followers. I
suggest you start reading objective material about him. The story of the gloves
comes from the leading Dutch classical music magazine `Luister' (if I remember
correctly).
For more on RW's anti-semitism: in <DAp9r...@cix.compulink.co.uk>, David
Bluestone wrote:
:I've read extracts from Wagner's books that set new standards in
:psychotic Jew-hatred.
fehs...@ljsrv2.enet.dec.com
"M.Penninga" <mpenning> writes:
>As far as I know, RW's wife was dead by the time Bruno Walter was born. RW ran
>off with Hans von B"ulow 's wife (I think).
Yes, Cosima, Franz Liszt's daughter. Bulow, who was one of the primary
exponents of Wagner's music, thought he was doing the master a service by
acceding to this.
I've been watching that lengthy film biography of Wagner starring Richard
Burton (with Vanessa Redgrave as Cosima); it paints a damning portrait of
Wagner as egomaniac, but it, like so many other film biographies of composers,
plays fast and loose with the facts.
len.
fehs...@ljsrv2.enet.dec.com
hgkl...@cs.ruu.nl (Henk van Lingen) asks:
>BTW: Does anyone know if there's a biography written about Cosima ??
Next best thing - a huge two volume translation of her diaries. Warning,
they may be quite self serving when it comes to her heroes.
len.
Charles Ehrlich
quek chin yang <quek...@iscs.nus.sg> wrote:
>I agree with you about RW's music. Part of my dislike for him may be because of his wife. How she used to be Bruno Walter's wife and how she barred Mahler from conducting RW's music
>
>Que...@srcv02.dnet.bp.com
She used to be *Bruno Walter*'s wife? Jeez! History keeps warping in
absolutely unbelievable ways!
Cosima Liszt/von Buelow/Wagner (pick a surname) never had anything to do with
Bruno Walter. I'm not sure of the dates, but I can't imagine that their
lifetimes even overlapped by much if at all (I know Cosima lived for a long
time, but I'm not sure how long). Anyway, Walter was himself Jewish, and a
student of Mahler - I can't imagine that Cosima would have approved. Hell,
even Mahler's wife didn't marry Walter (nor even have an affair with him),
and she was associated with even more famous artists than Cosima!
Charles Ehrlich
Wolfson College (Oxford)
M.Penninga
already know the answer, so don't bother to react: if they had any sense of
humour, they wouldn't be Wagner fans.)
When I wrote:
>Furthermore I think Bayreuth should be burned
I was of course alluding to the Roman senator Cato, who used to conclude his
speeches with the words `Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam'.
However, since there are no dragons in it, Wagnerians probably aren't
interested in ancient history.
But seriously:
1) RW _was_ terribly anti-semitic, read for example his book `Das Judentum in
der Musik'.
2) operahouses _do_ spent too much time on RW.
David Pickering
anti-semitism by Henk van Lin...@cs.ruu.n
> >
> >>I agree with you about RW's music. Part of my dislike for him may
be because
> > ^^^^^^^^^^^^
> >
> >As far as I know, RW's wife was dead by the time Bruno Walter was
born. RW ran
> >off with Hans von B"ulow 's wife (I think).
> >
> When I remember well, she lived from 1839 'till 1930. So she was certainly
> not dead at the time Walter was born. I don't know precisly when Walter was
> born, but he knew Mahler ( who died in 1911).
> Marc, you are right about Hans von B"ulow. He married Cosima but somewhere
> between 1860-1870 (I think) she turned to Wagner.
>
There are quite a few as a matter of fact. My local library has the
following titles in its catalog:
Du Moulin-Eckart, Richard (1930). Cosima Wagner ... translated from the
the German by Catherine Alison Phillips, and with an introduction by
Ernest Newman. New York: A.A. Knopf.
Marek, George R. (1981). Cosima Wagner. New York: Harper & Row.
Skelton, Geoffrey (1982). Richard and Cosima Wagner : biography of a
marriage. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co.
Sokoloff, Alice H. (1969). Cosima Wagner, extraordinary daughter of
Franz Liszt. New York: Dodd, Mead.
And, finally, Cosima's diaries have been published by Harcourt, Brace,
Jovanovich.
There are probably more books as well; as I said, this is just a
sampling of one library's catalog.
Happy reading!
Dave
dp...@andrew.cmu.edu
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Sometimes I think the surest sign that intelligent life exists
elsewhere in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us."
--Calvin & Hobbes
David Pickering
> In article <3sgu8o$2...@nuscc.nus.sg>,
> quek chin yang <quek...@iscs.nus.sg> wrote:
>
> >I agree with you about RW's music. Part of my dislike for him may be
because o
Mahler fr
> om conducting RW's music
> >
> >Que...@srcv02.dnet.bp.com
>
>
> She used to be *Bruno Walter*'s wife? Jeez! History keeps warping in
> absolutely unbelievable ways!
>
> Cosima Liszt/von Buelow/Wagner (pick a surname) never had anything to
do with
> Bruno Walter. I'm not sure of the dates, but I can't imagine that their
> lifetimes even overlapped by much if at all (I know Cosima lived for a long
> time, but I'm not sure how long). Anyway, Walter was himself Jewish, and a
> student of Mahler - I can't imagine that Cosima would have approved. Hell,
> even Mahler's wife didn't marry Walter (nor even have an affair with him),
> and she was associated with even more famous artists than Cosima!
And in death, Alma Mahler Gropius Werfel became the subject of one of
Tom Lehrer's most deliciously acidic ditties:
"Alma tell us
All modern women are jealous
Which of your magical wands
Got you Gustav and Walter and Franz?"
David Bluestone
I _distinctly_ remember listening many years ago to a Radio 3 programme
about Da Ponte which stated that he ended up as a tram driver in New York!
Anyone else heard this?
David
Dick Kollin
In all seriousness. He taught at Columbia as late as the 1830s. Then he
died and was buried in a cemetery on 24th St and Madison Ave. When the
city fathers wanted to widen Madison Ave., they moved each grave and
tombstone. Most of the bodies were reburied in a Brooklyn cemetry but
many of them were moved to a cemetery in Weehawken, NJ. That is where
Da Ponte is buried today with a nice tombstone. (unless he has been
moved again!) He was VERY politically active in his last years in the
Nationalist Italian Unification Movement. Thats all I know! I think he
needs a great statue (of stone for Don Giovanni reasons) on Riverside
Drive (near Columbia University).
Dick Kollin
M.Penninga
(nor, for that matter, that Voltaire was anti-semitic). There _IS_, however, a
lot of evidence that RW (whose music IMO is overrated) was anti-semitic. One
example: when conducting Mendelssohn, RW always put on gloves, because he
`didn't want to touch that Jew's music with his bare hands'.
Furthermore I think that Bayreuth should be burned.
Marc Penninga
James Kahn
>A few weeks ago a regular poster to this group (who is jewish), defending
>Richard Wagner against the charge of guilt by association with his most
>notorious admirer, said that Mozart and Voltaire were anti-semitic too,
>and so what?
>Voltaire's attitudes I don't know or care about, and RW is not
>indispensable to my personal store of happiness, but I'm still reeling
>from the suggestion that my beloved WAM was an anti-semite. I may well be
>naive and ignorant but - is there any *real* evidence of
>this....unequivocal statements in letters etc? Or is it, as I hope,
>Schaffer-type folklore?
To which bm...@freenet.HSC.Colorado.EDU (Johnny Yepp) replies
I think you better read some general history. Overt anti-semitism
was more the rule than the exception in those days. (Covert
today, is another story I won't go into here).
That doesn't address the question, and by implication suggests that
there's some evidence he was. I'm not aware of any. In fact,
Brauenbehrens strongly suggests Mozart (in contrast to Viennese society
and its government policies) was in fact NOT anti-semitic. He maintained
social relationships with Jews in Vienna much as he did with anyone else.
Given that it was perfectly acceptable in those days to make public
anti-semitic remarks, the fact that there's virtually nothing like that
(at least as far as I'm aware) in the vast written record of Mozart's
correspondence, even though, as I said, he did have close contacts
with Jews.
Incidentally, the same is true for Haydn.
In any case, it's ridiculous to compare the occasional privately
uttered slur (such as those of Brahms and Beethoven) with Wagner's
public crusades.
--Jim
--
====================================================================
ka...@troi.cc.rochester.edu Department of Economics
http://kahn.econ.rochester.edu University of Rochester
Rochester, NY 14627
Ed Kammin
>From: ka...@troi.cc.rochester.edu (James Kahn)
>Subject: Re: Mozart and anti-semitism
>Date: Wed, 21 Jun 95 15:13:08 GMT
>In <tblack-2106...@tblack.magna.com.au> tbl...@magna.com.au (Tom Blackburn) writes:
> In fact,
>Brauenbehrens strongly suggests Mozart (in contrast to Viennese society
>and its government policies) was in fact NOT anti-semitic. He maintained
>social relationships with Jews in Vienna much as he did with anyone else.
Also, remember that Mozart was a Freemason, a group known for its liberal
views on the brotherhood of man.
Ed K.
Claude Joseph
Jeffrey Friedman
writes:
>Wasn't Mozart's librettist for Marriage of Figaro Jewish?
>
Da Ponte was by origin Jewish, converted to Catholicism.
He also wrote the librettos for Don Giovanni and Cosi
Fan Tutte. Ended up in the US, teaching at Columbia U.
Richard R Uren~a
>>Wasn't Mozart's librettist for Marriage of Figaro Jewish?
>>
>
Abbe' da Ponte didn't take his vows too seriously, from what I hear.
Didn't he have to leave Italy in a hurry because of a paternity
suit or something like that?
>Great autobiography, btw.
I'll bet.
%R
Roger Lustig
>Wasn't Mozart's librettist for Marriage of Figaro Jewish?
>
Born that way, certainly; but he was an Abbe' by the time Mozart knew him.
Great autobiography, btw.
Roger
Ed Kammin
>From: ro...@silvertone.Princeton.EDU (Roger Lustig)
>Subject: Re: Mozart and anti-semitism
>>Wasn't Mozart's librettist for Marriage of Figaro Jewish?
>>
>Born that way, certainly; but he was an Abbe' by the time Mozart knew him.
He was? I thought I had read somewhere that da Ponte ended up as a grocer in
New Jersey.
Ed K.
Ted Fitch
Ed Kammin <erka...@news.cycor.ca> wrote:
>Also, remember that Mozart was a Freemason, a group known for its liberal
>views on the brotherhood of man.
Especially those Catholics, man, they loved those Catholics :-)
Ted
Fred Goldrich
Jeffrey Friedman <j...@ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>
>Da Ponte was by origin Jewish, converted to Catholicism.
>He also wrote the librettos for Don Giovanni and Cosi
>Fan Tutte. Ended up in the US, teaching at Columbia U.
>
a grocery store in Elizabeth, N.J.
--
Fred Goldrich
gold...@panix.com
Roger Lustig
Why should one exclude the other? Actually, the grocery thing was just a
phase; he then taught Italian at Columbia...
Roger
quek chin yang
: There is absolutely _NO_ evidence that our beloved Wolffie was anti-semitic
: (nor, for that matter, that Voltaire was anti-semitic). There _IS_, however, a
: lot of evidence that RW (whose music IMO is overrated) was anti-semitic. One
: example: when conducting Mendelssohn, RW always put on gloves, because he
: `didn't want to touch that Jew's music with his bare hands'.
: Furthermore I think that Bayreuth should be burned.
: Marc Penninga
: e-mail: mpen...@wi.leidenuniv.nl
: ________________________________________________________________________________
I agree with you about RW's music. Part of my dislike for him may be because of his wife. How she used to be Bruno Walter's wife and how she barred Mahler from conducting RW's music
Johnny Yepp
In a previous article, ka...@troi.cc.rochester.edu (James Kahn) says:
>In <tblack-2106...@tblack.magna.com.au> tbl...@magna.com.au (Tom Blackburn) writes:
>
>>A few weeks ago a regular poster to this group (who is jewish), defending
>>Richard Wagner against the charge of guilt by association with his most
>>notorious admirer, said that Mozart and Voltaire were anti-semitic too,
>>and so what?
>
>>Voltaire's attitudes I don't know or care about, and RW is not
>>indispensable to my personal store of happiness, but I'm still reeling
>>from the suggestion that my beloved WAM was an anti-semite. I may well be
>>naive and ignorant but - is there any *real* evidence of
>>this....unequivocal statements in letters etc? Or is it, as I hope,
>>Schaffer-type folklore?
>
>To which bm...@freenet.HSC.Colorado.EDU (Johnny Yepp) replies
>
> I think you better read some general history. Overt anti-semitism
> was more the rule than the exception in those days. (Covert
> today, is another story I won't go into here).
>
>That doesn't address the question, and by implication suggests that
>there's some evidence he was. I'm not aware of any. In fact,
>Brauenbehrens strongly suggests Mozart (in contrast to Viennese society
>and its government policies) was in fact NOT anti-semitic. He maintained
>social relationships with Jews in Vienna much as he did with anyone else.
>Given that it was perfectly acceptable in those days to make public
>anti-semitic remarks, the fact that there's virtually nothing like that
>(at least as far as I'm aware) in the vast written record of Mozart's
>correspondence, even though, as I said, he did have close contacts
>with Jews.
>
>Incidentally, the same is true for Haydn.
>
>In any case, it's ridiculous to compare the occasional privately
>uttered slur (such as those of Brahms and Beethoven) with Wagner's
>public crusades.
I'm not trying to condemn "Our Beloved Wolffie;" I am also not very
interested in fragmented history by personality so popular in this country
either. The fact is, just because there is not a lot of overt evidence
that Mozart (or anyone else, for that matter in 18th-19th Viennese
society) uttered anti-semitic slurs, etc., doesn't mean that Wolffie would
have, e.g., married a Jew. For Chrissakes, your dealing with not only an
anti-semitic society & culture, but one of the MOST so in all of Europe.
Get real.
--
##
Richard L Kaye
: Wasn't Mozart's librettist for Marriage of Figaro Jewish?
And Don Giovanni and Cosi fan Tutte. But da Ponte had been
converted to Catholicism (which is how his name came to be da Ponte).
RLK
David Bluestone
> There _IS_, however, a
> lot of evidence that RW (whose music IMO is overrated)
> was anti-semitic.
I've read extracts from Wagner's books that set new standards in
psychotic Jew-hatred.
David
Roger Lustig
[colloquy deleted]
>I'm not trying to condemn "Our Beloved Wolffie;" I am also not very
>interested in fragmented history by personality so popular in this country
>either. The fact is, just because there is not a lot of overt evidence
>that Mozart (or anyone else, for that matter in 18th-19th Viennese
>society) uttered anti-semitic slurs, etc., doesn't mean that Wolffie would
>have, e.g., married a Jew. For Chrissakes, your dealing with not only an
>anti-semitic society & culture, but one of the MOST so in all of Europe.
>Get real.
No. *You* get real. For one thing, the very notion of "anti-semitism"
didn't exist in Mozart's time; it was invented a century later to
describe the *racial* hatred of Jews. There's certainly no evidence that
Mozart would have had scruples about marrying someone if the only reason
against had been the potential bride's Jewish birth, i.e., if she had
been baptized. Most Jews of the time weren't keen on marrying Gentiles,
so the "but would you want to marry one" argument, aside from ignoring
the social strictures that would simply have made such a matter
unthinkable, is utterly unrelated to any claims, charges, or imputations
of anti-semitism.
Let's skip the "guilty-until-proven-innocent" approach, hm? Especially
when it's based on anachronism and selective evidence...
Roger
>
>--
>##
Richard L Kaye
: In article <3see8i$e...@anshar.shadow.net> Claude Joseph <cjo...@shadow.net> writes:
: >Wasn't Mozart's librettist for Marriage of Figaro Jewish?
: Born that way, certainly; but he was an Abbe' by the time Mozart knew him.
: Great autobiography, btw.
: Roger
And he was Professor of Italian Literature at Columbia College in
New York at the end of his life.
RLK
M.Penninga
>I agree with you about RW's music. Part of my dislike for him may be because >of his wife. How she used to be Bruno Walter's wife (rest deleted)
^^^^^^^^^^^^
As far as I know, RW's wife was dead by the time Bruno Walter was born. RW ran
off with Hans von B"ulow 's wife (I think).
Marc Penninga
e-mail: mpen...@wi.leidenuniv.nl
________________________________________________________________________________
Books are a triviality. Life alone is great. -- Thomas Carlyle
Tom Blackburn
>Da Ponte was by origin jewish...[snip]..Ended up in the US, teaching at
Columbia U.
>>and if I remember correctly, at one point owned a grocery store in
Elizabeth, N.J.
Yes, but when he first arrived in the United States he had a long stint
selling mobile phones in Miami.
He was also a successful Amway distributor.
--
Tom
Roger Lustig
>M.Penninga (mpenning) wrote:
>: There is absolutely _NO_ evidence that our beloved Wolffie was anti-semitic
>: (nor, for that matter, that Voltaire was anti-semitic). There _IS_, however, a
>: lot of evidence that RW (whose music IMO is overrated) was anti-semitic. One
>: example: when conducting Mendelssohn, RW always put on gloves, because he
>: `didn't want to touch that Jew's music with his bare hands'.
>: Furthermore I think that Bayreuth should be burned.
>
>I agree with you about RW's music. Part of my dislike for him may be
> because of his wife. How she used to be Bruno Walter's wife and how
>she barred Mahler from conducting RW's music
How's that again? Walter was a student of Mahler's, and was born
the same year as Richard and Cosima Wagner's son Siegfried (1876).
Besides, Walter was Jewish.
Cosima was married to Hans von Buelow before she married Wagner.
Why this should make you hate her, I don't know.
Oh, and Mahler conducted Wagner on many occasions.
Roger
