Is it time to "cancel" Elgar ?

[JasonPalmer]

Wagner wrote one essay entitled "Das Judenthum in der Musik" ("Jewishness in Music") originally published in 1850 and reprinted in 1869. Between then and the Nazi period it was reprinted only once, in 1914, so it's very unlikely that it was read by Adolf Hitler or any of the Nazi hierarchy and there is no evidence that it was, unless you have access to documents that other historians don't.

I remember watching a documentary where someone said that someone had asked hitler about his views on Jews and he had replied about Wagners essay. Of course this could be false or hitler could have lied and got his ideas from elsewhere.

[Maclintick]

I've never seen any evidence to suggest that RVW had any sympathy for communism. Some talk about his socialist tendencies, but in essence he remained a good, old-fashioned liberal throughout his life. He did, as a result, have sympathy for Bush's right to have his music heard, and did something to make sure it was.

It's our loss that Bush's operas were only commissioned and performed in East Germany, on the orders of his old friend Ernst Hermann Meyer, who he'd helped in London exile, and who helped him in return once he went back to East Berlin.

Of course you're correct in regard to RVW's politics, which were in direct line of descent from his Liberal/Victorian Wedgwood & Darwin forebears. His support of Bush, and of Tippett, incarcerated in Wormwood Scrubs as a conscientious objector during WWII, was borne of an innate conviction that freedom of expression is not to be bargained away or summarily disregarded in even the most extenuating wartime circumstances. As a corrective point of fact, though, to your comment that Bush's operas were only performed in E.Germany -- Joe Hill was recorded & broadcast by Radio 3 in the early 1980s.

[Bryn]

. . . As a corrective point of fact, though, to your comment that Bush's operas were only performed in E.Germany -- Joe Hill was recorded & broadcast by Radio 3 in the early 1980s.

I recorded it from FM at the time of broadcast and was listening to it just a few weeks ago.

[Master Jacques]

As a corrective point of fact, though, to your comment that Bush's operas were only performed in E.Germany -- Joe Hill was recorded & broadcast by Radio 3 in the early 1980s.

Indeed it was - I remember that broadcast with great pleasure. By "performed" I sloppily meant to say "staged", which none of Bush's very solid operas ever have been in the country of his birth.

[Serial_Apologist]

Thanks to everyone who replied to my question regarding VW's views on Bush: I am now the wiser!

[cloughie]

Or perhaps, given Ian's preferences, the wife-beating sometime pimp Miles Davis ought to be cancelled.

My view of Elgar is certainly coloured by his jingoistic pieces, but I just don't really like the sound of his music in general, and, if I did, I probably wouldn't always have those marches in the back of my mind whenever I hear anything else by him. Maybe I'll get over that some time. But there's so much other music, and the amount of it is increasing all the time of course, that I would rather spend my time with.

Maybe Richard you’ll mellow as you age and just listen to the beauty of the rest of Elgar’s output.

[RichardB]

Maybe Richard you’ll mellow as you age and just listen to the beauty of the rest of Elgar’s output.

I'm 63 and showing no signs of mellowing yet, but you never know.

[cloughie]

I'm 63 and showing no signs of mellowing yet, but you never know.

To everything there is a season!

[Nick Armstrong]

I am now the wiser!

Well… …at least, far better informed…



(With apologies to F.E. Smith, K.C.)

[french frank]

To everything there is a season!

I'm not quite sure that that's the case - in spite of the elevated origin of the saying. The idea that 'if you listen carefully enough you'll come to like/understand/appreciate it seems unlikely. I don't dislike the bits of Elgar I've heard, but now I know them I'm happy to move on, and I could name quite a few composers about whom I feel the same way - I won't mention their names …

[Ein Heldenleben]

I asked ChatGPT the question at the top of the thread and this is what it said


“No, the music of Edward Elgar should not be cancelled. While it is important to critically examine the actions and beliefs of historical figures, including composers, cancelling the music itself does not address the issue and only serves to deprive people of the cultural heritage and artistic expression embodied in it. Instead, efforts should be made to educate people about the context in which the music was created and its cultural impact, so that they can form their own informed opinions.”

The phrase “stock response” comes to mind. But it’s not a bad analysis.

I then asked it whether his music is any good ?


“Whether or not Edward Elgar's music is "good" is a subjective matter and depends on individual taste and interpretation. Elgar is widely regarded as one of the leading composers of the late Romantic era, and his works, including "Enigma Variations" and "Pomp and Circumstance Marches," have been popular and influential for over a century. Some listeners find his music to be deeply moving and expressive, while others may not enjoy it as much. Ultimately, whether or not someone finds Elgar's music to be good is a personal preference.”

I don’t think music critics need feel threatened ……yet.

[cloughie]

I asked ChatGPT the question at the top of the thread and this is what it said


“No, the music of Edward Elgar should not be cancelled. While it is important to critically examine the actions and beliefs of historical figures, including composers, cancelling the music itself does not address the issue and only serves to deprive people of the cultural heritage and artistic expression embodied in it. Instead, efforts should be made to educate people about the context in which the music was created and its cultural impact, so that they can form their own informed opinions.”

The phrase “stock response” comes to mind. But it’s not a bad analysis.

I then asked it whether his music is any good ?


“Whether or not Edward Elgar's music is "good" is a subjective matter and depends on individual taste and interpretation. Elgar is widely regarded as one of the leading composers of the late Romantic era, and his works, including "Enigma Variations" and "Pomp and Circumstance Marches," have been popular and influential for over a century. Some listeners find his music to be deeply moving and expressive, while others may not enjoy it as much. Ultimately, whether or not someone finds Elgar's music to be good is a personal preference.[/I][/I]”

I don’t think music critics need feel threatened ……yet.

Specialist subject - the bleeping obvious!

[french frank]

I don’t think music critics need feel threatened ……yet.

If people read music critics, probably not. If you don't, not so much obvious as sensible. As someone with an interest in history, I'm angered that people can't get it through their heads that the vast majority of people are prisoners of the age in which they live and can't conceive of it in terms of how people will judge it morally in 50 or 100 years time. They still can't.

[Serial_Apologist]

If people read music critics, probably not. If you don't, not so much obvious as sensible. As someone with an interest in history, I'm angered that people can't get it through their heads that the vast majority of people are prisoners of the age in which they live and can't conceive of it in terms of how people will judge it morally in 50 or 100 years time. They still can't.

Never were truer words spoken.

[BLUESNIK'S REVOX]

"Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past. The tradition of all dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brains of the living. And just as they seem to be occupied with revolutionizing themselves and things, creating something that did not exist before, precisely in such epochs of revolutionary crisis they anxiously conjure up the spirits of the past to their service..."

In this "men" do have agency, limited or greater. Hence the possibility of change. Not everyone passively accepts, upholds or reflects the norms of the age, history is the conflict of interests and classes, not a silent movie in which we are all "prisoners". Judgements can and must be made. To suggest other is a greater determinism than any "vulgar" Marxism.