On Wednesday, Aug 30, 2006, at 00:55 America/Los_Angeles, Rob MacKillop wrote:
> I am aware of this side of Wagner. We know what such an outlook > led to. Utterly abhorant. But do any of the pre-20th century composers > stand > up to our present-day political stances? Very few, I imagine. The bar is set remarkably low these days, I'm afraid. But let's not pretend that Wagner was anywhere near the mainstream. His rabid blitherings appalled his contemporaries. Even the ones who might have shared his views knew that it was beyond the pale to express them so publicly and so vehemently. > This is a big > can of worms for a list such as this. Do you really want to get into > it? Nope. I just wanted to point out, since you'd reposted the professional v. amateur interpretation, that there were at least two readings of the Beckmesser character that were more likely. I should also point out that despite Wagner's with antisemitic, there is no overt antisemitism in his works. There are some things, like the character of Mime in Siegfried, King Heinrich's warning about foreign influences in Lohengrin, and Beckmesser, that can credibly be described as coded antisemitism or inspired by it. > I don't. But I don't want people think I play Wagner because I agree > with his > stance on the Jews I'm sure no one did. H To get on or off this list see list information at http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/~wbc/lute-admin/index.html
