CULTURE BEARER
CULTURE BEARER 180901 1947 031001 1918 What will I call “culture”?
071001 0322 Are there people who fail to conceive of themselves as intermediaries between their ancesters and their descendants?
tirsdag 6. november 2001 22:19 NOW, WHAT WITH BIN LADEN AND ALL, THE FACT THAT I HAVE OVER THE PAST SEVERAL MONTHS BEEN PLOWING THROUGH “ THE ARABIAN NIGHTS” in Norwegian, is quite appropriate. onsdag 14. november 2001 03:20 YEARS AGO SOMEONE IN MY HOMETOWN WHE I WAS VISITING ASKED MY WHAT I DO, AND I ANSWERED “CULTURE BEARER”, and i liked it and so did he.
culture bearer lørdag 12. januar 2002 17:31 answer to trivia question this date in Hugh Moore section: Hoppy Uniatz. So you can guess who he is, i will place the anwser to that elsewhere, namely this date in section The Associationist.
torsdag 17. januar 2002 Why do people close the eyes of people who have just died? for whose benefit? can the dead still see? and if they can, why close their eyes? Isn´t that not nice? maybe they want to look digified? -----------------
torsdag 17. januar 2002 16:23 Let´s have feasts to remember Santa Claus, instead of crassly dumping him after Xmas. After all, we do not treat Jesus Christ that way. It is unfortunately considered odd to even have depictions of Santa Claus around and about the house except during Xmas. This is like hiding Playboy Magazine, lest we get aroused inappropriately, or ask for gifts at Easter from Santa Claus instead of just going out and buying fancy clothes. A proper balance should be struck for some display of Santa Claus without dulling the edge of the whizbang at yuletide.
Wednesday, July 2, 2003 22:04 pm
Thursday, June 19, 2003 12:23 pm
SPECIAL REPORT ATTACKING THE MALIGNING OF CHARLES
MUNCH.
what follows is an emotional stew of my stewing over some months in anger at the matters discussed with disgust. i do not attempt to put them into linear sequence etc. good luck in the jungle. and i hope others will enter the fray. i hope this gives some comfort to those who, like myself, have been deeply offended by Weininger and especially by Mehlman.
elf (for the ambassador)
Sunday, June 15, 2003 11:36
pm
TO THE READER: READ THIS SPECIAL REPORT TWICE TO GET
SEQUENCE, IF YOU WISH.
I hope the few repetitions
do not bother you.
THE WORDS "MEHLMAN" AND "YOU" ARE
INTERCHANGEABLE ---YOU MEANS MEHLMAN.
N B: THAT A THOUGHT IS PRESENTED AS IF LETTER DOES NOT MEAN
IT WAS SENT.
IF PERMITTED I WILL PUT THE MEHLMAN ARTICLE ON MY SITE,
OTHERWISE, TRACK IT DOWN YOURSELF, IF YOU WISH (YOU THERE
EXCEPTIONALLY MEANING YOU).
BEST WISHES,
ELF
(FOR THE AMBASSADOR)
Sunday, June 15, 2003 10:51 pm
Sorry,
Mehlman refused to have his article on my site.
OF COURSE DETAILS OF ADDRESSES HAVE BEEN REMOVED FROM
E-MAILS.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------------------
JEFFREY MEHLMAN
Jeffrey
Mehlman is University Professor
and Professor of French and Comparative Literature at Boston
University. He is an historian of ideas as well as literary
critic. His books include A Structural Study of Autobiography
(1974), Revolution and Repetition (1977), Cataract: A Study in
Diderot (1979), Legacies of Anti-Semitism in France (1983),
Walter Benjamin for Children: An Essay on His Radio Years (1993),
and Genealogies of the Text (1995). He is currently working on a
study of Emigre French intellectuals in New York during World War
II, and co-editing a volume on literary debate in France since
1945. In 1994 he was appointed Office of the Ordre des Palmes
Academiques by the French government. He holds a bachelor's
degree from Harvard University
and a doctorate from Yale
University.
( above bio from list on web (wbur.org), of participants at
something.
)
-------------------------------------------------
---------------------------------------------------
-------------------------------------------------------
Date: Mon, 2 Jun 2003 12:06:35 -0400 (EDT)
From: Jeffrey
Mehlman
Subject: Re: permission
Dear Elf,
Sorry not to have gotten back to you sooner. I've been plagued
by
deadlines of all sorts.
All things considered, and because your website is, I take it,
by
definition so much a party to the issues discussed in my
article, I think
it better that my piece not appear
there.
Regards,
Jeffrey mehlman
On Sun, 1 Jun 2003, elf wrote:
>
Sunday, June 1, 2003 10:39 pm
>
Dr Mehlman ---
> I have almost completed my cogitations
apropos your article about
> Charles Munch, and
wonder if it would be alright to put your article
> on my
website -- may I? Do I need permission from
Salmagundi?
>
Elf
>
--------------------------
MOVIES | PEOPLE | PROGRAMS | RADIO | THEATER
CLAbbbjhjjh
-----------------------------------------
----------------------------
BELOW ARTICLE FROM WBUR WEBSITE (AND ON THAT OF KBIA (NPR)):
Conductor
Charles Munch
Munch,
Music, and Morality
Recently
revealed details of Charles Munch's wartime activities raise
provocative questions about music's relation to ideology and
morality.
by
David Weininger
Arguments
about the relationship between classical music and politics are
everywhere these days. Some controversies have been going on for
decades. For instance, was Russian composer Shostakovich
a "Covert Dissenter or Stalinist Toady?"
Other wrangles are more recent. Just two years ago, Europe was
embroiled in an often-shrill debate over Simon Rattle's decision
to perform Beethoven's Ninth Symphony at the site of
a former concentration camp in
Mauthausen, Austria. Depending on whom you asked, the concert was
either a deeply felt memorial or a tasteless use of a house of
death for aesthetic enjoyment.
One
new case has special resonance for Bostonians as well as for the
issue of ideology and music. In an article entitled "The
Boston/Vichy Connection" in the current issue of the journal
Salmagundi, Jeffrey Mehlman examines the wartime activities
of Charles Munch, who was the Boston Symphony Orchestra's music
director from 1949 to 1962. As Alex Beam first reported in the
Boston Globe, Munch claimed to questioners that he "did not
conduct during the German occupation." Jeffrey Mehlman's
conclusion that Munch was much more active in the Vichy regime
than was previously known, is quite a shocker. Public discussion
of the revelation has not been very fruitful, which is a shame.
Beyond its sensational news value, the discovery raises
provocative questions about whether musicians should be judged
for their politics and how forthcoming they should be expected to
be about their past.
Mehlman, who teaches French
literature and literary theory at Boston University, cites two
important pieces of recent research into the Vichy regime. First,
Munch (who spelled his name Münch during the war) performed
a government-commissioned cantata called "Sûryâ"
by a long-forgotten composer named Bachelet, himself a
collaborator. The text of "Sûryâ" is a poem
in the style of an Indian Veda, and its closing lines refer to
the Sun God who is seen as a protector of "peaceful"
and "pure-blooded races." As Mehlman points out, it's
impossible now (and would have been inconceivable then) not to
have seen this as an allegory of the relation between occupied
France and Nazi Germany.
The second is Munch's place on
one of the Vichy government's official music committees, all of
which were headed by the pianist Alfred Cortot, one of the
regime's most notorious collaborators. Mehlman reports that the
head of the subcommittee on orchestras and choruses was "Charles
Münch." This "would make Munch something of a
collaborator himself." The author goes on to argue that, in
this capacity, Munch "would have had to submit to the
authorities a list of Jews" in his orchestra. This would
have been an ironic act of moral compromise for a man who was
awarded the Legion d'Honneur in 1945.
Because even
appearing to be working in sympathy with the Third Reich is
potentially explosive, it's important to note that the charge
isn't that Munch was guilty of anti-Semitism, as an irate letter
to the "Globe" claimed. Nothing in Mehlman's article
supports the view that Munch actively supported the policies of
either the Nazis or the Vichy government. In fact, whether these
few documented activities really establish that Munch was a
collaborator is itself far from clear.
What is so
troubling about this case is the conductor's sense he was not
accountable to history. In his autobiography, Munch says little
about his wartime activities, only noting that, during the period
in question, his role "was to help saddened souls escape to
happier worlds" by conducting music with "an ardor that
was multiplied a thousandfold by the pain of seeing my country
gagged, enchained and murdered." Like most musicians at the
time, he believed deeply in music's power to be a mass anodyne,
untainted by politics.
But the idea that music, whatever
its legendary healing powers, could have functioned in such an
idealistic sense in the midst of a deeply victimized land is a
willful act of wishful thinking. So wishful is it, that it is
reasonable to conjecture that Munch's decision to conduct in
Paris and head a Cortot committee was not done out of naiveté,
but for the sake of his career. In his biography, Munch appears
to have substituted clear conviction for compromise. Either that
or he suffered from a befuddled memory.
Munch was far from
the only musician forced to confront the painful issues generated
by the intersection of music and politics. The most famous
instance is that of the German conductor Wilhelm Furtwängler,
whose case resembles Munch's in more ways than one. But a
distinction can certainly be made between Munch's case on the one
hand, and that of his compatriot Paul Paray, on the other. As
Mehlman points out, Paray, also a conductor, immediately resigned
an orchestra job when he was asked to submit a list of
"Israelite" musicians. A May 1942 concert he conducted
in Lyon became a show of Resistance force, with Paray ordering
the musicians to stand and play the Marseillaise.
Munch's
case is more vexing because the historical picture we have is
either indistinct or ambiguous. We want such figures to be either
heroes or villains, but Munch becomes neither, unless the ethical
dilemmas generated by the new issues are resolved. "The real
Charles Munch" disappears into the historical shadows - our
ability to judge is limited, and for many that is deeply
distressing.
This is why the recent activities of Daniel
Barenboim are pertinent. The Israeli-born conductor and pianist
is known for his outspoken criticism of Israel's Palestinian
policies. Recently, he played a piano recital in the town of
Ramallah, in the occupied West Bank, where he also listened to
young Palestinian musicians play. A few days later, Barenboim was
accosted by a group of Israelis from the right-wing Kach party,
who called him a traitor and demanded he be arrested and jailed
for traveling to the occupied territories.
While Barenboim
claims he went to Ramallah only as a musician, not a politician,
he clearly understood that playing the music of Beethoven in the
occupied territories carries deep political significance. About
the Palestinians who came to hear him play, he said to an Israeli
newspaper that, "some of them told me it was a good feeling
to meet someone who came from Israel, and what he brought with
him was music. I think that at least for a few minutes, I made a
contribution to lowering the level of hatred."
Barenboim
clearly understands music's power in the midst of social turmoil
and hatred and isn't afraid to stand squarely behind his views,
whatever others' opinions of them. Munch made himself into a
luminary in two very different worlds - those of wartime Paris
and postwar Boston. One wishes that Munch had left us with such
clearly drawn lines.
David
Weininger reviews classical music for WBUR, Boston's NPR news
station.
© Copyright 2002, WBUR
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this story to a friend
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´----------------------------------------------------
WHAT FOLLOWS ARE MY COMMENTS ABOUT THE WEININGER PIECE AND THE
MEHLMAN ARTICLE. ALSO, SOME OTHER MATERIAL INCLUDING
E-MAIL EXCHANGE BETWEEN ME AND MEHLMAN.
ELF (FOR
THE AMBASSADOR)
To:
kbia@kbia.org
From: elf
Subject: charles munch (nov
11)(weininger wbur)
Cc:
Bcc:
X-Attachments:
06dec02 copy of email to wbur, to kbia classical
06dec02 03:56 I wonder if Mehlman mentions the fact that Munch is
known to have given significant material help to the good guys,
including using his house for escape. One may wonder
how games Munch played made such exploits possible.
Or is Mehlman merely being snide as part of an image of
professional saint?
I am glad,
however, that you bring up the question of character in artists,
as I am especially interested in that as a philosophical-esthetic
matter. I refer you to Emerson´s essay
"Character". The art is the morality:
von Karajan is bombastic, Michelangelo fails in his
hyper-innocence (serving Vatican), Gesualdo´s music is nuts
altho gorgeous, Ormandy is velvety weakness, and how come
Velasquez is the greatest painter since the ancient Egyptians in
spite of working for the wicked king of Spain? The art is
the man (presuming technique).
But
the proof of the pudding depends on the eater: we the audience
must develop our capacity to suspend ambiguities, to see abstract
paradox, and perceive human character in works of art --- Charles
Munch is the alltime greatest conductor available recorded,
largely due to his heroic exaltation, which he may well owe to
his being able to incorporate the tragedies he witnessed and was
affected by personally. Munch exceeds all other conductors
in giving us nobility in tragedy --- how come?
I cannot convey my thoughts on these mysteries briefly, but am
continually discussing such issues on my own website:
themartianembassy.com, particularly in the section "Charles
Munch".
Do not delude the young and the
eager, Mr Mehlman.
p s: There is a
Louis de Funes movie doubtless built around Munch in WW2.
p p s: the umlaut appears on record jackets, as does the spelling
Muench (indeed, here in Norway, the name gets
mispronounced as moonk, like the name of the greatest painter
since
Velasquez).
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
-----------------------------------Friday, May 30, 2003
14:06
As expectable, ignorant Weininger, depending on Mehlman (AS HE
DOES THROUGHOUT), makes much of the "memoir" bit,
turning it into "biography" --- professors are supposed
to be wary of fools doing that, and carefully define, instead of
exploiting the infinite connotations of the vague.
THE MUNCH BOOK IS NOT, AND WAS NOT INTENDED TO BE, A
BIOGRAPHY OR MEMOIR ---IT IS MADE ABUNDANTLY CLEAR THROUGHOUT,
THAT IT IS A DESCRIPTION OF A PROFESSION, A GUIDEBOOK AND
MANUAL; AND THAT IS OBVIOUSLY HOW IT IS RECEIVED BY ALL THE
COMMENTERS ABOUT IT WE SEE, EXCEPT AMAZINGLY BLIND MEHLMAN
("There are none so blind as those who WILL not to
see").
THE FACT THAT MEHLMAN INSISTS ON CALLING IT A MEMOIR (AND
ACCORDINGLY "EVASIVE") PROVES MEHLMAN TO BE
FUNCTIONING IN PRECONCEPTIONS AND EGOCENTRIC CYNOSURISM ---
EVERYTHING CENTERS ON MEHLMAN´S WORLD. THAT IS THE
OPPOSITE OF SCHOLARSHIP.
It immediately puts Mehlman´s article in
doubt.
There is the nasty inference available that Mehlman knows better,
but tries to pull the wool over our eyes (the book being
out of print) so as slyly and falsely to convict Munch of
something, anything, to get him in the
wrong.
WHILE PRETENDING TO BE MERELY ASKING FRIENDLY
QUESTIONS.
---------------------------
The Munch book is: "I AM A
CONDUCTOR"
PUBLISHER: OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS, NEW
YORK 1955
TRANSLATED BY LEONARD BURKAT
LIB CONG # 55-7675
ORIGINAL PUBLISHER (FRENCH) EDITIONS DU
CONQUISTADOR, PARIS (1954? 55?)
"Je suis chef d´orchestre"
----------------
THE MEHLMAN ARTICLE: THE BOSTON/VICHY
CONNECTION
IN
"SALMAGUNDI" (A MAGAZINE)
Monday, June 16, 2003 12:24 am I find eventually three or
four magazines named "Salmagundi" (via web)
and the one in which the Mehlman article appears is from Skidmore
College:
Wednesday,
June 11, 2003 11:13 pm
Hello --- I would like to
know if your magazine "Salmagundi" is where appeared an
article by Jeffrey Mehlman, " The Boston/Vichy Connection",
some months ago. Is it? Thank you.
Friday,
June 13, 2003 2:39 pm
Date: Thu, 12 Jun 2003 15:31:10
-0400
Subject:
From: pboyers
<pboyers@skidmore.edu>
To:
X-MailScanner-Information:
Please contact the Helpdesk for more information
X-MailScanner:
Found to be clean
Dear,
Yes, this is where the Mehlman
article appeared. If you want that issue, send me your address
and credit card info and I'll charge you $10 .and mail the
issue.
All the best,
PB
-------------
Friday,
June 13, 2003 2:41 pm thank you --- can the article itself
be got by web? I ask because I will be discussing it on my
own website and will not have the article itself on my site, but
can people go to it by e g link? or, what?
ABOVE
SENT AT TIME ABOVE
Date: Fri, 13 Jun 2003
11:40:24 -0400
Subject: Re: Re:
From: pboyers
<pboyers@skidmore.edu>
To:
elf
X-MailScanner-Information: Please contact the Helpdesk for
more information
X-MailScanner: Found to be clean
I'm
sorry but we are so primitive,we still don't have a website
complete and running. But you can give your readers the
SALMAGUNDI e-mail address for them to place an order:
salmagun@skidmore.edu.
Thanks!
On Friday, June 13, 2003, at
08:48 AM, elf wrote:
Friday, June 13, 2003
2:41 pm thank you --- can the article itself be got by web?
I ask because I will be discussing it on my own website and
will not have the article itself on my site, but can people go to
it by e g link? or, what?
Dear,
Yes,
this is where the Mehlman article appeared. If you want that
issue, send me your address and credit card info and I'll charge
you $10 .and mail the issue.
All the
best,
PB
---------------------------------------------------
-----------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------------------
----------------------------------------------------------------
Wednesday, June 18, 2003 3:43 pm
I myself got the article from the author previously, by
asking him for it, as you see below --- but of course that is
hardly practicable generally.
---elf
-------------------------------------------------------------
Wednesday, June 18, 2003 3:46 pm As to
the Voisin bit, it recurs throughout here, but as a mere silly
wonderment --- it is absurd and irrelevant. There are
a few more conjectures as to how come the Voisin statement, etc,
but of no consequence in a serious discussion. I
refrain from including on web a wild conjecture by me as to why
Voisin may possibly have wished to be naughty (unlikely),
removing it from copy of a letter to Mehlman --- the place is
noted by: (web: I remove my conjecture about Voisin bit, elf).
--- elf
---------------------------------------------
Wednesday, June 18, 2003 4:13 pm
I first here present most of the e-mail correspondence for your
reference, followed by my remarks (very extended remarks).
In an e-mail, there is reference to a scan i sent Mehlman, which
is not put on web, but it is a page from the introduction by
Burkat in the Munch book, of which i urge everyone to urge e g
Penguin to offer a reprint! --- elf
-------------------
Date: Mon, 21 Apr 2003 08:19:48 -0400 (EDT)
From: Jeffrey
Mehlman
To: elf
cc:
Subject: Re: Mehlman/Charles
Munch
Dear,
I'll be happy to
send you a copy of my article, which you seem to
have only an
approximate idea of from various echoes on the WEB. My
position,
I think you'll see, is closer to yours than those who claim
I
have written a denunciation of Munch.
I'm extremely interested in what you say about Munch
having
rescued Jews during the war. Any evidence for this? I
note that there
is no mention of "actes de devouement ou
de sauvetage" in his post-war
Legion d'honneur file
(which, of course, is not proof of anything).
I wrote (a couple of years ago) out of (1) annoyance at
the
American journalistic cliche that the French had never
come to terms with
their Vichy past (whereas it has been a
national obsession for the last
thirty years) and (2) surprise
to see local Boston icon Munch popping up
with surprising
frequency in histories of Vichy (where he appears to have
been
something of a cultural superstar). My question, that is,
was: And
what about us Bostonians--and our Vichy past?
Having said that, I should add that there are questions to
be
raised about Munch's conduct during the war. But these you
will read about
in my article.
There is no
mention of Kurt Mazur in my article; it does, however,
appear
that Paul Paray cast aspersions on Munch's wartime career.
The Boston Globe coverage of my article began with a statement
by
Roger Voisin that Munch always insisted he had not
performed during the
war. If his memory is correct, Munch was
being more than evasive.
I too remember incredible performances--particularly a 'Daphnis
et
Chloe' at Tanglewood--under Munch, and say as much in my
piece.
Best,
Jeffrey Mehlman
On Sun, 20 Apr 2003, elf wrote:
>
200403 20:40 to:Professor Jeffrey Mehlman
>
Boston University email:
>
Sunday, April 20, 2003 5:49 pm
> I would like
to get a copy of your article about Charles Munch, in
>
Salmagundi; and any other relevant comments. Thank you.
>
I am a Jew residing in Oslo for 30 years, but grew up in Boston
and
> graduated Brandeis in 1958, and spent some months in
Israel from
> September 1967 til March 1968. I have many
cousins in Israel.
> I attended
many concerts of Boston Symphony Orchestra conducted by
>
Charles Munch, and am a strong admirer of his work. I have a
section
> of my website to discuss his greatness.
>
(themartianembassy.com)(section: Charles Munch)
>
Politically and morally, I am under the impression that Charles
>
Munch aided many Jews in escaping Hitler, partly by using his
mansion
> in the country-side as transit; and that he aided
Jews in France in
> other ways.
> I
am annoyed to get only parts of your article via NPR, WBUR,
(via
> web) as they do not allow for strict analysis of
whatever you are
> actually getting at (also mentioned in
Boston Globe, I gather from
> RedLudwig.com musicnews), and
leave the impression in the public that
> Charles Munch is
being witch-hunted.
> Indeed, the
reporter for WBUR, having cast aspersions, leaves them
> up
in the air so as to use them to discuss the vexed question of
what
> is the proper conduct of a genius amid sharks etc
--- as if the
> allegations of misconduct are casually
accepted. Rather like assuming
> you are a witch so we can
ask if witches should fly.
>
My interest is beyond my admiration of Charles Munch generally,
>
and is part of my abiding interest in matters political, moral,
and
> historic. I also am embarrassed when I feel
that my fellow Jews
> become rabid in promoting the cause
of Jews as victims, as it damages
> our credibility.
Makes us look like the classic Alabama sheriff who
> takes
every opportunity to lash out at imagined enemies.
>
Based on the two examples from your Salmagundi article as
>
transmitted by the WBUR reporter, you complain that Charles
Munch
> assisted an eminent pianist friend (Cortot) in
sorting some
> information useful to the Nazis --- I would
like to know more about
> that, but it seems to me that if
I were in the position of Charles
> Munch at that juncture,
I would have to make tactical decisions, as
> to how best
to help against Hitler, and having an inside track would
>
be useful in that.
> As to your objecting
to Charles Munch performing music (then)
> conveying a
sense of Vedic power myth, that seems a silly quibble ---
>
if you are at all acquainted with classical music, you can put
that
> in the perspective it deserves, with an awareness of
how such music
> is listened to. Again, however, one
should also ask oneself what
> tactics would be helpful in
strengthening one¥s ability to do real
> good.
After all, generals sacrifice troops, etc.
>
The comparison to another conductor (Kurt Mazur), who refused
to
> perform something (then) is indeed fatuous, as no one
(then or now)
> would equate their stature as artists!
(Although let it be said that
> Mazur was important
politically at Dresden when Berlin wall was about
> to
fall) The performances by Charles Munch (then) surely had an
>
uplifting effect upon the morale of the patriotic anti-Nazi
French
> --- it is my impression that this has been more
than amply confirmed
> by them.
>
By the way,there is a spoof film featuring Luis de Funes as a
>
similar conductor.
> Please do
enable me to get a copy of your article --- I do not see
>
it on web.
> Thanks,
>
>
>
Date:
Tue, 22 Apr 2003 16:47:20 -0400 (EDT)
From: Jeffrey
Mehlman
To: elf
cc:
Subject: Re: Charles Munch
All
this is quite interesting. Will send my piece by air
mail.
Voisin's statement came this fall in response from a
query from Boston
Globe columnist Alex Beam. Totally
incomprehensible since Munch's concerts
were well known.
(I believe there's a reference to them in a Simone de
Beauvoir
memoir).
There was a letter defending Munch (or attacking
me) in the Globe that
came from an intimate of the conductor,
but nothing she said (e.g., about
postwar concerts in Israel)
cast much light on his wartime activities. I
would have
expected her to report on actual wartime deeds (of valor) if
she
wanted to make her case convincingly.
Have read the Munch
memoir in French and was struck by how evasive he is
on the
subject of both World Wars. Reading it, for instance, one would
not
have realized that he was in the German army in World War
I...
Best,
J. Mehlman
On Tue, 22 Apr 2003, elf
wrote:
> Tuesday, April 22, 2003 3:02
am
> Dear Professor Mehlman,
>
Thank you very much for your kind and prompt answer; I look
>
forward to receiving a copy of your article (do you mean by
email?).
>
It seems we (and Munch) are victims of journalist vultures
posing
> as wise owls.
> I must
immediately by the way mention my error: The WBUR
reporter
> (David Weininger) cited your mention of Paray
(not Mazur --- my
> error); and I compounded my error with
reference to Dresden, instead
> of Leipzig (Mazur when
Berlin Wall came down).
> Anyway, I
found the reference to Munch helping Jews, in the
>
introduction by Leonard Burkat to the 1955 Oxford (New York)
edition
> of Munch¥s book "I Am A Conductor",
pages xxvii,xxviii. In a couple
> of days I will
visit my friend who has a scanner and send these pages
> to
you (if it fails, please do not hesitate to ask me to type it
out,
> which I would be glad to do). Burkat does not,
however, document the
> claim.
>
I hope you have read Munch¥s book, as it is a great work in
its
> own right, as well as a resource in your field.
(Copies are available
> on the net, and probably in BU
library)
> (The original French edition (which alas I lost
many years ago) of
> course does not have Burkat,
tho.)
> I drool over dissecting
Weininger¥s article, which experiment may
> be amusing
all ¥round. What is one to do with the following
mess?:
> (websites wbur etc npr)
>
>
>
What is so troubling about this case is the conductor's sense he
was
> not accountable to history. In his autobiography,
Munch says little
> about his wartime activities, only
noting that, during the period in
> question, his role "was
to help saddened souls escape to happier
> worlds" by
conducting music with "an ardor that was multiplied a
>
thousandfold by the pain of seeing my country gagged, enchained
and
> murdered." Like most musicians at the time, he
believed deeply in
> music's power to be a mass anodyne,
untainted by politics.
>
> But the idea that music,
whatever its legendary healing powers, could
> have
functioned in such an idealistic sense in the midst of a deeply
>
victimized land is a willful act of wishful thinking. So wishful
is
> it, that it is reasonable to conjecture that Munch's
decision to
> conduct in Paris and head a Cortot committee
was not done out of
> naivetÈ, but for the sake of
his career. In his biography, Munch
> appears to have
substituted clear conviction for compromise. Either
> that
or he suffered from a befuddled memory.
>
>
>
>
I will refrain from comment just now.
>
>
The statement by Voisin is incomprehensible.
>
Was Munch alive when Voisin said that? If so, was it
checked with Munch?
> Surely
there are concert records to check. Not to mention
audiences.
> How would Munch have been
as you say "something of a superstar"
> in
Vichy France if he did not perform during the war?
>
And what could be the meaning of Munch¥s remarks cited
(above) by
> Weininger?!
>
Now I go out on a limb: (web: I remove
my conjecture about Voisin bit, elf).
>
In the meantime, the irresponsibility of what we
euphemistically
> call journalists is disgusting, and as
Charles Munch is now among the
> real angels, it is
yourself who is the prominent victim here. Have
> you
seen this: (in website RedLudvig Music News)
>
>
>
ARTICLE CLAIMS MUNCH WAS NAZI COLLABORATOR
>
>
Charles Munch was conductor of the Paris Conservatory orchestra
>
during the Nazi Occupation
>
>
> Famed
conductor Charles Munch, who received France's Legion of Honor
>
in 1945 for his contributions to the culture of his adopted
country,
> may have also contributed to the cultural life
of Nazi-occupied
> France.
>
> According to a
report in the Boston Globe a recently published
> scholarly
piece by Boston University professor Jeffrey Mehlman
>
asserts that Munch was a star of Paris' cultural scene during
the
> Occupation and that he collaborated with the
Nazi-controlled Vichy
> regime in unoccupied France.
>
>
Munch was the conductor of the Paris Conservatory orchestra
during
> the Occupation and, after the war, became famous
as the music
> director of the Boston Symphony Orchestra
from 1949 to 1962.
>
> 23 September 2002 - RW
Deutsch
>
>
>
I look forward to reading your real article, with a view to
>
defending it in the court of sophomore opinion --- as I really
care
> about Charles Munch, this is right up my alley, and
I hope to be of
> service to you and your interests.
>
If you are wondering how come these ghouls gleefully fall upon
>
your article to distort it, I mention that while Munch was
conductor
> of BSO, he was target of resentment in the
dimension of France vs
> Germany, post-war: Munch was
the embodiment of what is not "Germans
> At Meat"
(famous anti- German short story (by Katherine
>
Mansfield?)(or was it by Kurt Mazur?)).
>
The "let´s all love the noble French" attitude
was quietly snarled
> at by the American Teutonophiles, who
were quite sure that after the
> hiccup of Hitlerism, the
superiority of Germanic culture would soon
> rise from the
ashes of the Holocaust, and Nazi Party member Von
> Karajan
(who said "A conductor will do anything so as to be able
to
> conduct") would be acknowledged as the
incarnation of the pure spirit
> of Beethoven. How
comforting to now have Munch to roast.
>
I stop my ecstatic letter with the execrable music critic of NY
>
Times, Harold Schoenberg, who was blatantly anti-Munch, and
smugly
> cited his own amazing boorish questioning of
Munch, to the effect,
> how come you think you can conduct
Beethoven, as you are not German?
>
>
Enthusiastically,
>
Elf
Date: Sat, 10 May 2003 09:59:24 -0400
(EDT)
From: Jeffrey Mehlman
To: elf
cc:
Subject: Re:
message & Fwd: S&T's Weekly News Bulletin for May 9
Dear
elf,
I sent you the article about a week ago. Have been
too busy with
final exams, etc., to respond to the interesting
pages you sent me from
the preface to the American edition of
the Munch book. Is their author
still alive?
--J. Mehlman
On
Sat, 10 May 2003, elf wrote:
>
100503 06:17 Hello, I am still eagerly awaiting your
article
> --- i will immediately inform you when it gets
here and then study it.
> This is a news
service I highly recommend, especially this week.
elf
> >From: bulletins@SkyandTelescope.com
>
>=======================================================================
>
X-Sender:
Date: Tue, 13 May 2003 13:04:39 -0700
To:
elf
From: Jeffrey Mehlman
Subject: Re: article
arrived!
Cc:
Dear Elf,
I like your latest take on Voisin, which appeals to the
(would-be) novelist in me. And, of course, I await your
reading...
As for me, I am
beginning to regret not knowing these references to saving Jews
during the Occupation. I am struck though that they appear to be
part of the American (rather than the French) "legend"--in
the noble sense--of Munch. It turns out, by the way, that Munch,
contrary to the official version, was appointed to the Legion
d'honneur before the War and merely promoted a notch in
1945--with the mention "actes de sauvetage and dévouement"
left blank. But I think I already mentioned this in an earlier
e-mail.
I await your response.
Yours sincerely,
Jeffrey Mehlman
130503 17:40 Hello, Dr
Mehlman --- I am truly delighted --- your article arrived, and I
will immerse my mind in it with all deliberate speed and joy!
Of course I will promptly report back to you.
By the way, here
is my latest conjecture about Roger Voisin´s
statement:
Monday, May 12, 2003 22:54
About Voisin: Not having details, I wonder:
Maybe Voisin volunteered the remark on his own initiative to be
helpful to Munch´s reputation during the furor --- or maybe
it was during an interview, or in answer to a journalist question
--- perhaps simply letting the chips fall where they may
--- but i guess Voisin (being French) assumed that "the war"
refers to the period before the occupation --- and after the
wrong unreasonable inference was drawn by some people, that Munch
was embarrassed at having conducted during the occupation,
elderly Voisin had neither energy nor inclination to engage in
argument with mere silly journalists. In other words,
Voisin´s effort on behalf of Munch may have been confused
in the minds of some, with an intention (wrongly imagined by
them) of Munch himself.
Elf
--
Date:
Thu, 15 May 2003 20:23:17 -0400 (EDT)
From: Jeffrey
Mehlman
To: elf
cc:
Subject: Re: collaborationist
Dear
Elf,
There were numerous shades
of collaborationism (as of resistance)
and enough time during
the war for any individual to hold several
successive
positions. (Things are further complicated by the fact that
the
French government claimed it was no longer at war...)
Petain in the fall
of 1940 claimed to have entered the "path
of collaboration" with
Germany--which did not lead to
America's withdrawal of its ambassador.
Presumably, Munch had
some sense of what the word meant when he conducted
the gala
oratorio of the honorary president of the "Groupe
Collaboration"
(Bachelet) that I refer to.
All in all, my sense is that Munch--with AND without
the
umlaut--was so profoundly Franco-German that some measure
of
"collaborationism" may have been a sine qua non
of his mental sanity. My
friend the critic Christopher Ricks
wrote me that he found my piece
convincing above all in my
"refusal to press charges." I hope the
shrewdness of
that judgement is apparent to you.
Yours,
Jeffrey Mehlman
On
Wed, 14 May 2003, elf wrote:
> 140503 08:56
Hello, Dr Mehlman ---
> I have read your article and ask
you to clearly define
> collaborationist. as I
understand it, it is: one who assists an
> occupying
enemy¥s war effort. ( the difference between that and
>
traitor being focus: the latter opposes (turns against) his own
side)
> Is that what you mean, that Munch assisted the nazi
war effort?
> Elf
>
>
--------------
Date: Sat, 17 May 2003 07:55:26 -0400
(EDT)
From: Jeffrey Mehlman
To: elf
cc:
Subject: Re:
delay
Thank you, Elf.
On Fri, 16 May 2003, elf
wrote:
> Friday, May 16, 2003 5:24
pm
> After all these years I again find
myself apologizing to a
> professor for the lateness of my
report. But I assure you that I am
> eagerly
beavering away at the task. Your paper fascinates me in many
>
ways. Charles Munch is one of my prime gurus. Your
approach is
> Bostonian and Jewish and psychological and
you are an admirer of
> Munch¥s work, all similar to
myself. I really want to "get it
> right",
and the article is pregnant with manifold implications,
>
including a matter of particular interest to me, i e, what is
the
> meaning of the keystone word "collaboration"
(with its variants,
> collaborationist, ism, collaborate,
whatever).
> A preoccupation of mine is
the inarticulateness of many important
> words. What
do they really mean? I will not take up your valuable
>
time discussing this subject at length, but I am committed to
clarity
> as to what is the actual meaning of e g
"collaborate" etc. I have
> to work
this out to my own satisfaction, as a philosopher. I find
>
that when one understands the question the answer appears.
So please
> bear with me --- I assure you of my persistent
labors at the
> fascinating problems you include in the few
pages of your article. I
> of course do not want to
presume to keep asking you questions, so I
> must
hypothesize answers, and consider implications --- which is
>
naturally the task of the reader who thinks.
>
Best Wishes,
>
Elf
>
>
>
Date: Mon, 2 Jun 2003 12:06:35
-0400 (EDT)
From: Jeffrey Mehlman
To: elf
cc:
Subject:
Re: permission
Dear Elf,
Sorry not to have gotten back
to you sooner. I've been plagued by
deadlines of all
sorts.
All things
considered, and because your website is, I take it, by
definition
so much a party to the issues discussed in my article, I think
it
better that my piece not appear there.
Regards,
Jeffrey mehlman
On
Sun, 1 Jun 2003, elf wrote:
> Sunday, June 1, 2003
10:39 pm
> Dr Mehlman
---
> I have almost completed my cogitations apropos your
article about
> Charles Munch, and wonder if it would
be alright to put your article
> on my website -- may I?
Do I need permission from Salmagundi?
>
Elf
> --------------------
160503 04:01
Dear Professor Mehlman ---
Thank you
for your reply to my question, as to meaning of
"collaborator".
By "not press
charges" I figure is meant to leave it at that, that is that
you do not blame Munch or figuratively indict him for being in
fact a collaborator, since there are extenuating psychological
circumstances that free him of the sense of actually dedicating
himself to the wrong side. Something like that.
Is that it?
Anyway,
I am devoting lots of time and energy to consideration of your
article, and will need some days to plow through all my
wonderings.
Ah... your remark is not quite clear as to
reference: which judgment? yours or Ricks´? (" I hope
the shrewdness of that judgement is apparent to you.")
As to: " Petain in the fall of 1940
claimed to have entered the "path of collaboration"
with Germany--which did not lead to America's withdrawal of its
ambassador." --- Are you suggesting that it should have?
Why? Roosevelt was anything but visceral in his responses
to events, and with genius (but not always) exploited even
setbacks (and until Pearl Harbor he had one prime goal, to get
USA into the war) --- poor Hitler was up against not only the
arch Machiavell Stalin, and the devious Churchill, but also the
most inspired political manipulator imaginable, or, beyond.
When we try to understand what such people are doing, we should
remember the wise words of the famous Swedish philosopher, Bjørn
Borg, (I paraphrase) "Professional tennis is nothing like
amateur tennis". By the way, later on, Roosevelt had
to deal with the Vichy types in North Africa; but it is
said he wrong-footed it as to an important appointment
after USA landings ...
By the
way, I got that vexed quote of Voisin:
THE REAL CHARLES
MUNCH?
Published on September 19, 2002
Author(s):
ALEX BEAM
The unflattering observation
has been made that in post- World War II France, almost everyone
claimed to have been working for the Resistance. One such person
was Charles Munch, the distinguished conductor of the Boston
Symphony Orchestra from 1949 to 1962. "He told me that
during the war he was in the Resistance movement," recalls
Roger Voisin, who played trumpet for Munch's entire BSO career.
"He did not conduct during the [German] occupation of Paris,
he was very clear
Click
for complete article (766
words)
Ah well --- curiouser
and curiouser, what?
n b --- ABOVE LETTER WAS SENT,
Elf
To:
From:
elf
Subject: Charles Munch
Cc:
Bcc:
X-Attachments:
230403
0109
Tuesday, April 22, 2003 11:04 pm
Hello again,
thanks for note. I eagerly look forward to receiving your
article by airmail! I will send that scanned reference
(Burkat) in a few days.
Considering that a great
violinist (Heifetz?!) was in those days physically attacked in
Israel for performing something felt not anti-Nazi, the lady you
mention may have meant to imply that had Munch not been squeaky
clean he would not have been safe in Israel.
As I
gather, Munch was gassed at Verdun, and was a machine gunner (but
I do not remember the source)(Burkat?) --- you use the word
"memoir" --- are you referring to something different
from "I Am A Conductor"? --- I do not know why
Weininger uses the words "autobiography" and
"biography" --- "I Am A Conductor" is not any
of those, (memoir, autobiography, biography) it is a presentation
of Munch´s notion of what it is for him to be a great
conductor. I recall complaints about the autobiography of the
great writer Paul Bowles, that he did not give an adequate
accounting of his life --- but I myself do not care, in such
writings to be told "I was born on June 8, 1936, in a suburb
of Boston..."
Of course, Munch´s book had a
publisher and editor...
And, the war being over, one hardly
expects a mea culpa from one starting on a new grand phase of his
life, including responsibility to many other actual specific
persons, not to mention posterity in general --- which is not to
say that I do not regret the absence of a detailed biography of
Munch, done with a detachment worthy of his greatness (I
emphasize my prejudice, that in my opinion Charles Munch is far
and away the greatest conductor on records).
I
try to imagine the task of dealing with knowing that one is of
immortal importance (a task not burdening Paul Paray), and in an
age when recordings make one´s art available to posterity,
in a field always in the past ephemeral. Munch´s
contribution to the status of France as culture, is monumental.
I personally live in the works of the great artists in my life,
like Edgar Poe (since I was 8 years old, my guiding light)(by the
way, Ravel said, "As to composition my master has certainly
been Edgar Poe"), Charles Munch, Akira Kurosawa, Edvard
Munch, Paul Bowles.
The great composers,
painters, writers, from time immemorial are alive in us now and
in our descendants.
Of course, my attitude is
integral with the lesson of Passover, "When we were slaves
in Egypt" --- the long droning of elders chanting the
Talmudic arguments, and the honor of knowing my relatives wrote
the most admired book ever.
I feel together with my ancestors genetic and cultural, and my
gratitude to e g Charles Munch gives my life meaning and purpose
--- art is integral with what I share with loved ones, and hope
they share with others.
There is the well known quote, "To have been an Ancient
Greek, to have been an Athenian, to have been an Athenian in the
time of Pericles!".
For me it was to have
been at Munch´s concerts with BSO.
A critic
I agree with likened it to The Parthenon.
Of course I
am bitter at the deaths of innumerable greats, among the
multitudes of martyrs, and am grateful that some have survived to
give me personally what I personally need in my own
selfishness.
But life is war --- art is war
without blood (although artists bleed and die).
So the art of Charles Munch is integral with his personal
character, and indeed his character is what he gives us: at
the level of the top artists, the summits are character, in the
Emersonian sense. Beyond dexterity and the special skills,
is the massive humanity of artists who KNOW (not know of, or
about) what Puccini´s women experience (thus my favorite
opera singer is not the stunted Callas, it is the woman Magda
Olivero).
In the conducting of Charles Munch I
myself personally float in a sky of NOBILITY --- he could not
fool me, it would be impossible.
Virtue is its
own reward in the arts when greatness is involved. So
Picasso is paltry compared to Edvard Munch.
And
the performances of Von Karajan are obviously of low
character.
How do I know? --- it is my gift, and
I have been working at this talent to know art and character
since early childhood.
Indeed it is unfortunate
that social scientists without art pontificate about art in
society, but are like Voltaire´s blind men at the art
gallery.
I am skeptical of the little I so far know of theories loosely
called Post Modern, and look forward to being able to analyze
Deconstruction etc. But there are many dimensions to art.
What Charles Munch gives to us and to the composers is a
compassion inconsistent with collaborationism.
So my prejudice when I get your article will be to interpret it
in a Clausewitzian/Macchiavellian light, imagining a real person
in a whirl of horror , making decisions and acting in ways
perhaps seemingly paradoxical, but wise in the wisdom of the true
guru in action, loyal to his art in the experiment of real
war.
Besides, Charles Munch seems to have
impressed people on all sides in WW2 France with that eagle
nobility even enemies respect, and which conferred upon him a
responsibility to do good, like doing whatever was possible,
later in Boston, with the greatest orchestra in the world.
His performances were DARING.
I expect to find
confirmed in your article my assumption that in WW2 he sharpened
his daring.
Wow! This is
fun!!
Elf
n b --- ABOVE LETTER
WAS SENT, Elf
To:
From:
elf
Subject: Fwd: Munch
Cc:
Bcc:
X-Attachments:
:gook:612566:page_a.jpg: :gook:612566:page_b.jpg:
270403
0252 hello, again --- here is the scan i promised --- if
problem transmission, tell me and i will triumph over the
adversity --- elf
270403
0337 hello --- here is an item of indirect
relevance. Her brother was killed by Germans (he in
French Resistance) (i do not remember reference (perhaps program
notes?))elf
Nicole Henriot-Schweitzer en 1968
( coll.
Schweitzer-Henriot )
" Est-il
possible d'être aussi douée pour le piano ?
Nicole Henriot joue de son instrument comme un enfant avec son
ballon ! " Ainsi parlait Hélène
Jourdan-Morhange dans Le Guide du concert, commentant un
récital de la pianiste, donné à la Salle
Pleyel le 14 octobre 1957. Dans la nuit du 3 au 4 février
2001, Nicole HENRIOT-SCHWEITZER s'est éteinte à
son domicile de Louveciennes (Yvelines). Elle était âgée
de 75 ans. Fille d'Emile Henriot et de Françoise Riché,
nièce par alliance des chefs d'orchestre Fritz et Charles
Münch, elle naquit à Paris, le 25 novembre 1925. Ses
études musicales effectuées dans la classe de
Marguerite Long au CNSM furent couronnées par 1er Prix de
piano en 1938 ; elle n'avait que 13 ans ! L'année
suivante, elle remportait le Concours Fauré à
Luxembourg et dès la fin de la guerre une brillante
carrière s'ouvrait à elle. On la verra se produire
sur tous les continents. Son oncle Charles Münch, avec le
Boston Symphony Orchestra en fit sa pianiste favorite, puis,
lorsqu'il créa en France (1967) l'Orchestre de Paris, la
prit comme soliste. Parmi ses nombreuses créations, on lui
doit en 1953 la Suite concertante de Milhaud. Au début
des années 70, elle se lança avec succès
dans l'enseignement du piano, tout d'abord au Conservatoire de
Liège, puis à celui de Bruxelles. Alexander
Gurning, Thérèse Malengreau et Jean de
Saint-Guilhem, parmi tant d'autres de ses élèves,
ont bénéficié de ses conseils qui leur ont
permis notamment d'acquérir beaucoup d'aisance et
d'intelligence musicale.
Nicole
Henriot avait épousé à New-York en 1958 le
vice-amiral d'escadre Jean-Jacques Schweitzer (1920-1993). Ancien
major général de la marine, celui-ci était
un neveu du théologien, médecin missionnaire et
organiste Albert Schweitzer, et l'oncle de Louis Schweitzer (né
en 1942), directeur de Renault...
from: (Google)
Obituaires de décembre 2000 à juin 2001
- [ Translate this page
]
... et Memoria - Notices nécrologiques d'Oleg
PODGORNY - Michel DENS - Pierre FIRMIN-DIDOT
- André
PREVOST - Pierre DENIS - Nicole HENRIOT-SCHWEITZER -
Iannis ...
musicaetmemoria.ovh.org/obi-1200-0601.htm
- 55k - Cached
- Similar
pages
Dear
Professor Mehlman:
Sorry to bother you again, but I have been looking at the USA
edition of Munch´s book, and the two passages you quote are
not identical with what I find there, this doubtless due to your
translating them yourself from the French. Or is the
French edition different from both your translation and
Burkat´s? Also, in his Preface, John N Burk
calls the book "Je suis chef dórchestre"
(and Honneger´s book "Je suis compositeur")
i e, without "un". Comments?
(Indeed, it is too bad that the book in French and American is
not reprinted, and widely available!)
Burkat:
p20 "After four years far from music the best
situation I could find was an extremely modest one with the Rhine
and Moselle Insurance
Company."
p25 " During the four terrible
years of German Occupation my role was to help saddened souls
escape to happier worlds. I worked at it with an
ardor that was multiplied a thousandfold by the pain of seeing my
country gagged, enchained, and murdered. No material
force could ever break the heart of
music."
Anyway, as long as I am here, would you perhaps share with me
something about your listening experience of Munch?
You e g mention in an e-mail to me, "Daphnis and
Chloe" meaning a suite, or complete? --- I ask
because I recently got from Amazon the complete (Munch/BSO), and
I recommend it as one of the all-time great
recordings.
And, does anyone know what is meant by "brief"
(Munch on Cortot Committee), or when?
Thanks yet
again---
Elf
Saturday, May 24, 2003 15:05 (Monday, May 26, 2003
3:36 pm)
---------------------
Did C M join a Nazi party? Did he make speeches in favor of
Hitler? Did he show in any way that he wanted Germany to
win the war?
-------
--------
But it seems to me, that
collaborationism included the meaning, to the French
patriot: what failed to support French national morale. Charles
Munch was a manifest pillar of French National Morale --- perhaps
you would like to examine what that means, in terms of political
theory. Of course, the big joke after Pearl Harbor was that the
1000 Year Reich had become the 1000 Days Left
Reich.
---------
Classical music is
full of phrases as absurd as the pseudo Vedic crap you refer to,
and conductors do not have the job of censor --- Charles Munch
was at that point a priest of music, and it was his job to play
well. Your attitude smacks of the
Jew-as-center-of-all-morality crap you abjure in your opening
pages. By the way what was the Landowski piece Munch
conducted at the Vichy festival? Why would anyone
refuse to conduct the Bachelet piece? What is wrong
with performing Wagner? Or both together? Of 27
references to C M in the Chimenes book it seems you found
precious little to exploit. And Chimenes does not mention
Fumenes.
--------
Thursday, May 15,
2003 9:26 am---
Your article seems best to
respond, not to normal analysis, but rather to psychoanalysis.
I keep saying, as I read through, "so what", and "no,
what crap is this?" --- then we get your profile of Munch´s
psychology and your hope in conclusion, that it is integral with
the power of his performances, of which you are a fan. But
your psychological profile of Charles Munch is really the cat
talking about the queen --- what the f--- do you know about
it?! And your premises are absurd. You
evidently have swallowed psychological analyses of artists
based upon one parent being from Chicago and the other from New
Orleans, gee. So, what the article is actually
telling the discerning reader, is that Jeffery Mehlman is moved
by the performances of Charles Munch, but is conflicted, lest he
discover himself (nice Jewish boy that he is) to be enraptured by
an imagined to be possible collaborator in WW2 anti-Jewish
racism. It is Jeffrey himself who is conflicted, and
projects the saving bewilderment onto his culture hero, excusing
both of them, while cleaning the slate publicly so he can
continue to openly enjoy the music, and identify with the great
man, unhindered by loyalty to Jewishness (as he conceives
Jewishness to be)(I myself am a bad Jewish boy). Ah, yes, and to
present to the world his own poignant artistic awareness.
All Mehlman´s crap being regardless of the vague
incompleteness of his factual basis; as if, let´s say Munch
is guilty, so we can discuss his psychology.
Coincidentally, the technical term for Mehlman´s
ailment resembles the name Munch --- i e, Munchausen by Proxy,
subclass Professor. Is Munchausen spelled with an umlaut?
--- do you care? By the way, Germans still call the
great composer Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdi. Maybe
Mehlman does not understand the difference between conflict and
paradox. Or perhaps he is afraid that in himself is
growing a sense of large history. Which of course
Charles Munch was born with. I myself of course am
not a cat.
------
Is Mehlman willy nilly an academic agent provocateur, part of the
racket that keeps the ball rolling so professors can support
themselves by arguing silly notions? Anyway, the word
"collaborate" leaves much to be desired; it starts out
innocently and then becomes terribly stigmatizing.
Moss Hart (a Jewish playright) collaborated with Jewish George S
Kauffman (sp?) for the purpose of writing Broadway plays --- no
they did not go to Marseille to get support from Petain.
Moss Hart promoted the appointment of Charles Munch to BSO,
probably because Moss Hart was a collaborator. Did
Monteux and Koussevitsky collaborate (although Jews themselves)
to put Munch at BSO? Mehlman should by the way
explain how come he infers Koussevitsky (French) did not continue
Monteux´s policy of promoting French music (I however do
not know whether S K did or not).
The word
collaborationist has become sanctimonious: what actually
does it mean? There are too many of such blanket
words of approbrium. There is a difference between calling
someone a flasher and calling him/her an exibitionist (not to be
confused with a person who produces, or studies, exhibitions).
And, indeed, what is a racist? An epigraphist is one who
studies writings on the outsides of ancient tombs --- a
specialist archaeologist; so why is not a racist one who studies
race? But of course a person engaged in such work would
particularly eschew a nomenclature that would get him branded
along with Malosevich (sp?).
As long as
collaborationist means everything you please, we are
witch-hunting; for what actually is a witch? I read Cotton
Mather´s report of a Salem witch trial, and am struck by
its similarity to modern trials --- the only difference is we
simply do not believe in witches. The King James Bible says
"Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live". But what
was a witch when the Bible was written? Today a witch
collects mushrooms.
---------------
Thursday, May 15, 2003 7:23 pm
Side comments:
I do not know how you can call Je Suis Chef dÓrchestre
(I remember it, perhaps in error, without "un") a
"memoir"! I met a decade ago here an NYC
conductor who said it was his bible --- obviously to anyone of
music awareness, it is not a memoir in the American language use
of that word. ah well.
The crap about
the umlaut is so sophomoric I could puke. (p 216:
"...a dilemma encapsulated in the twin spellings of his
name, exquisite in its ramifications."
(Mehlman refering to with or without umlaut (Munch,
Münch)(French, German))
Mehlman`s
ability to discern psychological factors is seen by me to be
(throughout the article) pathetic, in the pejorative sense. "The
great thing is to distinguish", as Fowler said, discussing
the split infinitive. For example, how do you get from
Munch´s statement cited on page 216 to your (p 217)
"apolitical"?! (Munch: "My role at the
time consisted in enabling a kind of mental escape toward more
felicitous worlds.")
All art is political.
I
guess Mehlman has not read Clausewitz ("On War") --- Or
in any way prepared himself to deal with the subject he
attempts. The idea of making decisions in war is stunningly
beyond him. What did he learn from the many survivors he
studied?!
But he should be able to discipline himself
in logical consistency and the art of being reasonably mature.
No wonder people get upset by such an article; but most people do
not have the analytic tools I have, and stew in their rage.
For them I feel truly deep sympathy. To me Mehlman is a
jerk who chooses not to think, and rather, to fake. He
seems to be a very charming fellow, perhaps a Pisces. But
not deserving of sympathy.
And we have the nasty
implication (page 223) that as USA allowed Klaus Barbie (a real
monster) it would be expected to allow Munch, including Mehlman`s
pretense that in Munch there was something to let pass unnoticed
--- dazzling smear! Last line of page 222 compares with
most of page 223 to show Mehlman cramming into his last two pages
self-contadictory absurdities, to cap his bizarre psychological
profile for a dramatic conclusion that if it were music would
sound like an alley full of rabid dogs.
The more I distill the article the more it shrinks to fetid
ashes.
I had been at first reading regretful
that it was deficient; now I am gleeful at shredding the
author, and have no concern for his feelings.
Thursday,
May 15, 2003 5:43 pm from Elf :
My dear Professor Mehlman --- The good news is I am delighted by
your lavish praise of Charles Munch, and that of Munch by others
you refer to.
But my hopes on the basis of our
pleasant correspondence that your article would be as good as I
wished were dashed when I read it.
I am truly
sorry to report my dismay.
I do not want to play
games with you about it, and I have to assume you will survive my
attack.
Having anguished about how to approach
this, I offer myself the consolation that the article would be
alright if its subject were an abstract theory in astronomy,
about which scholars could properly ramble in the customary
cavalier fashion of academics --- the only problem being that
here we have to deal with the actual reputation of an actual
human person, although he presumably does not care at this point,
although others do.
Of course I am hostile that you
have initiated the furor which has antagonized me lo these
several months, having encountered it via web on the site of WBUR
in, as I recall, November(?) --- but I had the intervening Iraq
war to amuse me.
I feel sorry for the many others
you doubtless have caused distress, by your irresponsible and
unscholarly mess. I suggest you publish a mea culpa ---I
hope the article is anomalous and the worst thing you ever wrote
and that you will never do it again --- I suggest you
publish a mea culpa.
-------- Here, with all
due respect, are some of my thoughts:
--------
First I am amused by your witty presentation of antiantianti,
then comes the umlaut game, and the Vedic & Vichy
performances (you question 2 performances, in all the years of
the Occupation), which are bagatelles --- but, no, you blow them
up out of all proportion, tossing in irrelevant guilt- by-
association through the discussion of Wagner by others over the
years --- then the Paray crap (can Paray´s accusations be
got hold of?) and the Cortot committee vagueness --- eventually
you fall back on perverse quackery to say that even if we cannot
prove Munch a collaborator, let´s call him guilty due to
your profile (I mention that my major at college was psychology,
and I have always been a psychologist-philosopher), which profile
itself is illogical, unreasonable and perverse, so I ask myself
are you more like Cotton Mather or Joseph McCarthy ,
especially when you with breathtaking cavalier presumption say,
"At some point the defense may be legitimately raised that
feigned collaboration was the subtlest ruse of resistance.
But that argument has generally had the disadvantage of making
French national honor a function of French hypocrisy.".
You include incomplete sloppy references (did CIA money go to
Munch personally or/and BSO?) and sloppy illogic (your double
contention that Munch got a free pass, and that due to scarcity
of conductors, whereas I do not accept that he needed any blind
eye; but scarcity would not have mattered anyway, as he was the
king-pin, and the cynosure, as you emphasize). WHAT
DAMMIT IS THE ARTICLE ABOUT?! And MY enjoyment of Munch
performances is not polluted by what you ascribe to your
own.
Why "briefly" the Cortot
committee? Did C M call Cortot, "Dear Alfie"?
and do you not say the Jews had already been purged from
Conservatory (before C M headed committee)?
-------
Your conjectures that C M was given a free pass or a blind eye by
post-war hunters of Nazis etc, is illogical as well as
unsupported in your article. To say we needed orchestra
conductors is silly and irrelevant, as C M would be the one
conductor wanted, even if surfeit. According to your
logic there must have been others with whom, like the associates
of Werner Von Braun in rocket science, we could compete
culturally vs USSR (my sarcasm). But of course, in
post war USA, cynicism as to what side one was on in WW2 was rife
--- and by the mid-fifties, von Braun was presented in the World
Book Encyclopedia (for children) as a great guy and hale fellow
well met.
(sarcasm alert:) After all, was not Patton (another Bostonian)
correct to have located the greatest threat to be in Moscow?!
And issues of true loyalty in USA were settled very sweetly by
Senator Joseph McCarthy and his competitors "the House
Committee on Unamerican Activities". I suppose
we should ferret out those Soviet (sic) artists who collaborated
with USSR, whatever "collaboration" means. It is
amusing that it is now used innocuously, i e, to mean cooperation
with USA here and there...
-----
I would not doubt that there was a post-war need of orchestra
conductors in USA, partly because e g Von Karajan would have to
be excluded, and in the meantime during the war, music came to be
appreciated as important to morale --- as of course in Paris ---
we had Tschaikovsky´s First Piano Concerto, and Sibelius´
Finlandia, and the anomaly (by your analysis of C M, and
conductors in general) Toscanini, a phenomenon of authoritarian
conducting, but also who got an arm damaged demonstrating against
Mussolini. The urge in USA to create orchestras was
enhanced by "Fantasia"´s use of Stokowski
(performing, by the way, Jewish music (Dukas´ "Sorceror´s
Apprentice")). But of course we wonder what
would Disney have done in Occupied France!
--------
It is silly
to EQUATE French racism or anti-Jewish tradition, with support of
THE FINAL SOLUTION, any more than today the thrill of whiteness
means one wants to kill "the little brown bastards".
All fish can swim, but Johnnie is not a fish. Racism was an
intellectual plague especially in early 20th century Europe, and
it came from academia, and loose logic allowed it to spread to
plague proportions. Clarity is to intellect what sanitation
is to medicine --- your article strengthens the tradition of
dirty hands in the surgery. Racism and similar
ailments are always potential plagues, and I am appalled that you
would be able to publish your article --- what is Salmagudi
anyway?! But doesn´t your professional reputation
mean anything to you?! Or are academic standards sunk
so low.........
-----
Thursday,
May 15, 2003 3:13 pm
I asked 3 Norwegian
intellectuals, and they agree, that, possibly because the word
"collaborate" arrived only apropos WW2, here it
is always pejorative. Be that as it may, there is
still the problem: when does some act deserve to be called
collaborative etc. in the sense of doing something bad. In
the course of the entire occupation two concerts are questioned,
and a brief stint on a Cortot committee --- is that your case?
The difference between British lawyers, as to solicitors or
barristers, is that the latter are relied upon to keep their eyes
on the ball. Your article is, on the contrary , a
shambles. If we consider your reiterated praise of Munch as
musician, I get the suspicion that you feel free to smear him,
due to having praised him so lavishly. That is a very
uncomfortable feeling.
----------------
Thursday, May 15, 2003 7:23 pm
Side comments:
I do not know how you can call Je Suis Chef dÓrchestre
(I remember it, perhaps in error, without "un") a
"memoir"! I met a decade ago here an NYC
conductor who said it was his bible --- obviously to anyone of
music awareness, it is not a memoir in the American language use
of that word. ah well.
-----------------
I
have been enjoying our correspondence re Charles Munch,
especially as we both are fans, as I see by your praise of him in
your article. As you mention in your most recent note to
me, that you would like to write a novel, I suggest this idea:
Once upon a time a man appreciated the beauty of a very beautiful
woman more than did others, and he dreamed of sticking pins into
her, to establish whether or not she was a witch, although there
was no proof to this effect --- he wrote a psychological
profile based upon his own fantasy, showing that he appreciated
her better than did others, which showed that she must be a
witch, and was about to pass this on to the chief witch-hunter,
when the matter was taken out of his hands by her being struck
fatally by lightning. But he ever-after had conflicted
nightmares of her naked at the stake.
But perhaps I am over-reacting to your article --- after all,
there are innumerable examples of vicious prosecutors singing the
song, "I love the accused even more than you do, but that is
precisely why...", then there are situations of the type
Suzanna and the Elders.
After all, adulation of
the victim is a proven functioning disguise for
evil.
-------------
BELOW SENT AT TIME
BELOW
Thursday, May 15, 2003 6:12 am
Is there
evidence that C M harmed any Frenchman, including Resistance or
Jews?
Elf
-----------
What you make a meal of, is actually not a psychological problem
in Charles Munch, but rather, a perspective which includes WW2
and The Holocaust, and is what is referred to as Western
Culture. Your psychological profile is as if written by an
adolescent movie goer. The rest of the article is smear on
smear.
-----------
-----------------------------
-------------------------------------------------
INSERTS
BELOW ARE FROM WEB SITE OF THE BOSTON GLOBE NEWSPAPER (MY
THOUGHTS CONTINUE AFTERWARD --- ELF):
------
>
-------------------------------------------------------
THE
STORY ABOUT CHARLES MUNCH
Published on October 18,
2002
I AM IMPRESSED BY SYLVIA SANDEEN'S LOYALTY TO
THE MEMORY OF HER FRIEND CHARLES MUNCH BUT LESS SO BY HER LOGIC
(``MUNCH'S ACCUSER HAS IT ALL WRONG,'' LETTER, OCT. 11).
The
notion that in order to find out what Charles Munch was doing in
Paris during World War II, I would have been better off
consulting his friends in Boston after the war rather than the
writings of French historians of the Vichy period is
questionable, to say the least. None of the evidence that
Sandeen
Click for complete
article (351 words)
MUNCH'S
ACCUSER HAS IT ALL WRONG
Published on October 11,
2002
IN ALEX BEAM'S COLUMN ABOUT BOSTON SYMPHONY
CONDUCTOR CHARLES MUNCH (LIVING/ARTS, SEPT. 19), BEAM'S SOURCE,
BOSTON UNIVERSITY PROFESSOR JEFFREY MEHLMAN, IS 100 PERCENT
WRONG. MEHLMAN DEFAMES MUNCH'S CHARACTER AS A PRO-VICHY
GOVERNMENT ``COLLABORATOR'' IN WORLD WAR II AND MEMBER OF THE
GERMAN ARMY IN WORLD WAR I.
In his 2002 Salmagundi article,
Mehlman professes to being "the Bostonian I have become."
Why, then, rather than relying solely on writings by
Click
for complete article (385
words)
THE REAL CHARLES MUNCH?
Published
on September 19, 2002
Author(s): ALEX
BEAM
The unflattering observation has been made that in
post- World War II France, almost everyone claimed to have been
working for the Resistance. One such person was Charles Munch,
the distinguished conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra from
1949 to 1962. "He told me that during the war he was in the
Resistance movement," recalls Roger Voisin, who played
trumpet for Munch's entire BSO career. "He did not conduct
during the [German] occupation of Paris, he was very clear
Click
for complete article (766
words)
IT WAS MORE AN ACCIDENT OF
BIRTH
Published on October 4, 2002
I WAS
TAKEN ABACK BY ALEX BEAM'S COLUMN ABOUT CHARLES MUNCH. ALTHOUGH
IT DOES NOT TAKE SIDES ON THE ISSUE OF WHETHER OR NOT MUNCH
COLLABORATED WITH THE NAZIS, THERE IS A SLIGHTLY BIASED, IF NOT
OMINOUS, TONE BEGINNING WITH THE TITLE - ``THE REAL CHARLES
MUNCH?''
Indeed, Munch was born a citizen of imperial Germany
in 1891. Strasbourg, his birthplace, was annexed by
Prussia/Germany as part of the treaty ending the Franco-Prussian
War in 1871.
THE REAL CHARLES MUNCH?
Published
on September 19, 2002
Author(s): ALEX
BEAM
The unflattering observation has been made that in
post- World War II France, almost everyone claimed to have been
working for the Resistance. One such person was Charles Munch,
the distinguished conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra from
1949 to 1962. "He told me that during the war he was in the
Resistance movement," recalls Roger Voisin, who played
trumpet for Munch's entire BSO career. "He did not conduct
during the [German] occupation of Paris, he was very clear
Click
for complete article (766
words)
----------------------------------------------------
ABOVE INSERTS
ARE FROM WEB SITE OF THE BOSTON GLOBE NEWSPAPER (MY THOUGHTS
CONTINUE --- ELF):
------
>
-----------------
Dear Professor Mehlman ---
Thank you
for your reply to my question, as to meaning of
"collaborator".
By "not press
charges" I figure is meant to leave it at that, that is that
you do not blame Munch or figuratively indict him for being in
fact a collaborator, since there are extenuating psychological
circumstances that free him of the sense of actually dedicating
himself to the wrong side. Something like that.
Is that it?
Anyway, I am devoting lots of time and energy to
consideration of your article, and will need some days to plow
through all my wonderings.
Ah... your remark is not
quite clear as to reference: which judgment? yours or Ricks´?
(" I hope the shrewdness of that judgement is apparent to
you.")
As to:
" Petain in the fall of 1940 claimed to have entered the
"path of collaboration" with
Germany--which did not
lead to America's withdrawal of its ambassador." --- Are you
suggesting that it should have? Why? Roosevelt was
anything but visceral in his responses to events, and with genius
(but not always) exploited even setbacks (and until Pearl Harbor
he had one prime goal, to get USA into the war) --- poor Hitler
was up against not only the arch Macchiavel Stalin, and the
devious Churchill, but also the most inspired political
manipulator imaginable, or, beyond. When we try to
understand what such people are doing, we should remember the
wise words of the famous Swedish philosopher, Bjørn Borg,
(I paraphrase) "Professional tennis is nothing like amateur
tennis". By the way, later on, Roosevelt had to deal
with the Vichy types in North Africa; but it is said he
wrong-footed it as to an important appointment after USA landings
...
By the way, I got that vexed quote of
Voisin:
THE REAL CHARLES MUNCH?
Published on
September 19, 2002
Author(s): ALEX
BEAM
The unflattering observation has been made that in
post- World War II France, almost everyone claimed to have been
working for the Resistance. One such person was Charles Munch,
the distinguished conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra from
1949 to 1962. "He told me that during the war he was in the
Resistance movement," recalls Roger Voisin, who played
trumpet for Munch's entire BSO career. "He did not conduct
during the [German] occupation of Paris, he was very clear
Click
for complete article (766
words)
Ah well --- curiouser
and curiouser, what?
Elf
Friday, May 16, 2003 7:10 pm
Among the welter of wildly fluctuating moralizing commentary by
the French as to what they were doing during the Occupation in
WW2, Mehlman finds the contention that a culture line
emanates from Vichy and continues through Malraux, to the
supposed excesses of Mitterand.
In the documentation of
that claim Mehlman finds that Charles Munch conducted a concert
for the Vichy establishment.
Mehlman proceeds to
investigate Munch, and finds yet another concert he conducted for
the Vichy.
Besides these items, there is Munch´s
"brief" stint as head of a Cortot committee, for
keeping tabs on personnel in various unpleasant ways. We
are not told by Mehlman what Munch actually did, why he was on
the committee at all, what "brief" means, or why he
left.
That´s it --- besides the vague mention of
the Cortot committee, 2 questionable concerts during the entire
period of the Occupation. That is "Munch´s
career as a collaborator".
But Merciful Mehlman
the Prosecutor offers extenuating circumstances, by way of
a psychological profile he has whipped up. Charles Munch is
supposed to suffer from a sort of bi-polarity which cannot fail
to get him to collaborate --- accordingly, (although if we
believe the profile, Munch must ipso facto be guilty of
collaboration) since he could not help it, he is forgiven
due to that double-bind.
But the theory is actually an
unreasonable concoction by Jeffrey the Just, and it is for the
sake of promoting the theory that Munch must be guilty.
The rest of the article is roccocco bullshit, in the course of
which the word collaboration has a merry run:
220
which would, of course, make of Munch something of a collaborator
himself.
221
at this point, however, we may want to take pause and wonder
under what conditions Munch/Münch could NOT have been a
collaborator.
222 ... could
not perhaps fail to be particularly vulnerable to the allures of
"collaboration."
223 what we have observed
of Munch´s career as a collaborator
224 the
sometime collaborator in Boston
224
SEE CONCLUDING 3 SENTENCES
Date: Thu, 15 May 2003 20:23:17 -0400 (EDT)
From: Jeffrey
Mehlman
To: elf
cc:
Subject: Re: collaborationist
Dear
Elf,
There were numerous shades of
collaborationism (as of resistance)
and enough time during the
war for any individual to hold several
successive positions.
(Things are further complicated by the fact that the
French
government claimed it was no longer at war...) Petain in
the fall
of 1940 claimed to have entered the "path of
collaboration" with
Germany--which did not lead to
America's withdrawal of its ambassador.
Presumably, Munch had
some sense of what the word meant when he conducted
the gala
oratorio of the honorary president of the "Groupe
Collaboration"
(Bachelet) that I refer to.
All in all, my sense is that Munch--with AND without
the
umlaut--was so profoundly Franco-German that some measure
of
"collaborationism" may have been a sine qua non
of his mental sanity. My
friend the critic Christopher Ricks
wrote me that he found my piece
convincing above all in my
"refusal to press charges." I hope the
shrewdness of
that judgement is apparent to you.
Yours,
Jeffrey Mehlman
On
Wed, 14 May 2003, elf wrote:
> 140503 08:56
Hello, Dr Mehlman ---
> I have read your article and ask
you to clearly define
> collaborationist. as I
understand it, it is: one who assists an
> occupying
enemy¥s war effort. ( the difference between that and
>
traitor being focus: the latter opposes (turns against) his own
side)
> Is that what you mean, that Munch assisted the nazi
war effort?
> Elf
>
Sunday, May 11, 2003 5:26 am Thanks for note back, and
getting me to look up Burkat ( on Google and Wisenut) --- i found
lots I like! (with Munch anecdote) By the way, note what i
have wondered about made more likely, i e, that the war (Voisin)
means before the occupation (?) --- see below in "Tribute":
"
He used that position during the war and throughout the German
occupation ...".
You
asked is Burkat alive...
these via google:
New
Haven, Connecticut, United States of America SIBMAS ...
...
Paul Bekker (1882-1937), music critic Leonard Burkat
(1919-1992), head of Columbia
Records Masterworks
[correspondence with musicians] Charles Lewis Nicols
...
www.theatrelibrary.org/sibmas/idpac/
north_america/usctn001.html - 18k -
Cached -
Similar pages
[PDF]Lorin
Maazel Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra
File
Format: PDF/Adobe Acrobat -
View as HTML
... Leonard
Burkat Leonard Burkat was Artistic Administrator of the
Boston Symphony
Orchestra and Vice President of the
CBS/Columbia Records Group.
...
www.newworldrecords.org/linernotes/8
--------------------------------------
on wisenut search engine:
2. Music Library Association
- MLA - Is it for you?
... Music Library Association Technical Reports, 18) "The
Challenge of Music Librarianship in the Public
Library"
by Leonard Burkat Notes 38 (1981): 7-13. "Education
for Music Librarians in the United
...
http://www.musiclibraryassoc.org/isit/isit.htm
[Sneak-a-Peek]
Sunday,
May 11, 2003 5:00 am
typed by me --- from Ray
Wilding-White article on site (via wisenut) about wgbh:
http://www.wgbhalumni.org/reunion/archiv26.htm
The conductor at the time was Charles Munch who was notoriously
unpredictable;... One Friday Ravel´s Bolero was on the
program and at the last minute Munch had a brainstorm.
The snare drummer, he said to himself, is the real star of the
piece, so he moved him down to the soloist´s position next
to the podium and directly under the single microphone.
The first the aghast Gene got to know of this was when the
drummer, Harold Farberman, took his position. The
broadcast of the Bolero became a drum solo with a slowly
vanishing orchestral obbligato and the whole hi-fi subculture was
up in arms. Though it was entirely Munch´s
fault, there was no way anybody was going to come out and say so.
page has also next item re nicole henriot, and re leonard burkat
--- rfc
fotos:
(Orkin foto added because irresistable --- but also, maybe orkin
archives source for...?)
Irving
Fine, Leonard Burkat, Eugene Ormandy, Tanglewood, 1962
[photograph]
Contact information unknown
Claudio
Spies, Lukas Foss, Harold Shapero, Irving Fine, Leonard
Bernstein, others, Tanglewood, 1946 [photograph]
Used by
permission of The Ruth Orkin Archives, 65 Central Park West, New
York, NY 10023.
Elf Sunday, May 11, 2003 5:42 am
(
ABOVE LETTER SENT ---
ELF)
----------------------------------------------------
Weininger chooses to attack like the mythical lemmings of false
legend which attempt to gain Labrador by leaping into the deep
from westernmost Norway --- there are of course people, some
respected intellectuals, who have no musical awareness; some of
them attend courses in New Age sensitivity therapy, something
marvellous to us who live in J S Bach and Co.
Of course, the Scottish bagpipe is universally acknowledged as
capable of driving men into battle, and, need we mention the
scene in Scot with the Scottish women wailing on their menfolk to
conquer the enemy.
One could
cite innumerable examples, but to what avail, as regards
Weininger?!
That music is ethnic, as is all art, and that French classical
music is a rallying point for French nationalism, seems to
get past Weininger´s awareness.
Strange that at the same time he is bothered by the performing of
music he sees (not, of course, hears) as endorsing Nazism, he
rejects the notion that certain performances arouse, excite,
encourage, patriotic French spirit --- but it seems that although
Weininger swallows the intellectual definition of a piece as
pro-Nazi, it is not because he has any idea of whether or not it
is when actually heard, especially in the wider context of
classical music´s heroic aspects, which tends to envelope
all sorts of fervent emotion --- ah, but Weininger seems to
reject the very idea.
Weininger´s article is jam packed with logical
contradiction as well as unreasonableness.
How
can he praise the effect of Barenboim in Palestine and deprecate
that of Munch during
WW2?!
It seems that to Weininger a major celebrity is supposed to be,
like a perfect idealized USA President, a combination of Santa
Claus and Jesus Christ.
Actually, a person in the situation of Charles Munch in France in
World War Two, i e, during The Occupation, is in the position, I
suppose (my own humble opinion merely, of course) of a military
leader, in that he has a certain influence and a certain power,
which he must wield with great circumspection to best
effect.
The comparative reference to Paul Paray is silly, as no one then
or now would include Paray in the exalted status of Charles
Munch, whether as musician or political figure --- Paray´s
noble gesture was transitory and ephemeral --- Charles Munch
throughout The Occupation exerted himself constantly and to great
effect against the bad
guys.
It is, it seems to me, precisely because Charles Munch was in an
actual historic moment, in which he was a person capable of
having some significant good effect, that he had to
sacrifice the easy sophomoric Christopher Robin image.
I suppose Weininger, tho, blames General Patton for decisions
which got our soldiers killed and maimed --- there is a vast
difference between the fantasy of greatness, and the nitty gritty
of the whole truth. I do not pretend to have
experienced such horrors myself directly, but I do consider
myself to be not an irresponsible sophomoric bag of
wind.
Weininger in one breath says he wants to explore the question of
the image responsibility of great men in political crises, and
simultaneously implies that Charles Munch specifically should
have done better --- as if to say let´s see if the accused
witch floats.
It seems to me that if I am then trying to help Jewish musicians,
it would be a mighty good thing to have one of our own on the
inside when lists are drawn up, with the obvious advantage of
being able to warn folks...especially if the man on the inside is
also a friend from way back of the chief honcho (Cortot).
I was not there, I know not the details --- but the evidence
presented in the Mehlman article asks but does not accuse ---
that latter had to await jerks like
Weininger.
By the way, Weininger makes much of Roger Voisin´s
report that Charles Munch repeatedly said to him that during the
war he did not conduct --- there are, however, several reasonable
explanations, chief of which is that the French seem to
distinguish between The Occupation and what preceded it, i e, the
war.
(Monday, June 16, 2003 12:42 am
Here I insert note that Voisin´s comment is nonsensicle any
way it is considered --- my confusion here is based on the
inaccuracy of Mehlman´s report to me in e-mail that Voisin
said "war" whereas actually (cf Boston Globe below) it
was "Occupation". Yet another example of
Mehlman´s carelessness wasting my time and
effort.)
Anyway, in back of Weininger´s remarks is a barbarian
philistinism, as shown in his fascinating reference to Charles
Munch as sacrificing political responsibility for the sake of
"his career" --- Weininger probably would not be so
cavalier about Sophocles or Shakespeare, as, being a good
educated fool, he has doubtless been instructed that THEY did not
have mere careers; I agree with the Boston music critic who
said that the Boston Symphony Orchestra under Charles Munch is a
cultural achievement to be compared with the Parthenon.
Not only we now, but also generations into the future , due to
recordings, will indeed benefit from Charles Munch --- his
performances give added meaning not only to my life, and to those
of innumerable musicians, but also to the ghosts of the immortal
composers fortunate enough to be performed by Charles
Munch.
The question raised by Weininger with regard to Charles Munch is
a facile irresponsible attempt to seem wise; it is an old
question, and needs serious consideration without being
mixed up with academic demagoguery. Shall we attempt
to advise geniuses on how to behave in perilous political
crises? Should we judge them after the fact while we wonder
how to appreciate what they have nonetheless given us? Or
do their personal histories of honor (as we define it) interfere
with the actual value of their work --- can we sense character
defect in their offerings to posterity?
I suggest that we often can see patterns consistent with
character defects, which manifestly limit the value of
their contributions to world culture --- such is the paltry
career of the conductor Herbert von Karajan, a barbarian
who usually performed in a barbaric manner.
The work of Michelangelo is limited by his immersion in the
Vatican ideal of "innocence". In evaluating
art, we try to see the moral stature of its creator.
But we take into consideration the world the artist lived in ---
we know that Shakespeare was a propagandist for the queen of
England. We know that Bosch had to hide his communication
in codes in his paintings. And I do not consider J S Bach
anti-Jewish for presenting the Jews as choosing Barabas over
Jesus.
Art on the highest level includes morality --- this is the basis
of its tragic nature: we today can better appreciate the
profound tragedy in the sixth symphony of Tschaikovsky,
realizing the many problems of homosexuality he had to suffer in
his life and society; as our sense of morality develops in
time, we enlarge our tragic sense --- Freud helps us appreciate
Sophocles, although we still have more to understand about the
Oedipus plays; culture develops in time as does
science.
It is too bad that Weininger is out of his depth and does not
care that he is --- unfortunate also that he is not limited in
his audience to a few students, but pollutes NPR. Let the
listener beware! And the web surfer
too.
Tuesday, May 13, 2003 13:51
Psychologists say 1/3 of the population gets its most important
information via ears, and the other 2/3 by eyes --- maybe
Weininger is an extreme case of eyes. But he must have
heard of the power of music! I am tempted to rhapsodize.
But to keep it simple, imagine a great piece of music that
requires a great performer, to some of us when the great
performance occurs it is one of life´s most glorious
experiences. I myself grew up in a family in which I felt
like a WW2 spy, intent on surviving to adulthood --- classical
music, including Charles Munch, helped me make it alive, as well
as giving meaning to my life, as part of a constellation
including Edgar Poe; high culture is the meaning of
life.
Imagine Charles Munch taken away from his fans --- as if London
were occupied and The Beatles were removed besides all the other
deprivation. In London in WW2, eminent performers
like Myra Hess played in the bomb shelters --- why? The
morale, stupid!
Perhaps Weininger´s difficulty is due to the difference
between the place of French classical music in the French mind,
and the relative absence of USA classical music as
nationalistic.
And of course WW2 was not the first war between France and
Germany (not to mention Italy) --- the concert repertory
nostalgically presents European history, whether Beethoven
changing the dedication of his 3rd symphony, or Berlioz
arbitrarily including a Hungarian march in his Faust, just
because he wanted to. Eventually of course there
would be reconciliation, even France and Germany united vs
Bush. And why did the German general refuse to obey
Hitler´s order to blow up Paris? Maybe because
he respected Charles Munch.
I do not expect Weininger to agree with my exalted opinion of
Charles Munch, but Weininger simply is deaf to the very notion
that to some people in the audience, certain performers are like
Olympian gods --- Cyrano was French.
J S Bach is part of The Reformation, and his music was to die
for. And I suggest that Weininger not pooh pooh the effect
of the muezin.
Is it possible that Weininger is unaware of The Battle Hymn of
The Republic?
Actually, I was at a concert at Hollywood Bowl many years ago,
conducted by the important conductor Igor Markevich, in which he
did the USA National Anthem like I had never heard it ---
throbbing with excitement! But the next evening I
came back but he did not do it like that, and I asked an
orchestra member why, and he told me that Markevich had been
instructed not to!
But one concert at Symphony Hall, Boston, Charles Munch conducted
Wagner´s Overture to Die Meistersinger to a Friday
afternoon audience, which means mostly women --- I (a male, I
remind you) was down front in the audience; when the piece was
over I heard something I only ever heard on that one occasion, it
was the Bacchanalian roar of a thousand women, and i turned and
felt I was back in Ancient Greek mythology with the florid spread
faces on the standing bodies of a horde of overwhelmed
females.
--------------
I have been delighted with our correspondence, and grateful for
your generous cooperation, so
I am hesitating
to give you my negative response to your article, but it must be
done, as i consider the article a menace of perverse
incompetence.
--------------
as i am not
experienced in discussion of collaborationism, i looked it up in
my handy merriam webster and see the helpful words cooperate or
assist, and it then seems to me that we should distinguish the
special case of cooperate or assist in the enemy´s war aims
--- i accordingly discard such matters as cultural philosophy,
concerts, committees, colleagues and friends, and stick to the
main question, did the accused aid the Nazi war effort
materially? Nothing in your article answers that
question with a yes. on the contrary, munch appears
from all i have ever heard to have materially aided the anti-
Nazi war effort.
your blithe gliding from one
innuendo of collaboration to another, is
appalling.
---------------
BELOW SENT 140503
(am)
I have read your article and ask you to clearly define
collaborationist. as I understand it, it is: one who
assists an occupying enemy´s war effort. ( the difference
between that and traitor being focus: the latter opposes (turns
against) his own side) is that what you mean, that munch assisted
the Nazi war effort?
Elf
--------------
The proper role of the French from
capitulation to victory was a continuation of the war effort.
It is difficult or impossible for us now to know what was in the
minds of various individuals in occupied France.
-
Friday, May 30, 2003 01:34
Notice how Mehlman´s triple-speak in the passage I next
cite resembles the triple-tail at the end of the article:
Mehlman p 221-2:
"At this point, however, we may want to take pause and
wonder under what conditions Munch/Münch could NOT have been
a collaborator... One begins to suspect that some form of
Franco-German collaboration during the Second World War may,
alas, have been a psychical prerequisite to any form of mental
stability. Unless, of course, his music were born of
the very instability embodied by the Franco-German question as it
worked its way through his life."
Anybody want to explain that last sentence?
Let´s try: If Munch´s performances had
been born of his mental instability, he would not have
needed collaboration to give him stability.
Does that make reasonable sense at all?
No, it seems to me that we should take pause and wonder about the
mental processes of Mehlman.
I am not going to go through the article plucking out each of the
multitude of splinters of Mehlman´s stupidity
(feigned or otherwise). Maybe I can get permission to
put it on my website; but anyway, read it for
yourself, as an object lesson, or an exam in "Find
the intellectual mistakes in this
monstrosity".
Sunday, May 18, 2003 14:05
As a Machiavell, I do not want to attack people unless it is in
my own long term interest. Ergo, the attacks here against
Weininger or Mehlman, are to be taken as only poetic manner of
speaking fantasy. They are in no way intended to be
technically correct, in any scientific sense, but merely my own
personal blowing off steam, in my anger and exasperation,
at their folly as I see it, and in my sympathy with what I
imagine to be felt by folks of mind like my
own.
Of the two, Weininger is a mere puppy, and his disagreement with
Mehlman as to the morale uplift provided by Charles Munch in WW2
for the French, with Weininger denying it, and Mehlman
emphasizing it, shows Weininger´s pathetic
(in the pejorative sense) philistine barbarian luddite
ignorance, as to the potential power of music, and his sophomoric
wild attempt to behave like any shark smelling blood; too
bad he is all over NPR, as well as
WBUR.
But Mehlman is to be taken seriously in the academic world, due
to his prestige and skill at artifice, as well as an audience he
evidently has due to his being a knight of Judaism, through his
promotion of study of The Holocaust, with the special
qualifications he has as expert in French
culture.
But his article is twisted.
While in his quasi-roccocco bullshit there is much of interest
crowded in, irrelevant to his thesis in the article (i e,
that Charles Munch was a collaborator), I am deeply offended by
his constantly begging the question, his tendentious
presentation, and above all his asinine irresponsible conceit in
his absurd double theory, that even without evidence of
collaboration, one would assume it because of psychological
reasons!
Mehlman throughout emphasizes his own admiration of the
performances of Charles Munch which he himself has experienced
(presumably mostly by recordings? as Charles Munch died in
1968). Mehlman comes on as one of those experts who do harm
under the guise, "I love you, that is why I am only trying
to help, by seemingly attacking
you".
The email he sent me referring to a remark by his friend Ricks,
the music critic, is sinister in its revealing implications, for
what does Mehlman mean by "shrewdness"? and why
does his friend Ricks, the music critic, use the word
"convincing"?!
Is Mehlman arranging his article for the purpose of being
convincing? There is a word used in legal affairs which may
fruitfully be considered here: "demurrer"; in
Merriam Webster: "a response in a court proceeding in which
the defendant does not dispute the truth of the allegation but
claims it is not sufficient grounds to justify legal
action".
Mehlman is assuming Munch is guilty, but lets him off the hook as
if he were a criminal not guilty due to mental defect. So
sweet. Actually, it is a bad deal, reminding me of news
about police in a bad precinct beating a confession out of some
actually innocent kid, and offering a deal.
I suppose such conduct is common in academia, as regards specious
theories in areas of abstract significance, where we allow the
professors to play in their kindergarten; but when the
subject is the solid practical one that is the historic
reputation of a great man, I am nauseated --- especially I
myself am disgusted when the target is the great conductor
Charles Munch, who is one of the most important forces in my own
artistic experience.
But I gather that I am not alone in that, and that to many other
music lovers Charles Munch is a beloved figure. Not to
mention that he is actually an important hero of WW2
France.
Why indeed are there only the 3 complaints Mehlman manages to
level at Munch, before collapsing into his absurd
psychologizing? If we stipulate the two concerts to be
unfortunate, we still must ask "why not more?"
--- in the entire course of the Occupation . The concerts,
Mehlman stresses with documentation, were extremely well
received; are we then to assume Munch was not asked
back?
Similarly as to the Cortot committee, Mehlman emphasizes
"brief" stint by Munch in that --- details,
please, professor; was Munch asked to leave by the
supervisors, if so, why? or did Munch bow
out?
Mehlman does not make a serious attempt to convict Munch, so he
pretends to cut a deal, whereby, in Mehlman´s sick
fantasy Munch suffers from conflict due to his being an Alsation
in Paris, who had been wounded in WW1 while on the German side.
And, not only that, the mere fact of being an orchestra
conductor supposedly calls into question Munch´s character
as to democracy.
I am reminded of the weird psychologizing by an actual
psychiatrist (by the way; does Mehlman have any credentials in
Psychology?) some decades ago, who, in his abysmal ignorance of
art and of the Norwegian language, accused the great painter
Edvard Munch (no relation)(no umlaut, Mr Mehlman)(in Norway the
use of the umlaut for Charles Munch would be helpful)(also to
distinguish the conductor from the American painter Charles
Munch, not to mention the character on that TV police series) of
whipping his paintings --- this in support of the contention that
Edvard Munch was some kind of nut (it is a popular vineyard for
quacks, calling artists nuts). Actually, Edvard Munch
used a palette knife to artistically scar some of his paintings
(common practice in painting); also he left some out in the
yard to weather. So the good doctor turned art historian
concluded that, when Munch (without umlaut, Professor Mehlman)
said he gave paintings "the horse treatment"
(meaning he left them out to weather), that meant he
whipped them.
It is interesting when an art historian says El Greco painted
that way because of his eye-sight, but Mehlman goes far beyond
the bounds of license afforded to such conjecture, in his vicious
calumny against Charles
Munch.
I analyze the article in 3 separate dimensions: a) as
attack vs Charles Munch b) as article per se c)
as example of mad-scientist
monstrosity.
The title of the article is invidious, and is not justified by
the content. ("The Boston/Vichy Connection")(but
so cute, shame to waste it, what?)
What, by the way, is "collaboration" actually, in the
context of the article? Did Roosevelt collaborate with the
Vichy in North Africa so as to facilitate USA landings? Is
any cooperation at all with Vichy enough to get Munch branded
"collaborator"? What does Mehlman mean by (page
223), " For the sake of music, what would one not
overlook?", or (page 224), "What, one may
ask at any juncture of the story, with more or less hypocrisy,
would one not do for music?". That is the sixth
sentence before the end of the article. Here are the 3 last
sentences: "At some point the defense may be
legitimately raised that feigned collaboration was the subtlest
ruse of resistance. But that argument has generally had the
disadvantage of making French national honor a function of French
hypocrisy. It is to be hoped that the inextricableness of
that circumstance, as it came to be lived out in the uniquely
vexed case of Charles Munch/Münch, may in some measure
have contributed to the most moving symphonic performances in
this listener´s
memory."
What shit is that? Did Munch do something bad or didn´t
he? If he did, is it compensated for by Mehlman´s
esthetic delight? Actually, the concluding sentence is a
squashed hodgepodge of escapism by Mehlman: did Munch or
didn´t Munch engage in "feigned collaboration"
as "the subtlest ruse of resistance"? Or is the
reader intended to be confused, so Mehlman can finish off his
article ambiguously to please all facets of his own
audience?
Is Mehlman a bad stylist, or an obscurantist, or
both?
By the way, what is the extent of Mehlman´s listening
experience, and who cares, actually? But why doesn´t
he tell us --- typical of his article, which flies all over the
board without solid data. But of course why data, when he
has his wonderful boyish
theory?
The article itself contains interesting contemplations of various
aspects of consideration of French conduct in WW2. We are
regaled with an introductory 2 pages of contemplation of the
alternations of French attitudes over the years, about themselves
as to the Occupation. We get discussion of the politics of
Alfred Cortot. And of French discussion of Wagner.
And CIA etc are brought in. Incidentally we get mention of
Mehlman´s specific charges vs Charles Munch: 2
concerts, and a brief collaboration heading a Cortot
committee. Mehlman belabors nonsensically (in my own
opinion) the racist connotations in the text in one of the pieces
conducted, and later says (page 223), "CIA...
was not, perhaps, sufficiently attentive in its
reading of the text of "Surya" to realize just
what the delirium inspired by Munch´s performance of 1942
may have been about; moreover, the conductor´s
service, brief at best, as head of the orchestral
division of the "Comité Cortot" may have been
overlooked. As was, one may suspect, the rousing
performance of the Vichy-commissioned pageant, mentioned by
Fumaroli, for the Fete du Travail of 1 May,
1942."
Mehlman likes the words "perhaps" and "may have
been", I suppose because they let him cast vague
aspersions while maintaining escape tunnels. Notice
the self-contradiction: on the previous page (222) he
says: "...the United States, much like France, opted
(sic!) to overlook what we have observed of Munch´s career
as a collaborator and to take him up as a hero of the American
cultural landscape." And what a lovely
smear!
Yet, Mehlman pretends to be merely asking questions, so to speak
--- Mehlman is too "clever" or "shrewd"
to come right out and pillory Munch, he merely hands him over to
the Secular Arm (in the Spanish Inquisition, the priest
inquisitors did so to Jews --- the Secular Arm did the actual
burning at the stake, while the priests offered salvation) .
But his discussion of CIA (complete with viciously bringing
in the example of the odious infamous Klaus Barbie,
boxes in Mehlman: Mehlman says that due to (p 222),
" ... a lack of major symphony orchestra conductors."
CIA turned a blind eye to, "Munch´s career as a
collaborator..." --- why would they have to do that
(granting Mehlman´s silly premise) unless Mehlman is
accusing Munch of collaborationism? But Mehlman
throughout his article is not big on logic --- I guess he is both
slovenly, and does not care, as long as he pleases his Strasbourg
geese (stuffed to produce pate´). And as
we approach the end of the article, Mehlman´s back and
forth bubbles up: on p 222 he says: "...the United
States, much like France, opted to overlook what we have observed
of Munch´s career as collaborator...", but on
223 we get: "CIA... was not,
perhaps, sufficiently attentive in its reading
of the text of "Surya" to realize just what the
delirium inspired by Munch´s performance of 1942 may have
been about; moreover, the conductor´s service,
brief at best, as head of the orchestral division of the
"Comité Cortot" may have been overlooked.
As was, one may suspect, the rousing performance of the
Vichy-commissioned pageant, mentioned by Fumaroli, for the Fete
du Travail of 1 May, 1942."
"...not, perhaps, sufficiently
attentive... ", or, " ...opted to
overlook..." ?
But then Mehlman further confuses the presentation with reference
to something he seems to have acquired and will insert whatever:
CIA payed a lot to get Munch/BSO to perform in Paris.
What is the point? That Munch "...drove a hard
bargain..."? Mind you, Munch was not head
of BSO until 1949 (Mehlman does not say when this tour took
place, or where the $130,000 went (is Mehlman crying for
CIA?). Perhaps Mehlman should have specialized in
study of "Alice in
Wonderland".
It seems that when Mehlman says (page 223) "...it may be
argued" he means, it may well be so --- ergo by (page
224), "the defense may be legitimately raised",
he seems to mean, it may well be valid to do
so.
Anyway, in this welter of non-conclusion of his article,
we also get (page 223) the irrelevancy that CIA paid for a
Munch/BSO visit to France.
Gee.
As to (page 223) not being able (I a Bostonian) to come to terms
with the Vichy past of USA/Boston, in the sense of Charles
Munch having (page 223) a "... career as a
collaborator", there is no case to answer.
If Charles Munch were to properly be accused of being a
collaborator, the word "collaborator" would
have lost its meaning in any reasonable sense. I am sure
that somewhere in Shakespeare there is an item that deals
brilliantly with
this.
Someone wrote to the Boston Globe newspaper to complain about
Mehlman´s article, in that Mehlman had not
consulted with Boston friends of Charles Munch --- in whatever
way that may have assisted the search for truth, it
is certainly obvious that the accused has no opportunity to
confront his accuser; but that is the way with
pseudo-scholarly accusations in history. Anyway, I often
have cause to ruminate on the fact that during the horrid
witch-trials in Europe, academics were uniquely exempt as
victims, and to wonder what are the sinister
implications...
-------------------------
Sunday, May 18, 2003
18:00
There is a distinction between collaborating with an occupying
enemy directly, and collaborating with a native government which
is itself collaborating with the occupying
enemy.
In Norway, by the way, the Quisling government was led by a
Norwegian politician who had urged Hitler to invade, and, as the
story goes, to save Norway from the Jews (of whom there were
about one thousand merely (out of four million Norwegians))(the
Jews until the twentieth century not having been allowed to live
in Norway) --- whereas the Petain (Vichy) regime in France was an
accommodation to a fait accompli conquest of France by
Germany.
What was the intention of French people (individuals) who
accommodated to Vichy? What constituted
"collaboration"?
How does one balance bad deeds v v good deeds? How much is
encouragement of the morale of the French people in general
worth? It is said of the Pope that he has no divisions, but
his influence is worth many divisions. What was Charles
Munch worth to the spirit of the French as a People? How
many suicides did he prevent?
Mehlman concocts a quack theory about psychological conflict due
to the history of France v v Alsace --- but Mehlman disregards
the long history of European wars, of which WW2 is one in a long
string: indeed, now we have United Europe. The honest
appraisal of the situation in France under the Occupation,
especially after Pearl Harbor, must have included the
temporary nature of that Occupation. That, in turn,
meant the temporary nature of Hitlerism. The Thousand Year
Reich had actually become the Thousand Days Left Reich. But
in The Holocaust gigantic mass murder continued
during those thousand days.
What bad effect, as regards The Holocaust, could the two concerts
have had in 1942? And what good effect might the symbolic
figure of Charles Munch have had as to the entire French war
effort, throughout the war entirely --- including the image
of Paris in the mind of the German general who refused Hitler´s
order to blow it up? --- was that general conflicted?
or did he have a sane view of the end of the war, as part of
European history, and not as Hitlerian Gøtterdammerung?
Imagine the every-day-life aspect of interchange between
Frenchman and German during the war. Remember that whereas
a Jew (but not Rothschild, that is) could not communicate with
the Nazis, others could, and would have to, from day to day.
How was the course of the war envisaged by the Frenchman?
Does Mehlman really suppose that everyone is as simple-minded as
he himself? But that question is circular --- Mehlman
is a doctrinaire goody-two-shoes, as regards The Holocaust, and
promotes what he is committed to, as a party-line, complete
with obligatory horror at WW2 performance of Wagner in France.
Obviously the Cortot Committee position is suspect, but we are
not told details; the entire story may well redound
favorably upon Munch´s reputation --- Mehlman insists on
assuming (super professor that he is, dedicated to
factuality) the worst. Is it, perhaps, possible that many
professors are by nature or training, like many physicians,
arrogant and living in an illusion, if not of infallibility, of
invulnerability? But of course it is all an irresponsible
kindergarten wherein the diplomats are free to conjecture,
with no concern for fallout --- ah, well, so what if occasionally
a Chernobyl blows up?
By the way, anti-racism and French patriotism are not mutually
defining, as much as some naive folks would like to believe.
Mehlman has, of course, heard of the Dreyfus
case,
And USA in WW2 was not committed to the security of the Jews ---
OSS/CIA boss (Casey) couldn´t have cared
less.
Sunday, May 18, 2003
20:19
Mehlman´s bit about the psychology of conducting is the
most ignorant thing since Weininger´s refusal to admit
Munch´s importance as morale figure.
Art is war without blood, and is sex without bodies. All
art is erotic by definition. All art is also ethnic.
Mehlman has not the slightest awareness of art, in any serious
sense, or he would never come up with his inane likening of
Hitler and Munch (which is, willy nilly, where Mehlman´s
faulty logic inevitably arrives). Remember we are dealing
with a full professor, who is supposed to know logic --- but that
does not mean he is intellectually honest; demagoguery is
integral to sophistry. Mehlman chooses to credit a
fascist with intuiting the nature of conductors --- what a dumb
thing to do!
Coincidentally, I just found this which opposes Mehlman´s
"logic":
from:
"Sync: Rhythms of Nature, Rhythms of Ourselves"
by Steven Strogatz (Hyperion, 2003)(Penguin/Allen Lane
2003) p 273-4 :
"In many forms of pack behavior, people don´t rely on
their higher cognitive abilities. `In individuals insanity
is rare,´ said Nietzsche, `but in groups,
parties, nations, and epochs it is the rule.´
Maybe this is part of what we find so appalling about the
spectacle of Nazis goose-stepping. In the hands of
totalitarian regimes, synchrony becomes a symbol of all
that is subhuman.
"The irony is that sync is just as much a part of the most
beautiful forms of human expression, in ballet, in music, even in
the love shared by people whose hearts are in sync.
The difference is that these are more supple forms of
sync, not mindless, not rigid, not brutally monotonous.
They embody the qualities that we like to think of as
uniquely human --- intelligence, sensitivity, and the
togetherness that comes only through the highest kind of
sympathy."
Has Mehlman overlooked in Munch´s book the chapter called
"The Musicians Life" in which Munch
conveys respect for the dedication of the orchestra performers?
But Munch´s compassion is integral with everything we know
of him, especially his performances and
recordings.
Mehlman uses the same "logic" in his proof of the
friendship of Cortot and Munch (which is anyway not at issue).
He says Cortot called him "Dear Charlie" --- but I can
call Donald Rumsfeld "Dear Donny", but that does not
mean Rumsfeld knows me at all --- ( I am merely pointing out
Mehlman´s faulty logic).
The fact that someone said Hitler controlled the mob like music,
is a no-brainer --- so did the democratic Martin Luther King.
It does not mean that to be a conductor is to be a fascist
sympathizer --- there is more to being a demagogue than singing
songs. Actually, a demagogue usually relies upon a few good
academics.
Mehlman´s willful refusal to see the opposition
between arousing a sick mob to madness and arousing a
professional orchestra to bacchanalia, and thereby giving
even a Mehlman (if we can believe him, whatever it may mean) "the
most moving symphonic performances in this listener´s
memory" is perverse, possibly (sarcasm alert)
resulting from his name, which sounds like a mailman who
always rings three times, or a man who is male, or simply
Mehlman.
Which is not to take away from the obvious fact that Adolph
Hitler was one of the greatest actors of our time --- caveat
emptor; so was Ronald Reagan. And, indeed, so is
President George Walker Bush (you have of course heard of the
Roman emperor Claudius, who is (perhaps) Bush´s
model).
So, we may, according to Mehlman´s logic, assume that
Robert Mitchum (the greatest American actor) was a frustrated
demagogue, like Charlton Heston, or even John
Wayne.
Actually, it should by now be obvious to my readers that I myself
hope someday to be Emperor of the entire
universe.
But I am not conflicted about it.
In spite of having moved from Boston to
Oslo.
That is because I have a web-site, even as Charles Munch had an
orchestra; so I do not see why he would have been
conflicted at all. Perhaps Paul Paray was conflicted,
suffering in Monte Carlo.
As to the Strasbourg/Paris axis (a word which does not always
refer to an enemy), Munch had to serve in the
German army in WW1 because Alsace was then part of Germany (one
assumes that if he enlisted it was because he had to choose
between enlisting or getting drafted)(hard to figure he
would rather go off to die, than play the violin as part of a
prominent artistic family); the notion that he would be so
infantile as to resent the French because he got gassed and
shot, is silly (why not resent the Germans who put
him in the line of fire?)(I, however, do admit to resenting WW1
for putting Charles Munch at risk --- and killing others like
him)(and possibly shortening his longevity). The German
status of Alsace was due to yet another, previous, war, and Munch
becoming a French citizen would have been perfectly natural,
after WW1. I suppose the fact that Munch conducted French
music better than anyone else, does not tell Mehlman anything.
The fact that he sometimes worked in Germany after WW1 (which
Mehlman emphasizes) is not worth mentioning, as the music world
of Europe was (I suppose Mehlman will be shocked to learn)
cosmopolitan (Mehlman does not emphasize Munch´s leaving
Germany in 1932). But reference to Munch´s book clarifies
Munch´s career between the wars; so, while Mehlman
cries that Munch evades, Mehlman does not avail himself of the
facts available, even wrongly telling us "Berlin" when
it was actually Strasbourg. Anyway, Munch tells us what is
relevant to his task in writing what is not a "memoir",
but instead a handbook --- Mehlman cannot stand it that the book
is not what Mehlman demands it be; so he accuses the
witness of trying to deceive the
Inquisitor.
But why would anyone assume Munch had a conflict that inexorably
(as Mehlman contends) led him into collaborationism, unless
the human mind is as simple as Mehlman´s own
psychological awareness? It is indeed remarkable how jerks
like Mehlman presume to tell us how the minds of great geniuses
work, as if a clown like Mehlman could ever have the
slightest inkling of what goes on in the mind of a Charles
Munch! But that is the challenge, isn´t it? --- how
glorious to get in there and put the butterfly on a pin, what?
Anyway, not only is Munch dead, Freud is also, so who is left to
reject Mehlman´s bravado --- except me, of course.
(I, along with Einstein, Bohr. Freud, Hugh Hefner and Murphy am
one of the six greatest philosophers of the past hundred
years)(see my cosmology theory (Abstract
Relationship))
But, also, Mehlman seems to not conceive of paradox --- that
Munch was a cosmopolitan European is not good enough for Mehlman,
simply because it is not pure: that Munch did not
actually (perhaps) hate Germany in the cosmic normative sense is
not satisfactory to Mehlman; not good enough to defeat
Hitler, one must hate the Nazis as the Jews hate them. Mehlman´s
attitude seems (perhaps) based on a myopic blinkered
cynosurism (the belief that one is the hub of the universe) ---
not realistic. The European mind is classically
replete with paradoxes, which are not conflicts (which is not to
say there aren´t plenty of conflicts, too). The art
world is largely composed of paradox --- in a sense, that is what
art is about; it is part of art´s ecumenical
benefit: I do not have to be a Catholic to appreciate
paintings of The Three Kings. One aspect of the art of the
orchestra conductor in classical music is the ability to deal
with such paradox. More, anyone who misses that point
cannot appreciate classical music at all --- and, it is not a
matter of erudition, it is ipso facto in the enjoyment of anyone
from the age of infancy, unless it is blocked, by (perhaps) dogma
.
Sunday, May 18, 2003 22:55
Perhaps Mehlman cannot deal with abstraction --- reification is
the prime fallacy in philosophy (dealing with ideas as if they
are things): unable to handle the fluidity of human
existence, he pushes around approximations as if Lego blocks;
that might be why he tries to be "convincing", because
he cannot grapple with
truth.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
By honesty, i mean intellectual honesty.
Maybe Mehlman is a reincarnation, or a Jungian manifestation ---
.
Maybe Mehlman wants to do to someone what the inquisitors
did: In the Spanish Inquisition, they assumed the
Jews were accursed until they accepted their wrongness and could
avoid Hell, although being burned at the stake --- besides they
could get necks broken instead of being burned. This
reminds me of Mehlman re Munch.
Mehlman should know better than to get fixated on a word like
"memoir" or "evasion". Munch is
not conflicted, he is glorious --- and how would the conflict
Mehlman posits aid Munch´s performances? Mehlman says
in e-mail to me that he particularly enjoyed Munch conducting
Ravel´s "Daphnis and Chloe" --- (complete,
or a suite?), how would the conflict Mehlman posits form
part of such performance? I am asking merely...maybe
Mehlman means Munch conquered the conflict --- what I am getting
at is the hoakyness of Mehlman´s pretenses in several
directions, not only as psychoanalyst but also as astute music
listener, and I sense that he is insincere all round. I
distinguish between the-real-thing and Mehlman-as-phoney.
Perhaps because he wants to be "convincing"
perhaps.
---------------------------------------------
above as of Monday, May 19, 2003 10:08
pm
--------------
Saturday, May 24, 2003
15:05
Further notes:
IF MUNCH´S BOOK WERE WIDESPREAD , JM´S ARTICLE WOULD
BE
IMPOSSIBLE
Professor Mehlman:
Sorry to bother you again, but I have been looking at the USA
edition of Munch´s book, and the two passages you quote are
not identical with what I find there, this doubtless due to your
translating them yourself from the French (your p215) (your
p216). Or is the French edition different from both
your translation and Burkat´s? Also, in his
Preface, John N Burke calls the book "Je suis chef
dórchestre" (and Honneger´s book "Je
Suis Compositeur") i e, without "un".
Comments?
Anyway, as long as I am here, would you perhaps share with me
something about your listening experience of Munch?
You e g mention in an e-mail to me, "Daphnis and
Chloe" meaning a suite, or complete? --- I ask
because I recently got from Amazon the complete, and I recommend
it as one of the all-time
greats.
Elf
Saturday, May 24, 2003 15:05
Burkat:
p20 After four years far from music the best
situation I could find was an extremely modest one with the Rhine
and Moselle Insurance
Company.
p25 During the four terrible
years of German Occupation my role was to help saddened souls
escape to happier worlds. I worked at it with an
ardor that was multiplied a thousandfold by the pain of seeing my
country gagged, enchained, and murdered. No material
force could ever break the heart of
music.
n b --- ABOVE LETTER SENT.
Elf
----------------------------------------
BELOW FROM MUNCH´S BOOK
---
p 23 In 1932 historic events persuaded me to
leave Germany for
good.
p25 The war prevented me from
accepting my first invitation to the United States, but in 1946 i
conducted American orchestras from New York to Los Angeles and
from Chicago to Houston. In 1948 I traveled across
the American continent again with the Orchestre national de la
radiodiffusion francaise. Then in 1949 the Boston
Symphony Orchestra invited me to take the place of Serge
Koussevitsky, who was retiring after twenty-five seasons at its
head.
p 23 In 1932 historic events persuaded me to
leave Germany for
good.
p17 After the absorption of Alsace
by the German Empire in 1871, Strasbourg had become a strategic
center of Franco-German artistic rivalry. The most
important conductors of the time took turns before our
orchestra. Nikisch had hardly quieted the last
shudder of a Brahms symphony when Colonne or Pierné
counterattacked with Berlioz or the latest works of the new
French school that was then so rich and
productive.
p16
Albert Schweitzer was our organist. Charles-Marie Widor and
Gustave Bret, the founders of the Paris Bach society, used to
come to our concerts. Sometimes Widor played one of his
great symphonies for organ and orchestra under my father´s
direction.
p14 My only reason for
writing this book is so that future conductors who have faith and
who wish to serve music rather than be served by it may profit
from my
experience.
p9
Let no one be astonished then that I consider my work a
priesthood, not a profession. It is not too strong a
word. And like all sacred callings, that of the
conductor supposes a total self-renunciation and a profound
humility.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Mehlman uses the word "evade" as leitmotif:
p 216 evasive, evasion
223
evasion
p223: As for "evasion",
quoting the French, it does not mean evasion in the sense it does
in the English/American Language, as Mehlman, a French-scholar,
well knows.
As for
evasive and evasion on p 216, : "On the subject
of World War II, which one finds it hard to imagine as anything
other than traumatic for him, Munch seems both evasive and an
apologist for evasion: `There were the four terrible years
of the German occupation. My role at the time consisted in
enabling a kind of mental escape toward more felicitous worlds.
I went at it with a fervor that the agony of seeing my country
shackled, gagged, and bruised augmented tenfold. No
material force will ever be able to break the élan of
music.´ ...All would appear to have
resolved itself in time (for the assumption of the
leadership of the Boston Symphony a few years later)..."
Throughout the article Mehlman makes immediate unjustified
invidious inferences. Why?! What is
Mehlman´s motive?!
And what is the nonsense about "memoir" (p215)?!
Can Mehlman be so stupid as to fail to see that the Munch book is
not intended as autobiography, but instead as a manual or
guidebook in the art of conducting? Òf course
it was also promotional; and as it turned out, great
literature, too.
p14 (Munch): " My only reason
for writing this book is so that future conductors who have faith
and who wish to serve music rather than be served by it may
profit from my experience. "
USA edition flyleaf: "It is a short, modest
statement on the general principles of conducting..."
"Olin Downes of The New York Times says...`For once, a
musician of high rank and authority tells us of the conductor´s
problems with a frankness, a modesty and a power of
communication that few, indeed, of the great musicians
possess.`
Why does
Mehlman add the French word "un" to the title:
making the correct "Je suis chef d´orchestre" (cf
Preface by John N Burke) into "Je suis un chef
d´orchestre"? (also in Mehlman´s
bibliography). Is it
because Mehlman insists on pretending it is an autobiography?
There is of course nothing evasive in Munch concentrating on his
theme, the art of conducting, with of course supporting life
details, but not expatiating on his war experiences --- and he
had an editor and a publisher, who at that time might not have
wanted him to present himself in ways that would obtrude into his
image while conducting --- ah, but a barbarian like Mehlman might
not be aware of such concert-hall niceties; nor of the wish in
Postwar USA to get past WW2 (and WW1 was (in USA) a vague shadow
then), and to what Alberto Moravia called "normalcy",
not wanting another Resistance discussion (and Mehlman even now
starts his article with a 2- and- a -half- page review of such
argument!).
So Mehlman
(p215) saying: "...Munch´s memoir of 1954..."
"It is a volume as elliptical on matters political as it
appears expansive on matters musical." Mehlman is
complaining that it is not sufficiently auto-biographic.
This quite imbecilic, or naughty. Why does he do
it?!
Ah, but
Mehlman is a "hobby psychiatrist" --- he has a
mad-scientist theory with a double psychological profile: the
bipolarity of Strasbourg/Paris, together with the madness of
conductors.
But I wonder
if we may not have here to deal with a conundrum within a
conundrum (if I may turn about Mehlman´s catchy word about
Munch/Münch: maybe Mehlman does not care if we swallow
the psychological claptrap; maybe it is simply a devious
way for Mehlman to cover his ass in case we resent his
accusations --- rather like the infamous Alabama cops of fable
who get an innocent kid to confess by pretending to offer him a
suspended sentence on the basis of a phoney insanity plea.
But this old oyster does not choose to leave the
oyster-bed.
As I say, I
consider Mehlman´s article in 3 levels, first the charge
against Munch, second, the article itself as an article, and
third, the mind of the author, Jeffrey Mehlman.
The charge against Munch is dismissed as absurd.
The article is scurrilous deceit, which Mehlman presumably would
not have dared write if Munch´s book were widely read (and
indeed, it should be reprinted, perhaps by Penguin in both
languages). Comparison of Mehlman´s article vs the
Munch book, shows repeatedly Mehlman´s incompetence.
Need I take you through the book and show, e g, Munch´s
non-authoritarian attitudes?
The fascinating part of all this is Mehlman´s mind.
What could possibly motivate a well established professor to
vomit out a monstrous calumny against a great immortal conductor
and French national hero given a memorial state
funeral?!
Saturday, May 24, 2003 22:26
Note the way Mehlman manipulates:
p 215: " ... and an original score by Marcel Landowski
conducted by Charles Munch."
p 216: "...his stirring participation in the pageants
of the Vichy regime."
p 217: "...the pageant with music by Landowski
conducted by Munch..."
p 223: "...the rousing performance of the
Vichy-commissioned pageant, mentioned by
Fumaroli, for the Fete du Travail of 1 May,
1942."
But all else pales beside the truly appalling (bottom of p
221): "At this point, however, we may want to
take pause and wonder under what conditions Munch/Münch
could NOT have been a collaborator." For
specific refutation of Mehlman´s allegations as to Munch´s
psychologically supposedly relevant experiences, see the book
itself. The book in its entirety and in its detail
refutes Mehlman´s arguments as to Munch´s mentality.
Why did not Mehlman do his homework??! Perhaps he did
not want to --- perhaps he banked on the book being not readily
available, so Mehlman could pull a fast one.
Indeed, he succeeded in that, if we consider the scurillous
exploitation of the article by WBUR, its man Weininger, and the
format of its presentation of the matter, with repeated insulting
reference to Munch ("NAZU?"); and the
rumor-mongering by NPR in picking it up and disseminating it
nationwide!! This is a lesson about the media, especially
the intellectual media.
Why does Mehlman stoop to demagoguery in the article?
What is Mehlman´s agenda? What is the magazine he
wrote it for ("Salmagundi")? Does he
suppose he is defending Jewish interests? If this latter,
he is myopic, for, in the long run, the general public is
nauseated by doctrinaire holier- than- thou-ism.
Mehlman`s attacks imply that Munch supported racism (the closing
verses of the piece by Bachelet): ("...the peaceful and
pureblooded races...") but what we are shown actually could
be construed as support for Zionism --- a State of Israel
--- the people in the piece are not European, they are a
people on the shores of the Indian Ocean --- they are not being
killed. Actually, since almost nobody is today
familiar with the piece as music, we rely on Mehlman´s
determined emphasis that it, "...must have figured as
an ecstatic allegory of Vichy´s foreign policy...".
I wonder if J S Bach´s Passions were performed in those
days (with the Jews shouting to choose to save Barrabas instead
of Jesus). Mehlman dwells on the influence of Wagner
upon French music (almost a whole page) --- ethnic ecstasy was
indeed rampant in French music for many decades; we do not
accuse the composers of collaboration --- how much can Mehlman
hide behind the skirts of ignorance? If Munch had refused
to perform the Bachelet, what French nationalist music would he
not have had to refuse to perform? By the way, let´s
hear it.
Mehlman´s article is as regards Munch, almost entirely
conjecture by Mehlman, with an axe to grind. Ah, but
what of the final sentences? They remind me of exams
at college, which one ends with catch-all inferences so as to
cover one´s ass in case the professor disagrees with
the gist of one´s general argument --- hedging.
The point is that if I were the professor in such an imagined
case, I would see through it, and bop the faker student with a
failing grade and an admonition to try to be honest (by which I
mean of course intellectually honest).
Maybe Mehlman had to meet a deadline and wrote a bad paper.
Maybe its the worst thing he ever wrote, and he will never do it
again and we should forgive him, due to his being conflicted and
authoritarian.
The wider implications of such an article include allowing a
style of writing called witch-hunting, or fascist smear, or
McCarthyism. The fate of the Jewish people includes
the necessity to fight against such mindless prejudicial rhetoric
as Mehlman´s. As a Jew myself, I am alarmed
that such dishonesty as Mehlman´s may pass for defense of
Jewish interest, in pretending to be stringent against anything
not deemed 100% Kosher.
Mehlman expressed dissatisfaction with himself (in an e-mail to
me)(see below) that he had been unaware that Munch had helped
Jews --- but, as a scholar he indeed was obligated to look for
indications counter to his assumptions, but did not.
We are offered no data whatsoever as to the incidents
attendant upon the 3 events forming Mehlman´s case --- even
though as a scholar he cannot avoid being aware that the concept
"collaborationist" is relative: a person
who gets drunk 3 times in 5 years is not called a drunkard.
Is Mehlman accusing Munch of doing damage? Let him say so
--- Mehlman´s article, tho, is indeed a memoir of Mehlman´s
own meanderings in a swamp of his own creation.
You see Mehlman´s e-mail back to me when I asked him
to define collaborate, etc --- well, he says, Munch certainly
knew Vichy was intended to "collaborate" --- gee,
that´s helpful. Actually, note the disgruntlement
evident in Mehlman´s accusation, as if saying, "Well,
he certainly knew THAT!" Mehlman knows his
article is insubstantial. That is why he hedges at the
end, and why he offers his silly hobby psychiatry.
And note carefully his e-mail to me with Mehlman presenting the
comment by his friend Ricks, the music critic; the
word "convincing" together with the word "shrewd"
--- and Mehlman drawing my attention to them. What is
Mehlman´s motive?
Sunday, May 25, 2003 14:10
----------------------------------------------------
Sunday, May 25, 2003 14:54
Take a good look at this egregious Mehlman paragraph: ( p
221 )
"At this point, however, we may want to take pause and
wonder under what conditions Munch/Münch could NOT have been
a collaborator. A French-speaker born in what was
technically the German city of Strasbourg, he headed off to Paris
to pursue his career just before World War 1, only to take up
arms as an artillery officer against the French, who would wound
him at Verdun and gas him at Peronne. Yet it was
against that traumatic backdrop that he opted for French
citizenship immediately after the war, only to head directly for
Germany --- first Berlin, then Leipzig, where he served as
concertmaster of the Gewandhaus Orchestra --- to launch his
career. One begins to suspect that some form of
Franco-German collaboration during the Second World War
may, alas, have been a psychical prerequisite to any form of
mental stability. Unless, of course, his music were born of
the very instability embodied by the Franco-German question as it
worked its way through his
life."
----------
Compare: (Munch book ( p 21)(and introduction p
xxiii))
We see that Munch´s first job in music after ww1 was
Assistant Concertmaster in the Strasbourg orchestra.
Munch afterward proceeds to become concertmaster in the Leipzig
orchestra. He subsequently "...for eight years he sat
at the first desk of first violins in the Gewandhaus Orchestra
under Wilhelm Furtwängler." "Munch left
Leipzig in 1932, disturbed by the rising German nationalism
and determined to retain his identity as a
Frenchman."
and, Munch, in his
book:
p 23 In 1932 historic events persuaded me to
leave Germany for
good.
p17 After the absorption of Alsace
by the German Empire in 1871, Strasbourg had become a strategic
center of Franco-German artistic rivalry. The most
important conductors of the time took turns before our
orchestra. Nikisch had hardly quieted the last
shudder of a Brahms symphony when Colonne or Pierné
counterattacked with Berlioz or the latest works of the new
French school that was then so rich and
productive.
p16
Albert Schweitzer was our organist. Charles-Marie Widor and
Gustave Bret, the founders of the Paris Bach society, used to
come to our concerts. Sometimes Widor played one of his
great symphonies for organ and orchestra under my father´s
direction.
What I get from the Munch book, is not conflict, it is the
highest form of high culture --- a background which far from
instilling conflict, may be expected to have given one of the
richest, noblest backgrounds of any artist in
history.
But Mehlman is committed to see it as negative. So he adds
his crap about the conductor as tyrant: (p 222) "Nor
should we overlook the extent to which fascism may be the
spontaneous ideology of the orchestra conductor per se."
... "How, we may ask would a conductor alive to
the specificity of his craft not warm to the affinities of his
calling with that of every other Duce?" In that
paragraph Mehlman quotes an irrelevant passage from Munch´s
book, claiming it shows Munch tyrannical, whereas repeatedly in
the book we get the opposite impression; this besides references
by others as to his own personal humility of nature --- indeed,
when Munch/BSO performed in Moscow, it was remarked by some
Russian (quoted in media) how wonderfully self-assertively and
spontaneously the members of the orchestra played
together; Munch has always been known as one of the most
democratic conductors, always open to the views of the performers
(as of course he well may be with the Boston orchestra).
By the way it was Munch who championed open BSO dress rehearsals
(many of which I attended).
Mehlman need not concern himself with this sort of detail, as
(and in spite of his cover claim to appreciate Munch´s
performances) he is obviously a boor. For it is essential
to the appreciation of art of any kind to realize that it is not
actual war or killing etc --- as a psychiatrist said, lots of
people want to kill somebody, but it is only the nuts that do it
--- human beings are predators, and being in a state of
sublimation, need symbolic acts to compensate for the repression
of killer instincts; I should not have to belabor the
point: the very fact that Mehlman chooses to exploit the
normal symbolism intrinsic to art, so as to accuse Munch
disqualifies Mehlman.
Ah, yes, and incompetent in logic, as well as one who insults my
intelligence as logician: because a fascist
said Hitler managed the mob like a conductor an orchestra,
Johnnie is a fish. IT IS QUITE ABSURD TO SUGGEST THAT
A CONDUCTOR FAILS TO DISTINGUISH BETWEEN THE WILLING TEMPORARY
ARTISTIC SUSPENSION, BY THE MUSICIANS, OF PART OF THEIR
AUTONOMY, AND THE INSANITY OF HITLER´S MOBS!
AND ARE ALL WHO ARE INVOLVED IN ORCHESTRAL MUSIC, AUDIENCE AS
WELL AS MUSICIANS, AUTHORITARIANS?!
Ah, but actually, at the end of the paragraph Mehlman does one of
his special little dances, not logic says Mehlman, intuition:
"As Chardonne, in his choice of metaphor, may have
intuited." What is it Mehlman, fascist
intuition (actually, it would be Mehlman´s intuition
that the fascist was intuiting unconsciously (as we have no right
to suppose Chardonne would agree with Mehlman)), or a theory?
So, Mehlman needs actually to show (but makes no real attempt to)
that being a conductor makes one liable to be a collaborator with
fascists; but what about Toscanini (very authoritarian conductor)
who suffered an injury to an arm demonstrating in the 1930´s
against Mussolini, and Kurt Mazur, who was instrumental in
the taking down of the Berlin Wall. And, of course, Paul
Paray. Anyway, Mehlman would have to do something
more precise than that: the article is about Munch, so Mehlman
has to show that Munch himself actually manifested any
authoritarian aspects of conducting in himself , as sympathy with
authoritarian politics, to the point of getting him to
collaborate --- and for this Mehlman cannot use evidence of
collaboration, as that would be irrelevant to the logic.
But I am beginning to sense that actually Mehlman not only
pretends to be stupid, he actually is stupid.
But the bottom line may be that Mehlman actually is using the
psycho-babble merely as smoke screen for his unreasonable
non-accusation smear by innuendo, that Munch was a
collaborationist. He pretends Munch is guilty and
offers an excuse, or two.
Whatever.
And the feel of the passage Mehlman cites (p 222) (see next
below) should be obvious to Mehlman as being different from the
Hitler tone! And Moss Hart sensed something quite
different, also, in his enthusiastic estimate of Munch. And
in Munch´s performances the general sense is hardly
fascist, quite the reverse! And this would be clear to
Mehlman if he were actually capable of being an admirer of
Munch´s performances.
Mehlman p 222:
"The sectors of fascist society, functioning harmoniously
under the leadership of a beloved chief, would be like the
sections of an orchestra or perfectly integrated ensemble.
But Munch himself was never very far from that metaphor in his
evocation of the calling of an orchestra conductor: `But
you must also radiate your thought, your capacity for contagion,
with enough clarity for the musicians to experience, at the
precise instant you do, the very same desires, thus finding
themselves unable not to express them. You must substitute
your will for
theirs.´
Note the "never" --- where does Mehlman get
that?
-------------------
Thursday, May 29, 2003 04:09
from: "Sync: Rhythms of Nature,
Rhythms of Ourselves" by Steven Strogatz
(Professor of Applied Mathematics, Cornell Univ.)
(Hyperion, 2003)(Penguin/Allen Lane 2003) p 273-4
:
"In many forms of pack behavior, people don´t rely on
their higher cognitive abilities. `In individuals insanity
is rare,´ said Nietzsche, `but in groups,
parties, nations, and epochs it is the rule.´
Maybe this is part of what we find so appalling about the
spectacle of Nazis goose-stepping. In the hands of
totalitarian regimes, synchrony becomes a symbol of all
that is subhuman.
"The irony is that sync is just as much a part of the most
beautiful forms of human expression, in ballet, in music, even in
the love shared by people whose hearts are in sync.
The difference is that these are more supple forms of
sync, not mindless, not rigid, not brutally monotonous.
They embody the qualities that we like to think of as
uniquely human --- intelligence, sensitivity, and the
togetherness that comes only through the highest kind of
sympathy."
-------------------
Friday, May 30, 2003 16:11
A fascist´s likening Hitler to an orchestra
conductor, shows that the fascist is a fascist --- Mehlman´s
failure to intuit that shows Mehlman
defective.
-------------------------------------------
Mehlman´s article starts as a discussion of the fluctuation
of French attitudes, over the post-war decades, with regard to
anti-semitism in the French in WW2 (with his cute new jargon:
"anti-anti-anti-semitism"); the article
then (after two pages) skids off the road into the swamp that is
Mehlman´s discovery that Charles Munch conducted for Vichy
(twice in WW2), including a piece with text Mehlman
considers too racist to get by Mehlman´s
filter.
But Mehlman mixes the two issues throughout the article:
however Mehlman may define anti-semitism, and collaborationism
(and Mehlman certainly does not anywhere accuse Munch in any way
of being anti-semite, or racist at all (which, indeed,
would have been a glaringly absurd accusation)), Mehlman
fuses, short-circuits, the two concepts into a cancerous
jumble; e g, Mehlman makes assumptions as to what Munch
actually did, or did not, in the Cortot committee, which
assumptions constitute unfounded accusation.
The point is that Mehlman´s agenda is not, let´s see
if there is a Boston/Vichy connection, but rather, let´s
smear Munch, to show that USA and particularly Boston have
a Vichy connection not addressed.
It is a witch´s brew of calumny which has grown like
Topsy in the media, including National Public Radio, as
well as Boston media, including WBUR (Boston University
Radio), and associated
web-sites.
Perhaps Mehlman failed to realize that he was not writing for an
audience of limited interest, when he entered the
moat of the castle of we who love Charles Munch and hate
quackery.
Beyond
that, the article is typical of a sort of plague in academia,
in which the conjectural attitude perhaps proper in
brain-storming contemplation of abstract notions, gets bled
over into attack upon actual people --- I wonder if that is
how witch-hunting got started: some of the boys some
centuries ago, at the guild or university (and scholars
were, amazingly, (one is suspicious how come......) exempt from
the accusation "witch", throughout the plague of
witch - hunting), said over the beer pots,
"What is a witch, actually?" (wondering about the
Bible: "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live")
--- loose brains sink societies.
Part, but not all, of the laxness in academia of late is due to
prejudiced agenda pseudo-scholarship among rampant Feminists.
There is also the sense that many student types, intellectuals,
are indeed from deprived backgrounds, and certain professor types
feel free to exploit that ubiquitous pool of yokels.
Academia needs to put its house in order, becoming more
stringent, and without favoritism based on a past of
deprivation of education to the class from which come some
scholars whose claim to credit is the very lack of education they
decry.
Mehlman is
not one of the educationally deprived, but he seems to feel he
can exploit the current laxness.
Not that laxness is merely current --- but I sense a wave to
beware of.
---------------------------
Friday, May 30, 2003 20:54
A few bits more:
Mehlman p 222 "How, we
may ask, would a conductor alive to the specificity of his craft
not warm to the affinities of his calling with that of every
other Duce?"
Duce refers to Mussolini, in case you didn´t
know.
Mehlman p 221 "In the euphoria
of Liberation, however, with Munch/Münch conducting La
Marseillaise to ecstatic crowds in both Paris and his native
Strasbourg, no accusation would stick..."
The dots are Mehlman´s.
We are insidiously injected with the notion that otherwise
accusations would stick --- and that they must somehow be
important. A cheap Mehlman shot, suggesting Mehlman
despairing of actually establishing anything actually.
Gee, maybe it is the French people who saw in Munch a symbol of
the unity of France, in spite of the taking in the previous
century of Alsace by the Germans.
And, how come concerts were so popular during the war?:
(Mehlman p 217): "...a considerable increase in both
number of and attendance at classical concerts in relation to the
prewar years."
Another innuendo: Mehlman p 216: "All would
appear to have resolved itself in time (for the assumption of the
leadership of the Boston Symphony a few years later) , but
would also appear to leave us with the conundrum of the
"Resistance" conductor known --- to Fumaroli at least
--- for his stirring participation in the pageants of the Vichy
regime."
Mehlman referring there (Mehlman p 215) to: "...
and an original score by Marcel Landowski conducted by Charles
Munch." --- one performance, May 1, 1942.
Becomes "... his stirring participation in the
pageants of the Vichy regime."
By the way Mehlman has only Fumaroli as source for that
performance.
Mehlman´s discussion of CIA establishes definitely
that Mehlman is indeed accusing Munch of
collaboration, as, why would Mehlman claim CIA had to turn a
blind eye (as Mehlman says it did (p 222): "opted to
overlook..."), treating Munch to "indulgence"
(p 222)?
The `bottom line´ is that there is no case to be made
against Munch as collaborator, but Mehlman says there is, and
that Mehlman is too gentle (read "clever"
or "shrewd" ) to come right out and say so ---
and is shocked when others claim Mehlman did indeed say so ---
like Miss Piggy, in "Sesame Street" :
"Moi?!" or, "Little me, would I do something
like that?!"
As to the title, "The Boston/Vichy Connection",
Mehlman could have clearly stated the three items he refers to,
and made some comment of a reasonable sort, instead of slinging
bull-shit for a dozen pages.
Dammit, Mehlman didn´t even do his
homework.
----------------------Friday, May 30, 2003
21:39-------------------------
Sunday, June 15, 2003 11:30 pm
ADDITIONAL REMARKS:
Sunday,
June 15, 2003 5:02 pm
And the two concerts
Mehlman finds questionable are to be measured against the
multitude of concerts in which Munch elevated the morale of the
French people. The miracle is that Munch got away with
performing in spite of Hitler --- maybe Hitler had the sort of
conflict Mehlman ascribes to Munch --- maybe Strasbourg/Alsace
symbolized something even then...
The
immeasurable benefit by Munch to the cultural life of the Jews
historically in his career beyond the Occupation, is important to
a people who measure themselves as important to world culture ---
Munch constantly elevated the status of Jewish music by his
immortally great conducting.
Mehlman p 223: "For the sake of music...what
would one not overlook?"
Mehlman
p 224: " What... would one not do for
music?"
What is the price suggested by
Mehlman? What does Mehlman mean by "music"
anyway? --- and we need to ask about greatness: what do we
pay for greatness? Mehlman looks philistine failing to
discriminate between the matter of music per se and that of
greatness. Perhaps to Mehlman one performance of the Cesar
Franck Symphony is much the same as another; Mehlman´s
praise of the work of Munch does not ring true.
Mehlman´s praise (in e-mail to me) of a performance at
Tanglewood is facile.
The gall of David
Weininger to presume he knows how the French felt in WW2 is
beyond sophomorism --- it is punk sophomorism.
The entire matter of the cross species contagion from the small
college journal ("Salmagundi"/Skidmore College) to the
world wide web, allowing massive rumor-mongering, is a problem
that must be addressed. National Public Radio,
Boston University Radio, and indeed, other media besides
their web sites, e g the Boston Globe newspaper,
should take some responsibility in regulating a plague in which
the reputations of dead celebrities can be played with ad
lib.
In the instance here discussed, note that
people are mainly fumbling in the dark, in the absence of easy
availability of the original article by Mehlman: it can be
got by buying the issue of "Salmagundi" it appears in,
for ten dollars, but it is not on the web. The racket I
referred to, of academics promoting argument so as to keep the
cauldrons boiling, is thus expanded to getting people to buy a
magazine (I emphasize that I do not say that is the intention in
this case, but I am pointing to a general problem).
The problem of rumor mongering is important; note that
insulting a major celebrity arouses some fans, but what of the
common man --- what protection does he or she have?!
The situation encourages witch-hunting, the painting of a
person with common-fame guilt.
Indeed, upon
finding the Weininger piece on the WBUR website, I promptly sent
an attacking answer, but it was not put on their site --- i
gather one must be a member --- the consequences of not being
able to counter a statement freely on the original site itself
presents problems to objectivity.
As
to the penultimate page in the Mehlman article, in which he uses
circular non-logic to put Munch in the same soup with Klaus
Barbi, the pot boils down to: CIA let Munch
slip past its anti-Nazi filters, because he was a conductor, and
there was a scarcity of conductors; this is confirmed by
CIA paying $130,000 several years later for Munch/BSO
to tour including Paris. Of course, all we know
(apart from the irrelevant tour) is that Munch was not hindered
by CIA after WW2 --- why, is left to the imagination of any
witch-hunter: Mehlman takes it as proof of his own covert
allegation that Munch had a career as collaborator.
In other words, the reason you, dear reader, are not accused of
any crime you may imagine, is not that there is no reason to do
so, but rather, because the police have a secret agenda to give
you a free pass. The fact that you are not arrested proves
you are guilty.
My question, yet again, is:
why does a University Professor, who surely knows logic as well
as do I, stoop to such chicanery? Is he testing
boundaries, like some infant with augmented status? And
what evil example is it to others who may be encouraged to do
even worse?! Or is it a neurosis akin to the problem:
"Power corrupts; and absolute power corrupts absolutely"?
Americans are gruesomely acquainted with the arrogance of
academic power via the Vietnam war, with "the
best and the brightest" leaping hurdles blindly,
getting the nation to run into the valley of death. The
courts have irresponsibly abdicated to scholarly
pseudo-scientists to break families by driving away fathers in
divorce, because they were advised that otherwise conflict would
be encouraged --- later, after the damage was done --- we all
learned better. Throughout history we see examples of
academic arrogance causing death and destruction, not to mention
preventing the increase of knowledge. Arrogance is the
handmaiden of ignorance.
Our society is based on the idea of The Reasonable --- we must be
vigilant to control excess pretending to authority, and we must
hold to standards based on reason those who feel free to ignore
them.
----------------------------------------
AND NOW
FOR REFRESHMENT:
BELOW FROM: (on google)
Searched the web for charles munch.
Results 1 - 10 of about 49,900. Search took
0.18 seconds.
Charles
Munch A Tribute
A
Tribute to Charles Munch 1891 - 1968. Listen to a 72
minute concert of historic
recordings in STEREO with
Charles Munch conducting. ... Charles Munch 1891 -
1968. ...
www.geocities.com/Vienna/Strasse/1934/
- 14k - Cached
- Similar pages
From a Portrait of Munch by Pierre Hiegel
A Tribute to Charles Munch 1891 - 1968
The
great conductor Charles Munch was born and raised in Strasbourg.
The son of a musician, the nephew of Albert Schweitzer,
originally a violinist, he became a professor of the Strasbourg
Conservatory. In 1926 he was appointed concert master under
Wilhelm Furtwangler at Leipzig. After the accession to power of
the Nazis, Munch left Germany and moved to Paris. He made his
debut in Paris as a conductor, where he founded the Orchestre
Philharmonique de Paris in 1935. In 1938 he was put in charge of
the Societe des Concerts du Conservatorie, which he directed
until 1946. He used that position during the war and throughout
the German occupation to protect French musicians and turned his
salary over to the French underground. After the War he was
awarded the Legion of Honor. In 1946 his made his American debut
with the Boston Symphony. After touring the United States and
Canada with the Orchestra National in 1948, he was asked to
replace the ailing Serge Koussevitzky as music director of the
Boston Symphony Orchestra which remained one of the greatest
orchestras in the world until he resigned in 1962. During his 13
years in Boston he won five new York Music Critics Circle awards,
and many other for his outstanding recordings. When he left his
post in Boston, President Kennedy wrote to thank him on behalf of
the American people who: "wished to express their warmest
admiration for his splendid work". When Charles Munch
arrived in Paris to conduct two concerts of the RTF National
Orchestra in 1963 after had just left the Boston Symphony where
he had been the musical director since 1949. Munch said he
totally approved of the American musical system. It was rather a
very human desire to change his surroundings and a return to his
native soil. Some thought he was going to begin a new life of a
wandering conductor. In 1967 after five years of itinerant
conducting he returned to France and was asked to set up the
Orchestre de Paris for which he painstakingly selected each of
the nearly 120 instrumentalists himself. He toured the world with
his new orchestra and gave his last Paris concert in October,
1968 . During his North America tour he triumphed in Montreal,
Boston, New York. Then came Philadelphia, Washington, Raleigh,
Richmond... but on the morning of November 6, 1968 Charles Munch
died hours before he was to reach the Richmond
podium.
--------------------------------------
Wednesday, June 18, 2003 10:31 pm
THIS CONCLUDES THIS SPECIAL REPORT .
ELF (FOR THE AMBASSADOR OF THE CRYSTAL PEOPLE OF
MARS)
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section: "CULTURE
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