Posted by logan opsal on February 10, 19103 at 11:12:10:

In Reply to: Re: I heard sounds... posted by Charles Zigmund on September 25, 19102 at 07:25:14:

: : There were no such things as s in Wagner's time. However, Hitler was an admirer of Wagner's music, and this did not have anything to do with their somewhat similar views (although Hitler was obviously much more pionate an anti-Semite!). Anyways Wagner's music alone does not carry anti-Semitic sentiments.

: Wagner was not an ordinary 19th century antisemite, as one of the earlier writers claims, but was an a leading and eminent one. He was a prolific and best-selling pamphleteer on music, politics and culture (I wish he'd written more operas instead) and identified the Jews as the main perverters of the German race and culture every chance he got. When he published 'Judaism in Music' he did it under a pen name to escape responsibility for it. His identity came out anyway. When he republished it in the late 1860s under his own name, he and his wife Cosima knew it would provoke a storm and she lionized him for his bravery in facing down the Jews, who attended concerts of his music to raise angry protests.

: He saw himself very much as a martyr who must suffer in order to proclaim the truth. Since as has been said, antisemitism was very common in the 19th C., Wagner would have had to be especially vitriolic to raise such a storm, and he was.

: Several characters in his operas were most likely meant to portray Jews. These include the pompous and blundering Beckmesser in 'Die Meistersinger' who originally had been given the name Hanslick as a jab at Edward Hanslick, an influential Jewish critic who disliked Wagner's music. The dwarfs Alberich and Mime in the Ring are two other examples. Their sing-song and ditty-like vocal lines mimic what Wagner saw as Jewish insincerity and toadying, and Mime's actions especially represent Jewish treachery. Alberich's son Hagen, the half-brother of Gunther, stands for the half-Jew who has mixed in with the German race and betrays it by his actions (he kills Siegfried). Klingsor in 'Parsifal' is a magician who tries to pollute the pure blood of the Grail and the brotherhood of knights, and once again is probably meant to represent the Jews polluting German culture. The book 'Wagner: Race and Revolution' by Paul Lawrence Rose goes into these issues in depth.

: Whether Wagner would have condemned Hitler for the death camps is an interesting question. Wagner did welcome news of a pogrom in Russia where Jews died. There were Germans after the war who practiced denial and there still are some who do today. Some Germans and Austrians thought and think the Jews have been overly loud about the Holocaust. Hitler was a welcome guest of Wagner's family at Bayreuth from the early 1920s, long before he came to power. While Wagner might well have thought Hitler went too far, I think that is still an open question.

: That Wagner was one of the greatest composers is beyond doubt. That he was one of the greatest antisemites is, unfortunately, also beyond doubt.
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