Wagner: Tristan und Isolde - Prelude - YouTube
I just stumbled upon this and I feel it's one of the beautiful things I ever heard in my life. I just re -watched it 3 times in the last hour.
But I feel guilty because it's Wagner. It's the music of the Nazi's and the anti-semites. Should I feel this way?
Does everone else feel troubled by this man's music? Should we let an artist's personal history influence how we appreciate his or her art?
My two cents:
Just because Wagner was an anti-semite, doesn't mean this is antisemitic music. I don't fully endorse the political beliefs of the vast majority of the music I listen to, whether the open materialism of certain hip-hop or the religious messages of certain jazz or blues artists, but it doesn't stop me from listening to that music.
Often, I find that people are ok with listening to things they disagree with as long as the offensive elements don't target whatever is considered off-limits. For example, Wagner's antisemitism means that his music doesn't get played in Israel, but some hip-hop song with extremely misogynistic lyrics can be a top hit there. The same is true in the US. Big Pun, Jay-Z, etc, could have chart-topping hits that expressed explicit, incredibly misogynistic sentiments, with those elements either being ignored, given a pass, or even embraced, but if someone made a song with a few lines that were racist, it never would have made it to the top and would be blackballed immediately. I think that's because different forms of prejudice are considered more acceptable than others in different parts of any given culture.
To me, both antisemitism and misogyny are reprehensible, but one or two lines in a song won't stop me from listening to it, though I admit I'm less used to hearing racist lyrics in a song and that would obviously affect me more personally, which is understandable, as it would be for a woman who hears something misogynistic.
And in the case of Wagner, the music makes no mention of those offensive beliefs whatsoever. If Wagner wrote a song that was explicitly antisemitic in message or intent, then I think there could be a debate on listening to that song (assume it was an excellent piece of music otherwise,) but for something like Tristan and Isolde, which is a philosophical and not political work, it doesn't really matter to me.
Bottom line, it's a complicated issue, but there's also a lot of needless political correctness that obscures some of those complexities.
should I like this shyt or not? Cube was my favorite rapper at the time, but most of my friends were white and the girls I hung with were all white. 