(April 4, 2016 at 5:39 am)abaris Wrote:

(April 4, 2016 at 4:33 am)Alex K Wrote: That must have been an obvious provocation. Or just a lot of cognitive dissonance on all sides?

Irony was lost on the regime. And I daressay, it was lost on Furtwängler also. Going by his career record. As opposed to other artists, he adapted just fine. Without having at least some instances of making a stand.

I have looked into it, and it really seems that while he did stay during the Nazi period, he did whatever he could to distance himself. I've seen close-up footage of that concert, and after shaking Goebbel's hand, he seems to be trying to rub off Goebbels' touch with his handkerchief without making it too obvious. Hell, apparently, he tried to schedule some concerts in Vienna specifically to avoid having to do that concert. He spent a lot of time clashing with Goebbels over participation in propaganda films (including one about Beethoven that he refused to and Goebbels once wrote:

[quote="Joseph Goebbels"]Furtwängler has never been a National Socialist. Nor has he ever made any bones about it. Which Jews and emigrants thought was sufficient to consider him as one of them, a key representative of so-called 'inner emigration'. Furtwängler['s] stance towards us has not changed in the least[/url]

Reportedly, he was aware of the July 20 plot against Hitler, but didn't actually participate, and one of the surviving organisers of the plot later told him: "In the circle of our resistance movement it was an accepted fact that you were the only one in the whole of our musical world who really resisted, and you were one of us."


I could go on about this, but it seems Furtwangler was more aware of the irony than he let on.

Yeah, but as opposed to others he always played ball. The Nazis were beneath him, that's for sure, but he never did what others of his generation and fame did and could do without consequences. He never distanced himself, which is fine, since not everyone is a hero. But he didn't make even the least attempt to even flee the embrace of the regime. Which he could have done without even having to fear financial or career consequences.

The last stand he took was in 1933 when he tried to prevent jews being fired. In 1933 he became vice president of the so called Reichsmusikkammer, which answered directly to Goebbels. It is virtually undisputed that, together with Richard Strauss, he actively worked on jews not being allowed to perform in Germany.

At the same time, he already had a residence in Luzern and mainly lived there. An offer of the New York Philharmoics he refused to keep working in Nazi Germany. No, he certainly didn't see the irony. He was an opportunist of the first order. Needlessly so, since, as the offer for a position in New York proves, he was famous enough to work and perform virtually everywhere.

I love the (at times a bit controversial) Schumann Violin concerto, and recently I discovered this

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fJc1RhzF9w0

The beginning of the second movement is pizzicato for the solo Violin, quite the striking and minimalistic contrast.

(April 4, 2016 at 10:37 am)abaris Wrote: The last stand he took was in 1933 when he tried to prevent jews being fired. In 1933 he became vice president of the so called Reichsmusikkammer, which answered directly to Goebbels. It is virtually undisputed that, together with Richard Strauss, he actively worked on jews not being allowed to perform in Germany.

At the same time, he already had a residence in Luzern and mainly lived there. An offer of the New York Philharmoics he refused to keep working in Nazi Germany. No, he certainly didn't see the irony. He was an opportunist of the first order. Needlessly so, since, as the offer for a position in New York proves, he was famous enough to work and perform virtually everywhere.

Looking up the Reichsmusikkammer, it looks like even there, he and the Nazis didn't see eye to eye. He only lasted a year. While he was still in the position, he actually tried to get Jewish musicians like Yehudi Menuhin, Arthur Schnabel, Arnold Schoenberg, and Carl Flesch, as well as the Jewish members of the Berlin Philharmonic to be recognised by the Nazis. Naturally, this worked out as well as one would have expected. Eventually, he resigned in late 1934 after performing a piece by "Degenerate" composer Paul Hindemith.  He refused to join the Nazi party (honestly, more than I can say about some other conductors I admire), refused to conduct the Horst-Wessel-Lied, never did the Hitler salute even when it would have seemed unseemly, and never said or wrote "Heil Hitler," even when writing to Hitler. When the Nazis annexed Austria and put a Nazi flag on the Musikverein, he refused to conduct there until the flag came down. For the record, Strauss only lasted about a year longer before he collaborated with Jewish writer Stefan Zweig on an opera.

He claimed his reason for staying in Germany at the time was to protect German culture from the Nazis, and, honestly, it looks like his actions bore that out. Whenever possible, he did what he could to distance himself from the Nazis, but, of course, never did anything too overt.

(April 5, 2016 at 9:20 am)Rev. Rye Wrote: He refused to join the Nazi party (honestly, more than I can say about some other conductors I admire),

*Cough* rajan *Cough*

(April 5, 2016 at 9:51 am)Alex K Wrote:

(April 5, 2016 at 9:20 am)Rev. Rye Wrote: He refused to join the Nazi party (honestly, more than I can say about some other conductors I admire),

*Cough* rajan *Cough*

I know, right? He conducted my preferred recordings of Beethoven's symphonies, Rosenkavalier, Haydn's Creation, and Debussy's orchestral works, but, at the end of the day, he still owed his career to the Nazis.

(April 5, 2016 at 10:11 am)Rev. Rye Wrote: I know, right? He conducted my preferred recordings of Beethoven's symphonies, Rosenkavalier, Haydn's Creation, and Debussy's orchestral works, but, at the end of the day, he still owed his career to the Nazis.

But he was born in 1914. He started his career under dubious circumstances, but he never got into an official position in one of the institutions determining the fate of fellow artists. That's why I didn't mention him before.

I recently took it upon myself to download a very large library of classical music. I used this website as my reference [url=I recently took it upon myself to download a very large library of classical music. I used this website as my reference https://rateyourmusic.com/customchart?pa...sicalmusic[/url] which lays out a list based on the highest user rated albums. I focused mostly on chamber music (I love string quartets), modern classical, and romantic era music. It's nice and easy for me to simply copy the folder the music I downloaded is in, then open it up in foobar. From there I select all the albums from inside the media player and tell the media player to move them to a new folder, with appropriate names and tagging for the folder the files are in.

I recently took it upon myself to download a very large library of classical music. I used this website as my reference rym/classicalmusic which lays out a list based on the highest user rated albums. I focused mostly on chamber music (I love string quartets), modern classical, and romantic era music. It's nice and easy for me to simply copy the folder the music I downloaded is in, then open it up in foobar. From there I select all the albums from inside the media player and tell the media player to move them to a new folder, with appropriate names and tagging for the folder the files are in.

I recently took it upon myself to download a very large library of classical music. I used rateyourmusic as my reference http://tinyurl.com/zxzczed which lays out a list based on the highest user rated albums. I focused mostly on chamber music (I love string quartets), modern classical, and romantic era music. It's nice and easy for me to simply copy the music I downloaded from the folder it's in, then open it up in foobar. From there I select all the albums from inside the media player and tell the media player to move them to a new folder, with appropriate names and tagging for the folder the files are in.