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Music and the Thought Police

By Old Grumpy Guy on November 26, 2008 at 9:00 AM in Humor, OldGrumpyGuy

In the second of the series on the world’s greatest composers ever, we come to number nine in the countdown – a composer whose works fell into disfavor after the Second World War because Hitler liked his music. That’s when some of the academic fashion police, the thought police and the high priests of the music world deemed that henceforth music should be free of feeling and emotion.

But his music continues to be performed and is remembered by a great many people for a Bugs Bunny cartoon. This video will shortly be followed by a compilation of his greatest hits.

  • Loveharriet

    do not understand?

  • lizpolaris

    Wagner was a virulent anti-Semite all on his own. He espoused political views which accused Jews of being a harmful and alien element in German culture. It’s thought that his writings influenced/aided Hitler’s thinking. Hitler didn’t just like Wagner’s music, he also ascribed to Wagner’s anti-Semitism. This is why the Israelis wouldn’t play his music until 2000.
    http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/994581.stm

    Wagner is not a victim of some PC campaign – he was a loathesome individual in his own right. Let’s not lose sight of the facts about this guy. All of it can be found with a quick Google search.

    What exactly is the point of this post?

    • Galt’s Pizza Parlor

      Thanks for posting this. Perhaps it should have been mentioned in the video. My 2 cents:

      A composer is a human being. You can appreciate her or his craft even if you dislike who they are. Or you can dislike who they are are not listen. However, censorship is uncalled for in my view. Mind you, I am not defending antisemitism per se, but art and the right not to be censored. I think OGG was trying to make the point that its not up to critics and so-called experts who a great composer is. I know of a famous gentile musician who married a Jew. They both understood Wagner as the human being but also appreciated his amazing musical accomplishments. And as far as I know Wagner did not set up extermination camps. I’m sure we have famous musicians living today with prejudice in their hearts. And I am not excusing prejudice or minimalizing it, but its part of the human condition. I’m very wary of the perils of censorship. Its a slippery slope indeed, one which the First Amendment envisioned:

      Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

      Food for thought.

    • bert

      Yes, Wagner had some hateful beliefs. But that does not diminish his musical talent. I do not hate anyone, but I do like some of Wagner’s music. Would you say I am racist becasue of that?

      • Galt’s Pizza Parlor

        I don’t. And if anyone does, ces la vie.

    • Alicia

      WAAAAAAH !!!

      It’s not possible for the music to be offensive and the dead composer cannot profit from anyone listening to it.

      • http://uppitywoman08.wordpress.com uppity woman

        It’s not possible for the music to be offensive and the dead composer cannot profit from anyone listening to it.

        Yes indeed you are correct. You might say the dead composer is DEcomposing as we speak!

    • http://uppitywoman08.wordpress.com Uppity Woman

      This is all very true. Not a nice man. But his music is to be loved for eternity, particularly for opera afficionados. I will say, however, that sitting through Parsifal for its rather marathon duration is a bit of punishment all unto itself for loving his music.

      Must run. Isolde is about to die.

    • workingclass artist

      Hmmmm…Lizpolaris..I think Wagner falls into a typical European reaction to Zionism and it’s rise as a growing solidified political movement….There is a difference…I’m not defending his views but to discount a Great Artist because of this is like discounting the Sistine Chapel…Because it is simply Catholic Propaganda…Kinda silly.

      BTW there are JEWS…Plenty of them back then and now who are Anti-Zionist…I’m just sayin’

  • http://lavenderladieswebdesign.com/ timepassages
  • Galt’s Pizza Parlor

    Thanks for posting the video. Those critics of Richard Wagner are no-talent wannabees who wish they could compose a single phrase that “Rich” or “Dick” could. :shock: This reminds me, who are those asshats that rate the movies on the TV listings? I wish they would not post those. It can spoil what I think is a great film and conversely make me think a crappy film is going to be great. I’d be better off fending for myself! :shock:

    Kill da wabbit, kill da wabbit, kill da wabbit, kill da wabbit.

    If you think I have lost it, you did not watch the video! ;)

  • bert

    Great 2nd in your series Old Grumpy Guy. This post reminded me of an obscure and really bad movie about Wagner titled, simply enough, Wagner. It was five (5) hours long and really a very poor movie all the way round. However, Wagner was played by Richard Burton, always one of my favorite actors. However, the really neat thing about the movie is that three of the stages (and cinemas) biggest actors, John Gielgud, Ralph Richardson, and Laurence Olivier were also in the movie. And for trivia buffs, it is the only movie where all three of these greats were in the same scene together. As dull and bad as the movie is, it is worth the price just to see these three great actors trying to steal the scene from each other. I am partial to Olivier, so of course I give him the edge in the scene. But all three are really great.

    Second trivia question – what movie do Pacino and DeNiro share a scene?

    P.S. I hear the two are teamed up for a soon to be released movie where they will again a share scene.

    • interested party

      Its hard for me to believe a movie with Burton, Gielgud and Olivier could be all that bad, but then this wouldn’t be the only musical biography which was lame.

  • SonicNinjaKitty

    Great post! I think Wagner would have been thrilled that his music was made even more well known through Bugs Bunny & Co. We often think of those ‘classicals’ as staid and aloof but, as your bio at the end demonstrates, they usually were caught up in the scandals, power mongering, and financial realities of their own day. I imagine Wagner would not have been too snooty to like Bugs.

    It is wonderful when great music or ideas are linked to popular culture as long as they are not diluted in that link. How would half of us remember the Preamble to the Constitution or how a bill becomes a law if not for Saturday morning ‘School House Rock’? Also–movies like Jurassic Park and the Star Wars series have made symphony lovers out of many kids.

    I look forward to the post-WWII story line you hinted at. Thank you for all the time and incredible thoughtfulness you are putting into this series!

  • oowawa

    My earliest remembrance of Wagner was not “Kill the Wabbit,” but the memory of Flash Gordon on TV in the early 50′s: when the bloated football-shaped spaceships would circle around, belching smoke, sparks and fire from their exhaust pipes, invariably a majestic Wagner score would be playing. Of course I did not know it was Wagner at the time.

    Does O like Wagner? He seems to go for the grandiose stuff, as did that guy in Germany in WWII. Wagner would have gone well playing in the background with the Greek temple motif, as That One made his grand entrance. The horned helmet would also have added to His Magnificence.

    • Old Grumpy Guy

      Someone should photoshop that – O as Lo. (Lohengrin that is). I’m too busy right now.

  • Sassy

    Thanks Grumpy.
    I have always loved music, and have eclectic taste.
    Our NPR station comes through a local university and is the only one I listen to.
    Classical each morning, Blue Monday, Roots and Branches which is everything from bluegrass to rock, Women on Air gives exposure to unknowns.
    They are a real asset to our area!

  • MOmule

    Thanks, Grumpy – Whenever I hear the Ride of the Valkyrie I am taken back to my childhood. My father built a cabinet by hand and installed a windup gramophone. One of the records we had was the Ride. It still gives me thrills after all these years. I would listen until the downward slide of notes and speed, then rush over to crank it up again. Thanks for this morning’s memory!
    By the way, can’t everyone just accept that Wagner’s music was the best part of him, and just listen to it? For example, Melchior and Leide and the Liebestod from Tristan und Isolde. If one turns over the rock that is the human psyche there will always be nasty things crawling out. That is the human condition.

    • Galt’s Pizza Parlor

      By the way, can’t everyone just accept that Wagner’s music was the best part of him, and just listen to it?

      I would argue all of him is his music, and we should appreciate an extraordinary talent who is just like all of us in varying degrees: imperfect, prejudice and human. Could it be Wagner’s critics focus on his humanity and are really just envious of his talent, just looking for a way to be critical?

    • Galt

      “By the way, can’t everyone just accept that Wagner’s music was the best part of him, and just listen to it?”

      I would argue all of him is his music, and we should appreciate an extraordinary talent who is just like all of us in varying degrees: imperfect, prejudice and human. Could it be Wagner’s critics focus on his humanity and are really just envious of his talent, just looking for a way to be critical?

      • Galt

        Sorry for the double post! I need to remember to use the short form of my name, “Galt.”

  • Nice Try

    Lol, first grumpy said:

    His music fell into disfavor after the Second World War “because Hitler liked his music.”

    Then after someone explains to you that he himself was virulently anti-semitic, you then start make dumb excuses,in the comments section about free speech.

    Slowly but surely the veil will fall of. Do you think we don’t know what you mean when you say “the thought police and the high priests of the music world.”

    You writings and pretentious behavior are not as anonymous/obscure as you think they are.

    • Defcon 1

      Nice Try, Galt’s Pizza Parlor is the person who made the comment about free speech. He is not Grumpy using another name. If you doubt what I am saying email the admin and ask. It appears you think grumpy is antisemitic? You are entitled to think that if you do, but I don’t think there is any need for the ominous “not as anonymous/obscure as you think” remark I presume being directed at Grumpy. If you are not aware, people are coming off a tough political campaign where there were cases of harassment and worse on the blogs. So people are pretty sensitive right now. I think we should be careful how hard we push our views.

    • SonicNinjaKitty

      Um, we are talking about music here. Why don’t you wait to see what OGG is going to present regarding those ‘high priests of the music world’ before you criticize it?

    • Old Grumpy Guy

      Nice Try’s comment about QUOTE: “Your writings and pretentious behavior are not as anonymous/obscure as you think they are” UNQUOTE is typical bot strategy for trying to scare non-bots with veiled threats: “We know who and where you are and we’re coming to get you.”

    • elliewyatt

      So sorry to hear about your hemorrhoids.

    • beebop

      Perhaps you might consider changing your screen name to i’mtrying …. in all of its connotations …. ;)

  • elliewyatt

    I always enjoy your videos, and appreciate the Greatest Composers series.

    Thank you, and thanks to NQ for bringing them to us.

  • melisa

    I have always liked his not-so-loony-tune,(kill da wabbit) and once, my husband sang it for the family, wearing a inverted colander on his head. Very entertaining.
    Did not realize he was an antisemite. Very disappointing.
    The question here is, is a person’s art separate from the person’s philosophy, or are there subliminal influences that permiate the art?
    I am not for PC, just wondering can we separate the person from what he has created?

    • SonicNinjaKitty

      Very good point. It’s not just art, it’s anything that sponsors or is sponsored by something we don’t like. If we need to judge things in that manner, I would definitely throw my GE fridge out on the street (since GE=MSNBC=the Beast and others). I’d probably have to throw out a lot of other stuff in my house, too.

      • melisa

        Where would it end? :)

        • SonicNinjaKitty

          I would have to built my own hut in the backyard and hunt my own food :)

    • xax

      I would say yes. It’s music. And only because he was a classical composer. Something like that can be interpreted in multiple ways.

      Unlike today, the lyrics pretty much tell me what type of person you are.

      I knew Wagner was into german nationalism, but never knew he was anti semitic.

  • beebop

    So long as there are beings who feel inferior with the desire to pull themselves up by whatever means, prejudice will be alive and well. It is the refuge of preference of he/she who must be “better” than someone merely for the sake of being better.

    • Galt

      And members (not all) of one group of humans may decry prejudice only to be prejudice against some other minority group. Hypocrisy is also part of the human condition. I could cite examples of the prejudice I am referring to but then people will probably end up taking sides and missing my point entirely. :shock:

  • xax

    Der Ring der Neibelungen is my favorite.

    Fell in love with it during German Class. High school.

  • AnnieO

    Very interesting, Grumpy. I loved this video, and I’m looking forward to the next one.

    My personal favorite is Smetana’s Moldau from Ma Vlast, which I believe was banned by Hitler during WW2. In any event, it’s just beautiful.

    Here’s a link if anyone is interested:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=49WNphaiwNY

  • interested party

    I again enjoyed your presentation, but a little too much kill-the-rabbit and too quick on the background scroll for me.

    By the way, what was the background music for the scroll? Was it Wagner?

    and by the way, the American composer I would pick for number 8 would be Copeland.

    • Old Grumpy Guy

      Copland wrote some wonderful pieces of music and was a close contender for the top ten, but as I said the first video he did not quite make the cut for reasons I will explain in the 11th video in the series

    • Old Grumpy Guy

      The scroll can be paused if it goes too quickly for you. The music with the scroll is an excerpt from a track called “The Age of Chivalry” from a symphonic suite (not by Wagner) entitled The Millennium Suite.

      • interested party

        Thanks for the response.

  • Maria3

    Thank you so much, really enjoyed this video.

    Very interesting. Please keep it up:)

  • ophelia

    Thanks for the post OGG. I love classical music and Wagner’s Ring is something once heard, is never forgotten. We simply need to listen to the music and appreciate the art. Those kinds of scores are not created today, (sadly).
    anyway thanks again. I enjoyed it.

  • Pat Racimora

    I love these posts. A wonderful change of pace–and getting more culture doesn’t hurt anyone.

  • Nice Try

    Pretentious old Grump said: “is typical bot strategy for trying to scare non-bots with veiled threats”

    I rather be a bot than have pre-kindergarten research capabilities.

    You claimed that his work: “fell into disfavor, because Hitler like his music. Apart from being asinine, that statement is incorrect.
    Hitler was a big fan of the Autobahn in germany, yet after WWII it didn’t fall into disfavor. Do you see where i’m going with this?….

    btw thats not a veiled threat, lol.

    • Old Grumpy Guy

      Yes I can see exactly where you are going with this Nice Try. Down an intellectual cul-de-sac

    • Old Grumpy Guy

      PS If I am “asinine” I hate to think what that makes you, Nice Try – apart from being a rude and blinkered bot

    • beebop

      BMW quit making anything but automobiles and most of my Jewish friends swear by them. You are a silly small mind. Cya’

    • melisa

      Nice try, here’s an easy one for you:
      What do A. Hitler and E. Fudd have in common?

      • melisa

        well, need to give the answer, I guess
        …even when disaster stares them in the face, they feel neither doubt nor remorse…
        Sound familiar?

    • PN

      Nice Try:

      There is no doubt that that Wagner harboured and promoted vile opinions. I don’t think anyone has denied that. Equally certain is the fact that he created some truly soaring, glorious music. As the glory of his music does not excuse the evil he did, neither does the evil he did tarnish the beauty of his music. If we held such, most of the great art of the world would have to be discarded for sake of the moral failings of its creator(s).

      I am, however, also not so sure putting him and his music on the shelf for a couple of decades after WWII was such a bad thing, either. His work and life did play a part in the horror, and setting it aside for a bit was a defensible response. Make of that what you will.

      The evil Wagner did is dead and buried with him; his music lives on. The best that any of us can hope is that our evil deeds die with us and the good we do carries on after our deaths. The reverse is far too often the case.

  • Obama: Dubya 2-Electric Boogaloo

    All I can say is THANK GOD FOR ROCK AND ROLL!

    Sorry, Lennon/McCartney are THE greatest composers of all time.

    • OldGrumpyGuy

      Lennon and McCartney were songwriters

      • workingclass artist

        lol….Indeed. Although I admired the ambition of Paul’s recent foray into the realm of Classical with his Ode to Liverpool…It was telling no?
        Like other words in the English Language the word Composer has become a bit muddied…*sigh*

  • Nice Try

    “BMW quit making anything but automobiles and most of my Jewish friends swear by them. You are a silly small mind. ”

    But but but,…um…didn’t the BMW fall into disfavor after WWII because Hitler liked it. . The darned thought police ever vanishing hahahahahaha.

    ‘Grumpy little man of age’, there is your sign.

    • beebop

      They were forbidden to make airplanes. You shouldn’t by any means talk about the research skills of others … just a bit of advice ….. sweetie.

    • Old Grumpy Guy

      Nice Try, you become more pathetic with each post

    • rw

      Which one does not belong:

      a. industry
      b. Autobahn
      c. BMW
      d. Wagner

      Guess it would be Wagner; not really needed in modernizing a capitalist industrial world. Sort of like the Berchtesgaden, easy to come into disfavor…because of its history or association in history, besides we don’t need it either. But the VW, that’s a different story, same goes for all the scientific and military research done by the regime.

      • Galt

        True on the selective outrage issue. And add Werner Von Braun, architect of the US space program and builder of Hitler’s V2 ballistic missile as a specific example.

    • http://uppitywoman08.wordpress.com uppity woman

      I’m sure you didn’t intend to show your own lack of culture. Classical music is timeless. In 100 years nobody will know who Ludicris was. And they won’t know who you were either.

      • OldGrumpyGuy

        well said uppity

  • socalannie

    Not into Wagner (& hitler has nothing to do with it), but enjoyed your piece anyway, OGG. Looking forward to the next installment.

  • Patrick Henry

    Herr Grumpy….

    I thought that Video was Interesting History..An appreciation of Music is worthwhile…I can enjoy
    Wagner or the Moody Blues…Music and compositions…

    However…I understand the Real Intent of That Music being played in Bugs Bunny was intended to represent Good over Evil..and the Meaning Was…

    Save the Wabbit….Save the Wabbit…Save the Wabbit…

    What seems to be…Is not always as it seems to Be..

    Happy Thanksgiving…

    Thank God For FREEDOM…Speech and Opinions Included..

    • OldGrumpyGuy

      “Save da wabbit” doesn’t have quite the same dramatic impact, but I concur with the sentiments as Bugs is a big hero of mine

  • http://uppitywoman08.wordpress.com uppity woman

    Garlic noses demand equal PUCCINI time!

    • OldGrumpyGuy

      Puccini wrote some pretty songs and gave Andrew Lloyd Webber and the composer of Les Miserables a lot to borrow from. If we were doing a top ten of operatic composers who came up with pretty tunes he would certainly be somewhere around the top. But the people in the top ten have generally had a bigger impact and have more depth and range than Puccini, Verdi, Rossini et al.

      • Galt

        Am I the only one who hears Stravinsky in John Williams? Hey OGG, I think you are walking a fine line when you are being critical of the wannabees (critics, musicologists) and coming up with your own “best” composers? ;) This dawned on me after I lamented on some of the grief you took in this thread. Art can be trash to one and trash can be art to another, I guess. :shock:

  • workingclass artist

    Great Art is not for the faint hearted…Or the politically correct. Never has been…Never will be.
    Enjoyed this one Grump. Wagner is huge. Singlehandedly broke the dominance of the Italians/French in Opera and brought Mythos to the forefront of theater again. I am wondering if your American Composer will be Gershwin or Bernstein…Can’t wait to find out.
    Personally…As a big fan of Mythology ( especially the Grail Romances ) I alway enjoyed Wagner and his ambition..Not an easy task but well worth the effort. We all benefit as a result…Tolstoy was perceived as anti-semitic as well. Revisionist history is what it is
    suspect through motive….Some folks would hear “Grand ol Flag”as an anti-immigrant fascist imperialist anthem instead of what it was…A patriotic show tune…sheeesh!

    I look forward to the next installment…Thanks.

  • elliewyatt

    It’s OK. There is an antidote to ‘Kill da wabbit’, but it’s very painful.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHg5SJYRHA0