You didn't make it clear who you suppose I'm "exculpating" (excuse the clumsy use of words in order to get to the point). Some people can see beauty in music composed or made by bigots such as Wagner and Karajan. It's a personal reaction only but I can't see through the darkness. When I listen to the Tannhäuser overture I'm listening to Adolf Hitler. Can't help myself. It's an awkward topic because I haven't thoroughly researched the political leanings of most of the people whose music I admire. I may be listening at times to music made by people just as horrid. Carl Orff is definitely very dodgy. I struggle with Richard Strauss, whose music I love to bits, who definitely exercised expedience in Nazi Germany but he's also known for privately detesting Hitler and for acting in ways he found distasteful in order to protect his Jewish daughter-in-law from the death camps. Furtwängler stayed in Germany and helped the Nazis by putting on concerts, but he was an exceptionally silly and naive man beyond the world of music. He was more or less forgiven by enquiries after the war and Yehudi Menuhin made recordings with him not long after the war. Gotta be careful not to be "exculpatory" about someone just because you happen to like their music. That would be cherrypicking. The Siegfried Idyll is beautiful but I always turn it off. I can't hold my nose. That's just me. Bernstein, along with Gershwin, is one of your greatest exports. Oh, and Woody Guthrie!
|