Said a spokesperson for London’s Royal Ballet.
Quoted in "Ukraine calls on western allies to boycott Russian culture Minister defends step in ‘civilisational battle’ but says it would not amount to ‘cancelling Tchaikovsky’" (The Guardian).
David Butcher, the chief executive of Manchester’s Hallé Orchestra — which will soon perform Stravinsky and Shostakovich — said: "I don’t think it’s appropriate as a pioneering creative organisation to cancel, pause or self-censor, in our case, great music which deserves to be performed and heard."
The spokesperson for the BBC did not take the clear pro-art position: "We continue to carefully look at programming linked to Russia, considering everything on a case by case basis." What weaselhood!
I wonder: During World War II — and World War I — did orchestras stop playing Beethoven?
Unless the music somehow expresses the enemy country's commitment to its war, the music — and other art — created by human beings from that country heightens the awareness of what is lost in war. But, yes, it may move us to love Russian people, and Ukraine may be intentionally demanding that we hate the enemy — not merely its government, but its people.
About WWII, here's something from Classical Music (a BBC magazine):
Today internationalism in classical music is taken for granted. But in some areas political irritants erupt through a very thin skin of artistic sensibility. The First World War saw America ban the ‘sound of the Hun’ from concert hall and opera house. Oddly, the hostile Habsburg monarchy’s Mozart and Liszt made it to the New York Met stage, even though staging the latter’s Saint Elizabeth was rather scraping the barrel. In the next world war the New York Met exiled Madam Butterfly from the stage; after Pearl Harbor it was inevitable. In Britain, throwing stones at dachshunds (distressed dog-owners clothed their pets in Union Jack flags) soon exhausted Great War populist xenophobia and German music returned to the programmes. In World War II there wasn’t a comparable move to ban the Hun. The first wartime Queen’s Hall concert in London opened with Wagner and Beethoven.
Throwing stones at dachshunds!
Here's something from The Spectator, "How sausage dogs were weaponised in the war":
During the first world war, ‘wiener dogs’ featured in anti-German propaganda. Although largely humorous, these poster campaigns led to a widespread disdain for the breed....
The breed’s reputation took a further hit during the second world war when Nazi scientists, working at the Hundesprechschule Asra institution for performing dogs in Leutenberg, claimed they had trained dachshunds to speak, read, spell and even communicate telepathically. Some of the more outlandish claims included a hound that could say ‘Mein Führer’ and another that could write poetry...
Much more vintage propaganda here.
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There was a great deal of prejudice against German-Americans during WWI; arguably more than the anti-Japanese-American prejudice of WWII.
Freedom's just another word for...fried potatoes.
The gesture at the Longworth Building cafeteria was supposed to be strictly symbolic of one ally’s choice not to support the United States’ war in Iraq. Instead, a little plaque with a wooden frame and capital letters created an international sideshow.
In early 2003, Rep. Walter B. Jones Jr. (R-N.C.) sent a letter to Rep. Robert W. Ney (R-Ohio) with a trite topic: renaming french fries to “freedom fries.” That January, France had announced its opposition to the proposed U.S.-led military action in Iraq. Around the same time, Jones, then a fervent supporter of the invasion, had heard from a constituent in Beaufort, N.C., who owned of a local diner that had renamed its fries and French toast in support of President George W. Bush’s war.
“Since the French are backing down, french fries and French everything needs to be banned,” Neal Rowland, the diner’s owner, told Fox News in 2003. “Fry sales have really gone up. People who eat them now say, ‘Freedom never tasted so good.’ ”
I'm sure everyone remembers what the first 5 notes of Beethoven's Fifth spell in Morse Code and how they know that. Assuming they still teach history, of course.
Richard Wagner. He got the ban hammer, but it's more to do with his personal writings rather than just him being German.
“wiener dogs”
Fortunately they have been restored to their former prestige with help from a condiment advertiser who shrouded them in “bun clothes” and stampeded them toward the condiment table.
What weaselhood!
Weaselhood! Now there’s an idea for a tag.
I like the idea of the Met banning Madam Butterfly. On one hand, it was written by Puccini, you Einsteins; but on the other hand, Italy was fascist, too, so: A two-fer?
Propaganda and killing or genocide go hand in hand. WW2 wartime imagery was openly racist toward Germans and the Japanese. Portraying your enemies as apes or deformed or evil or inferior surely makes it easier to pull the trigger in combat. It also stokes willingness to vote and pay taxes in support of a war. Or burn down the businesses owned by those evil ______.
Truth and nuance are the first casualties of war. But, zealots are gonna win or die. That's what makes them zealous.
My mother lived in Nazi occupied Holland, and she told me that in a concert hall there they covered the name of Mendelssohn, same kind of stuff going on in Ukraine right now, but toward Russians.
Recall the quip - Austrians like to pretend Mozart was Austrian and Hitler was German.
Strick said...
I'm sure everyone remembers what the first 5 notes of Beethoven's Fifth spell in Morse Code and how they know that. Assuming they still teach history, of course.
The opening of Beethoven's Fifth was played before BBC news broadcasts throughout WWII. V for Victory, etc.
The plan is to wipe out all Russian influences and language use if Kiev ever manages to gain control of the LPR, where Tchaikovsky grew up, so Kiev has every intention of cancelling Tchaikovsky, if their actions in Kherson are any indication.
What Kiev is planning is a genocide, similar to how they wiped Poles and Jews out of that region of Ukraine that Hitler gave to Stalin. This is how Banderas became a hero of the ethnic Ukrainian people. The region is now almost uniformly ethnically Ukrainian due to successful ethnic cleansing, and Kiev plans to create an ethnically pure Ukraine, border to border. That's what makes them nazis, not their embracing of Nazi German symbols and nazi salutes like "Slava Ukraini"
We have no problem with this because the real issue that the neocons have is that the US should be the sole arbiter of world politics. It is seen as the only way to combat global warming, democracy must end, since the voters will never agree to what is needed, and a single hegemon who can make the "hard decisions" is required.
Right now the West is using the same financial controls to coerce Africa to leave their abundant reserves of natural gas in the ground as they are to implement their "cap" on the price of Russia oil. Africa cannot develop its own resources without Western financing.
I'll have to ask my Israeli friends whom are the descendants of those few whom escaped Poland and Germany in the late 30's if they like Wagner's Flight of the Valkyries. My guess is indifference.
No ballet company is going to ban The Nutcracker. It's their bread and butter, the show that finances the rest of the year. But pretend it's really about support for Ukraine...
exhelodrvr1: I once bought a small house in Atlanta's WWI internment camp for Germans: the men were held in the federal prison up the road; the neighborhood was surrounded with barbed wire, and the women and children were not allowed to leave and experienced malnourishment. Once a week they were permitted to sell small lead toys and baked goods they made from their rations and gardens.
Instead of remembering this, let alone offering reparations as we did with the Japanese, we have chosen to erase this history. Decades later, then-Mayor Maynard Jackson even changed the name of the neighborhood from Germantown to Boulevard Heights to forget even more.
In both the Japanese and German internment camps, there may have been saboteurs and spies. But the majority of the interred were victims of false imprisonment, entirely families of them. But, especially in the case of the WWII, communication technology had improved to the point where Japanese-Americans could communicate with overseas forces.
In both wars, foreign troops from these nations reached our shores, and foreign combatants infiltrated domestic immigrant communities. That hardly justifies internment camps. But it's right to tell the whole story -- which also includes what was done to American civilians trapped in Japan during the war.
Howard, I recall a story that the Israeli symphony in Israel was scheduled to play something like that. Maybe Wagner. I’ll have to look it up. It was a big controversy decades ago. One of the ushers was a Holocaust survivor. He was not schooled in music. He did not understand the controversy. As soon as the performance began, he recognized the music as that played by his torturers and freaked out and attacked the stage. When people were more serious about morality and less silly as they are now it was a big controversy. I think there aren’t a lot of thoughtful people nowadays who really consider issues and that is the reason this particular issue is no longer a real concern. My two cents.
@NorthOfTheOneOhOne, the letter ‘V’ turned out to be extremely versatile. Even in European languages where their word for “victory” did not begin with a ‘V’ there were usually words that did begin with a ‘V’ that expressed a wish for German defeat. For instance the Dutch word for “freedom” is “vrijheid.”
Do you mean to tell me that it’s even possible to have a Christmas without The Nutcracker? I’m sure there’s a law somewhere or another!
I suppose if there’s no Nutcracker allowed they could always do Swan Lake.. (Yeah, I know.)
Hitler undoubtedly loved Wagner and Wagner's music was used to in the early concentration camp to indoctrinate or reeducate or annoy or torment inmates, but there is some controversy about how much rank and file Nazis liked him and whether or not his music was played in death camps.
If you want to or have to you could make the case that any Russian whose name ends in -sky or -vich or -ich or anything other than -ov or -in is Ukrainian or Polish or Belorussian or something else in origin, but that doesn't have much to do with whether or not they really felt Russian. Russia was a melting pot and core Russians often have Tatar or Finnish roots, not to mention origins relating to all the other peoples in the Caucasus or Central Asia or Siberia.
Howard said...
I'll have to ask my Israeli friends whom are the descendants of those few whom escaped Poland and Germany in the late 30's if they like Wagner's Flight of the Valkyries. My guess is indifference.
Wagner was quite effectively rehabilitated in 1980.
I think there is a difference between Wagner, which is closely associated with the Nazi regime and Strauss, who appears to have been an actual Nazi and playing that music in Israel, or by the Israeli symphony, and another orchestra or another country playing it. I think there is no way an honest person could compare this to Canceling or destroying 8 nations history because of the bad actions of one regime at one particular time. This music was specifically associated with the Nazis. No one is talking about canceling Beethoven or Mozart, or Totoro and Miyazaki because of the atrocities of the Japanese in World War II. Just not comparable.
https://www.nytimes.com/1974/06/25/archives/protests-against-wagner-force-cancellation-of-tel-a-viv-concert.html
Dackels are the best. Case closed.
Mozart WAS Austrian. The joke was about Beethoven (the Rhinelander) and Hitler (the Austrian).
My father's parents both came here from Germany right before WWI (and before they met one another here). They never talked about their experiences during that time.
Opa naturalized in the '20s but Oma put it off until 1944--my father always said that he wasn't sent overseas until late 1944 because of that (but I have my doubts).
People who yoke art, nationality, and ethics together should grow up.
I think this is the story I was thinking of.
https://archive.ph/v8Dag
Leonard Bernstein, before he became a leftist progressive tool, played Beethoven for frontline Israeli troops in 1948, in Beersheba, during the Israeli War for Independence. Egyptians, seeing several thousand troops concentrating for the performance, thought an offensive was about to start against them, and redeployed from their positions threatening Jerusalem to defensive positions in the Negev. Mozart and Gerschwin were also played at that concert, but hey, the Egyptians couldn't hear the music, so let's credit Beethoven.
https://leonardbernstein.com/about/conductor/historic-concerts/beersheba-1948
Jews have been some of the greatest interpreters of Wagner's music, and his music is performed in Israel now. Why not?
One of the interesting temporary exhibits at the WWI Museum in KC is about POWs and civilian internees. The powers had signed on to various conventions regarding treatment of POWs (which were usually upheld to some degree) but had not thought about the prospect of having large numbers of enemy civilians in hand, and many of them fared poorly.
I had a collection of documents at work from the daughter of a man who had been a Russian POW of the Germans in the first war. One of the items was the mimeographed program of the POW Christmas festivities. I can't recall the details, but in the second war a Russian who made it to a proper POW camp was one lucky fellow.
The US took over a big resort in the hills of NC as the main pen for Krauts in 1917-18. There are books about it.
They should start burning Tolstoy's books if they haven't already.
Liberals love to burn books.
Strauss was never a member of the Nazi Party. He was indeed head of the Reichsmusikkammer from 1933 to 1935 but he opposed policies that the Nazis were imposing. He protected his Jewish daughter-in-law and tried to protect her relatives. I wouldn't call him a Nazi.
Mozart WAS Austrian.
Technically, no. He was born in the Principality of Salzburg, an independent state within the Holy Roman Empire which was not annexed to Austria until after Mozart's death. As a child and adolescent, Mozart's sponsor was the last Prince-Archbishop of Salzburg, who eventually got kicked out of the job by Napoleon, a man who tried his best to obliterate a lot of European aristocracy, territory and titles.
But Mozart did spend the bulk of his adulthood in Vienna, which definitely is and always was part of Austria.
Shostakovich 8th string quartet was a complaint about the prison of communism
Emerson Quartet
Fort Worth's own Van Cliburn won the first International Piano Competition in Moscow in 1958 with his stirring rendition of Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1. It was the height of the Cold War, and Krushchev was the Soviet premier. But Van's willingness to go to the USSR and play the music of a Russian composer was a great victory for art. It was also a diplomatic breakthrough. He was an amazing musician with a special talent for interpreting Russian music.
Fascinating how when New York exploded, we were reminded the very next day that the motivations of 100% of the attackers were in fact A Very Small Minority™️ that in no way represented what was in fact a proactively peaceful and loving ideology and people.
But when Kiev explodes I must accept the need to Hate the Enemy, even its people, as a necessary precondition.
The spokesperson for the BBC did not take the clear pro-art position: "We continue to carefully look at programming linked to Russia, considering everything on a case by case basis." What weaselhood!
Wow! Exactly. One of the big problems with the arts today is that it's become too bureaucratic. Bureaucrats and the arts don't mix.
I knew some other pedant would correct my Mozart observation.
Well done, sir! I salute you.
Strauss was not a Nazi. He was a naive and frightened remnant of a more civilized time, with Jewish grandchildren as already noted.
Mussorgsky was very anti-Semitic. Janacek was a bit dotty about Slavdom. Respighi was happy to be honored by Mussolini's regime.
As for music in the Turd Reich, Hitler's Wagnerphilia is overblown--he actually preferred cafe-style or what some called 'Gypsy' music. Thought Brahms was only big because the Jews loved him.
Nor did the average German landser thirst for Wagner and Liszt. (The theme music on official German gummint newsreels was Liszt's) They wanted to hear jazz and swing, and the authorities had to authorize the broadcast of (pretty bad) jazzy and swingy music or they might not have garnered any listeners at all.
The stuff I heard in German history class was jazzier and swingier than Shostakovich's poor ventures into the genre, but still pretty pallid.
The irony of diversity, inequity, and exclusion (DIE). England dreams of a Soviet Union.
This whole "ban Russian music!" thing is too ridiculous for words. Why should Pyotr Tchaikovsky be retroactively punished for events well over a century after he died? Or Shostakovich (d. 1975) or Stravinsky (d. I think 1971)? Perhaps we should dig all their corpses up and hang them somewhere in Kyiv, as the English did to Oliver Cromwell. This is far sillier than that, as Cromwell's crimes were public and recent, and also his own. Bleh.
The one exception I might make is for the 1812 Overture, where the sound of Russian troops defeating a foreign army might hit a little too close to home.
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