James Levine Suspended by The Met

[Richard Barrett]

The absolute priority here should surely be to end, once and for all, the assumption that some men should be able to get away for decades with using positions of power within the cultural world (to name only this) for the purposes of their own sexual gratification at the expense of young and vulnerable people. If some action like boycotting their recordings/concerts/operas/films/whatever brings that end one millimetre closer I would say this overrides any considerations of the artistic worth of those things. We shouldn't think of the "unfairness" of depriving ourselves of the pleasure of one among god knows how many Mahler recordings for example, but of the unfairness of the lives damaged by unscrupulous individuals (and indirectly by those who protect them).

As for "not hearing" Levine, Pickett or King on any of their recordings, that isn't only irrelevant but also actually untrue, in that all three have also appeared on recordings as instrumentalists.

[Sir Velo]

I was in a charity shop earlier this year on a busy Saturday afternoon when the young assistant put a Rolf Harris cd on. The gasps of horror were comment enough. The music stopped in the middle of 'Tie me kangaroo down, sport' as people started leaving the shop.

Potentially, of course, some of Harris' convictions may well be found to be unsound.

[richardfinegold]

AFAIK you cannot actually hear Levine, or Pickett or King on any of their recordings. In fact one may well make a case for arguing that their contributions are greatly overplayed anyway. Criminal though their actions may be, by blacklisting their recordings one is effectively penalising the hundreds of other musicians who contributed greatly to each of these issues. And, frankly, let's leave the mudslinging to the gutter press, eh?

I agree with all of the above, except to pick a few nits in that there are a few recordings that Levine has made as a Pianist.
It’s a sad coda for what has been a great career. There are many Levine recordings in my collection that are amongst my favorites, and he has done great work with the Met Orchestra, which many believe is the finest in New York. I have a friend in the Orpheus Chamber Orchestra who pride themselves in being A Conductor free zone. He has also been a regular with the Met Orchestra and the NY Phil and he respects Levine more than any other Conductor that he has worked for.
Levine’s Midsummer Night Dream on DG and Prokofiev Fifth/Classical Symphony discs are two of my favorites, and his Mahler 3 with the CSO was my only recording of it for years. I also really like his Wagner excerpts. I was able to see him conduct Don Giovanni at the Met before he had to take a prolonged absence for what I believe was Kidney Cancer.

[Conchis]

The absolute priority here should surely be to end, once and for all, the assumption that some men should be able to get away for decades with using positions of power within the cultural world (to name only this) for the purposes of their own sexual gratification at the expense of young and vulnerable people. If some action like boycotting their recordings/concerts/operas/films/whatever brings that end one millimetre closer I would say this overrides any considerations of the artistic worth of those things. We shouldn't think of the "unfairness" of depriving ourselves of the pleasure of one among god knows how many Mahler recordings for example, but of the unfairness of the lives damaged by unscrupulous individuals (and indirectly by those who protect them).

As for "not hearing" Levine, Pickett or King on any of their recordings, that isn't only irrelevant but also actually untrue, in that all three have also appeared on recordings as instrumentalists.

The standard rejoinder to this is, 'the artist may be guilty, but the art is always innocent.' Not sure I TOTALLY agree with that, though.

I doubt whether the VPO/NYPO/Met players are making much in the way of residuals from Levine recordings.

The Rolf Harris point is a good one: his records may have been 'novelty' records but some of them were quite witty and at least one ('Sun Arise') has crediblity as (arguably) the first 'World Music' (avant la lettre) single to chart.

[MrGongGong]

The standard rejoinder to this is, 'the artist may be guilty, but the art is always innocent.' Not sure I TOTALLY agree with that, though.
.

When Suharto's regime was in East Timor the Indonesian state had a very active programme of promoting their culture.

"How can we be bad when our music and dance is so beautiful?"

Culture is often used in an attempt to mitigate despicable acts.

(No?) "sound is innocent"?

What Richard said is spot on IMV.
To pretend this is the same as "banning" long dead artists or composers is disingenuous.

[richardfinegold]

Toscanini was said to have used the “casting couch” audition technique on a few aspiring Singers. Yet his Anti Fascist credentials are superlative. Shostakovich and Bartok were both accused by female students and performers of unwanted advances. They also both endured and in various ways fought off odious totalitarian regeimes. I suppose that I can live without ever hearing another Toscanini recording but not without the Composers.
I understand the sentiment to want to expunge the abusers from our lives but it all seems to be somewhat unbalanced.
People are complicated, a mixture of talent, desires, good and bad impulses. The important lesson here seems to be that privilege and adulation do not give some people to treat others as mere objects of desire. Perhaps we need to go through a period of public shaming to reinforce the message for present and future generations.
Perhaps the Puritan practice of placing the offender in the stocks for public opprobrium and then releasing them to resume their lives, hopefully chastened, had some merit

[Dave2002]

The absolute priority here should surely be to end, once and for all, the assumption that some men should be able to get away for decades with using positions of power within the cultural world (to name only this) for the purposes of their own sexual gratification at the expense of young and vulnerable people.

I can agree with that, and there have obviously been some appalling cases which have come to light in the last few years, mostly involving older men with young men and girls and sometimes children. On the other hand some events may, or may not, have occurred many years ago, with no reasonable way of testing or verifying that they happened, and if there has been no evidence or reasonable suspicion of wrong doing for 30-50 years, is it really sound to take action against someone who may now be suspected of being a perpetrator?

Besides querying whether events in the past happened or not, legal frameworks have changed, and in the UK the Sexual Offences Act, 1967 has been hailed by some as a landmark, and others less so - https://www.theguardian.com/commenti...-four-1967-act

We have seen changes in attitudes over the years, and in the case of a very prominent mathematician a posthumous pardon for offences which he certainly did commit under the laws in force at the time. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alan_Turing

What seems to me to be clearly wrong is if someone knowingly commits "wrongful" (however defined) acts against other persons, and continues to do so for extended periods of time, possibly with the explicit or tacit assistance of others. Where the other persons are clearly upset or damaged by their actions then it is reasonable that some form of justice should be applied.

It is also the case that in some situations offences are commited involving a technicality, sometime based on age - e.g whether someone was 16 or 18 or whether they were in fact 15 years 364 days old or 17 years 364 days old, and many young people in the past have probably committed such offences, and many are probably doing so today. Some offences may also depend on location, as the technical laws in different countries and states may be different. However, in some jurisdictions, such as the UK, I believe that consideration is given to the relative ages of the participants.

In some cases involving people such as pop stars and girls who were young at the time when "offences" were claimed to have been committed, it is sometimes hard to work out whether claims which emerge recently are in fact malicious, or whether the "victims" were really unwilling to come forward earlier. Some are undoubtedly genuine, but there have also definitely been some malicious claims, which legal teams and courts are from time to time called upon to decide. In some of the cases involving former BBC personalities, records of which recordings were made in which studios are sometimes used to decide whether there is any justification in pursuing matters.

I'm not condoning wrongful acts whenever they occurred, but if they were a long time ago, the people concerned would have been much younger, possibly with different standards of behaviour, the laws may have been different, and it would not necessarily be feasible to come to a reliable judgement about guilt with so many years intervening.

[Sir Velo]

I agree with all of the above, except to pick a few nits in that there are a few recordings that Levine has made as a Pianist.

You're right of course. I was actually thinking of Levine as conductor. We perhaps see less of his recordings as soloist over here in the UK but no excuses, I should have known.

Personally, I think a custodial sentence is sufficient punishment for an offence of this type. I really don't see what is achieved by blacklisting recordings on the basis that one of the participants has a criminal record. In fact, if one is going to be logical about this, how many records are out there in which orchestral or chorus members have criminal pasts (be it as sex offenders or nazis)? The thing is, these will involve people the general public have limited knowledge of, and therefore will not attract the publicity. We'd probably not listen to half of the records we do if we followed this through to its logical conclusion.

[Richard Barrett]

different standards of behaviour

This is an argument I always find a little strange. When in, say, the last century has it been considered OK to use a position of power to force yourself sexually on another person, particularly one considerably younger than oneself and relatively defenceless?

Once more, the point is to respond in such a way as to reduce, if possible to zero, the probability of this kind of thing happening now and in the future.

[Dave2002]

This is an argument I always find a little strange. When in, say, the last century has it been considered OK to use a position of power to force yourself sexually on another person, particularly one considerably younger than oneself and relatively defenceless?

I am in agreement with your sentiments here. Nevertheless I feel that attitudes and customs have changed, and it is plausible that there was "customer practice" which seemingly made certain behaviour more common. I'm not specifically thinking only of sexual actions though. Allegedly in some schools in the 20th Century there were initiation rites which involved forcing young boys down into lavatories - though perhaps you'd write that since everyone involved was relatively young that wasn't a concern. There was bullying too, both by pupils and by teachers. Corporal punishment was quite common, and legal. I was aware of some teachers whose behaviour would be considered totally out of order today - behaviour such as throwing board dusters with considerable force across a room, and flicking one's nose left and right while saying "Silly boy". Obviously at the severe end of the spectrum of actions physical violence and sexual violence should never have been common practice or acceptable.

Another factor would have been lack of good role models, or an indifference by those (older?) people who might have been able to change things to the behaviours which in some cases they would have known to be happening by those younger than themselves. Acceptable behaviours do have to be learnt, to some extent, so young people will if unchecked do what they think is OK.

[Parry1912]

From what I can see Jimmy Saville programmes are absent from BBC schedules and Rolf Harris programmes and music too.

and Gary Glitter, Lost Prophets, and Jonathan King.

Every cloud ...

I was in a charity shop earlier this year on a busy Saturday afternoon when the young assistant put a Rolf Harris cd on. The gasps of horror were comment enough. The music stopped in the middle of 'Tie me kangaroo down, sport' as people started leaving the shop.

Classic! I wish I'd been there. A great tactic if you want to close and can't get people to leave.

[Beef Oven!]

The absolute priority here should surely be to end, once and for all, the assumption that some men should be able to get away for decades with using positions of power within the cultural world (to name only this) for the purposes of their own sexual gratification at the expense of young and vulnerable people. If some action like boycotting their recordings/concerts/operas/films/whatever brings that end one millimetre closer I would say this overrides any considerations of the artistic worth of those things. We shouldn't think of the "unfairness" of depriving ourselves of the pleasure of one among god knows how many Mahler recordings for example, but of the unfairness of the lives damaged by unscrupulous individuals (and indirectly by those who protect them).

As for "not hearing" Levine, Pickett or King on any of their recordings, that isn't only irrelevant but also actually untrue, in that all three have also appeared on recordings as instrumentalists.

If anyone's done anything wrong, feel their collar and stick them in clink. Not all this virtuous clucking that we go in for in this forum.

[jean]

...I feel that attitudes and customs have changed, and it is plausible that there was "customer practice" which seemingly made certain behaviour more common...

What on earth is customer practice?

Are the customers the recipients of the unwanted attention whose practice it was not to complain?

As for attitudes changing, all this was well flagged up by feminists in the 1970s. What is truly shocking now is how little actually chaged.

[Richard Barrett]

As for attitudes changing, all this was well flagged up by feminists in the 1970s.

Exactly.

"Not all this virtuous clucking", BeefO? What is that supposed to mean? that people shouldn't express their opinions on this issue?

[Beef Oven!]

Exactly.

"Not all this virtuous clucking", BeefO? What is that supposed to mean? that people shouldn't express their opinions on this issue?

I mean that we should focus on getting criminals dealt with, rather than ventilating about how frustrated are (which, seems to me doesn't get us anywhere).