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Re: Re Karajan and Gould



This is all from memory, but I think it's pretty accurate.
 
In the 1980s, Zubin Mehta conducted the Israel Philharmonic (I'm guessing in Tel Aviv) through the advertised program. Then he addressed the audience and said the orchestra was going to play an unadvertised Wagner piece -- and that would have been the first Wagner publicly performed in Israel. Mehta invited the audience to leave if they chose, or to stay; a few left, with what level of indignation or outrage I don't know; most stayed; and after the piece applauded enthusiastically.
 
My agent is a lifelong New York City resident and a Jew. She told me that during her childhood in the 1950s, her mother dragged her to every Wagner opera. I asked her if she didn't think this odd; she said it probably was odd, but she'd never thought about it before. She just took for granted that if there was any Wagner in town, her mother was going to worship every note and drag her along.
 
At the time Mehta performed his Wagner piece, Israel was much more composed of Jews from central Europe, Germany and Austria, than it is today. Despite the Holocaust, they brought with them their beloved traditions; before the Nazis, German Jews were the most integrated into mainstream cultural life of all European Jews and enjoyed the fullest benefits of citizenship with Christians, and had for about a century. And before the Nazis, Germany and Austria were zeniths of music, literature, art, science, law and religion for the world. Like my agent's mother, many German/Austrian Jews  reached Israel with a love of their secular traditions, German lullabys for their children, and a hypnotic devotion to Wagner's music.
 
I apologize that life is not simple.
 
Bob / Elmer
 
-----Original Message-----
From: Daniel Vaiser <vaiser@AIRMAIL.NET>
To: F_MINOR@EMAIL.RUTGERS.EDU <F_MINOR@EMAIL.RUTGERS.EDU>
Date: Sunday, June 10, 2001 7:15 PM
Subject: Re: Re Karajan and Gould

>Hello all:
>
>This is a great subject and I really have no answer as to where art begins
>and politics ends.  I have visited Israel three times. I have read that in
>Israel, people can listen to the music of Wagner on the radio and though it
>has been performed in smaller venues there, it is still a very sore subject
>with the large number of Holocaust Survivors still living in Israel. Also,
>the question of whether Wagner should be played at all in Israel is still
>brought up from time to time in that country and is still the subject of
>passionate debate. Be well and take care.
>
>Daniel Vaiser