Wagner and The Jews
Notwithstanding his public utterances against Jewish influence in music, and even his utterances against specific Jews, Wagner had numerous Jewish friends and supporters even in his later period. Included amongst these were his favourite conductor Hermann Levi, the pianists Carl Tausig and Joseph Rubinstein, the writer Heinrich Porges and very many others. In his autobiography, written between 1865 and 1870, he declared that his acquaintance with the Jew Samuel Lehrs whom he knew in Paris in the early 1840s was ‘one of the most beautiful friendships of my life’. There remain, therefore, elements of the enigmatic, and of the opportunist, in Wagner's personal attitude towards Jews.
The notoriety in Germany of Wagner's animus against Jews is attested to in Theodor Fontane's novel Effi Briest (1895). Effi's husband Baron von Instetten asks her to play Wagner because of "Wagner's stand on the Jewish question".
Read more about this topic: Das Judenthum In Der Musik
Famous quotes containing the words wagner and/or jews:
“I have witnessed, and greatly enjoyed, the first act of everything which Wagner created, but the effect on me has always been so powerful that one act was quite sufficient; whenever I have witnessed two acts I have gone away physically exhausted; and whenever I have ventured an entire opera the result has been the next thing to suicide.”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)
“When Hitler attacked the Jews ... I was not a Jew, therefore, I was not concerned. And when Hitler attacked the Catholics, I was not a Catholic, and therefore, I was not concerned. And when Hitler attacked the unions and the industrialists, I was not a member of the unions and I was not concerned. Then, Hitler attacked me and the Protestant church—and there was nobody left to be concerned.”
—Martin Niemller (1892–1984)