Perverts, Nazis, and Heretics

[jochanaan]

Ha ha! Made you look!

Seriously, though, how do the rest of you deal with the fact that many composers led less-than-exemplary lives? Tchaikovsky, Barber, and Britten among others were homosexual, Schumann and Smetana had serious mental issues, Berlioz became addicted to opium, and as for Wagner...!

A long time ago, when I realized that classical music was my life's work whether I made a living at it or not, I thought and prayed about this, and I have come to the conclusion that the way composers lived doesn't really matter to us. Now, I don't expect to find Wagner or Berlioz in heaven, and I have my doubts about Tchaikovsky and Britten. But I still play their music. I believe that musical gifts come from God whether those composers are believers or not, and how they lived has little relation to the kind of music they wrote.

By the same token, Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring depicts in music a quasi-pagan ritual in which a young woman dies by dancing; but the music is magnificent and awe-inspiring. (And that's not just because it's so incredibly hard! ) So I would have no objection to playing it--although I might think twice if the ballet production became pornographic! (I'll let you decide for yourselves what would be pornographic.)

Other views?

 

[FlatpickingJD]

I agree that musical talents are God given gifts.

Perhaps as someone once said, maybe the music the composers wrote was because of their trials and tribulations. Maybe that was the only way these people could express their pains, anguish, and torment.

The only thing that I disagree w/is the idea that Schumann's or Smetana's mental illnesses are some sort of character flaw or reflection on how they lived their lives.

 

[christus]

I agree with you. Play them even if they were addict, crazy, whatever they were. If they were talented, it's God's gift.

 

[jochanaan]

The only thing that I disagree w/is the idea that Schumann's or Smetana's mental illnesses are some sort of character flaw or reflection on how they lived their lives.

Oh, you're right!:o I should have made that clear. I'm not sure about Schumann, but everything I've heard about Smetana suggests that his debility was physiological and probably related to his increasing deafness.

 

[jayem]

Quite a few famous composers had many sexual liasons, but that's been true of people since time immemorial. Off the top of my head, I think Schubert and Donizetti died of syphilis (but again,it was pretty widespread back in those days.)

One of my personal favorites, Verdi, lived openly with a woman for years before they were married. No big deal today, but was considered scandalous then. Especially since Verdi's estate was in a small Italian village, his personal life was the subject of much gossip and derision by the provincial townsfolk. This is pasted from a letter Verdi wrote complaining about it:


"You live," Verdi wrote, "in a place which has the evil habit of mixing frequently into the affairs of others and of disapproving of everything which does not conform to their ideas; I habitually do not interfere, if I am not asked, in others' affairs, precisely because I insist that no one interfere in mine…

"I have no difficulty whatsoever in lifting the curtain which will reveal the mysteries closed in four walls and tell you of my life at home. I have nothing to hide. In my house lives a free woman, independent, a lover like me of the solitary life, who has a fortune which shields her from every need. Neither I nor she owes to anyone at all an account of our actions; but on the other hand who knows what relationships exist between us? What affairs? What rights I have over her and she over me? Who knows whether she is or is not my wife?…Who knows whether this is good or bad? Why might it not even be good? And if it were bad, who has the right to hurl curses?"


Some would say that it's nothing to flaunt, but still, these are very modern viewpoints for the 1850s.

 

[agyevesam]

Nothing is given without a disadvantage

I read that somewhere, rings true......

 

[Borealis]

I choose to separate their personal lives from their music. Wagner was a human dirtbag at best; a list of his sins would force me to break this into two posts. But as loud and bombastic as his music is, it's also fantastic. Die Walkure is awesome, as anyone who watches Bugs Bunny knows. The man who inspired 'Kill da Wabbit' is worthy of praise for his music genius.

 

[Envy]

I couldn't really care if they lived a life style that I didn't agree with. If the music is good, then listen to it don't let the life they lived put you off...well that's what I think

 

[UncleFud]

Ha ha! Made you look!

Seriously, though, how do the rest of you deal with the fact that many composers led less-than-exemplary lives? Tchaikovsky, Barber, and Britten among others were homosexual, Schumann and Smetana had serious mental issues, Berlioz became addicted to opium, and as for Wagner...!

A long time ago, when I realized that classical music was my life's work whether I made a living at it or not, I thought and prayed about this, and I have come to the conclusion that the way composers lived doesn't really matter to us. Now, I don't expect to find Wagner or Berlioz in heaven, and I have my doubts about Tchaikovsky and Britten. But I still play their music. I believe that musical gifts come from God whether those composers are believers or not, and how they lived has little relation to the kind of music they wrote.

By the same token, Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring depicts in music a quasi-pagan ritual in which a young woman dies by dancing; but the music is magnificent and awe-inspiring. (And that's not just because it's so incredibly hard! ) So I would have no objection to playing it--although I might think twice if the ballet production became pornographic! (I'll let you decide for yourselves what would be pornographic.)

Other views?

God doesn't seem to show favoritism when doling out talent. That was hard for me to contend with when I was coming up. God-fearing UncleFud would spend hours in the woodshed, and godless savant 'x' would walk in and hand me my behind, without breaking a sweat.

I was encouraged by a composition teacher (an old European master) who said something to the effect of, "Talent is the most common commodity in the world. It's what you do with it that matters." For this reason, yours truly remains in the music business and savant 'x' is a bald insurance salesman. (My apologies to the many fine, bald insurance salesmen in the world).

To your query, I would guess that the lion's share of great composers were either nominal Christians or non-believers. Excepting, of course, JSB. Their convictions, or lack of, have never diminished my enjoyment of their work(s), however. They are, after all, dead, and that is a sad, but settled, issue. Their legacy is their art, and their personal foibles kind of lie in the abstract for me.

For example, after a listen to "Adagio for Strings", I've never concluded: "What a fantastic work! Too bad I can't enjoy it more, knowing that Barber was a homosexual."

At the end of the day, I would submit that it isn't necessary to reconcile the personal lives of the composers mentioned, with their awe-inspiring work. I would add in haste, that this is not a universal MO. Discernment should always be in play.

BTW, I'm not a legit player (freelance jack-of-all-trades), so take my 2 cents for what it's worth.

 

[UberLutheran]

Ha ha! Made you look!

Seriously, though, how do the rest of you deal with the fact that many composers led less-than-exemplary lives? Tchaikovsky, Barber, and Britten among others were homosexual,

As were Arcangelo Corelli, Johann-Baptiste Lully, Johann Rosenmüller, George Friedrich Handel (who wrote "The Messiah"), Franz Schubert, Frederic Chopin (for whom a very strong case can be made for bisexuality), Camille Saint-Saens, Reynaldo Hahn, Modeste Mussorgski, Ernest Chausson, Manuel de Falla, Maurice Ravel, Francis Poulenc, Virgil Thomson, Aaron Copland, Karol Szymanowski, Gian-Carlo Menotti, Ned Rorem, John Cage, John Corigliano, Lou Harrison, David Del Tredici, Michael Tilson Thomas, Leonard Bernstein, and Hans Werner Henze.

Composers who suffered from mental illness include Gaetano Donizetti, Georg Friedrich Handel, Beethoven, Hugo Wolf and Gustav Mahler (all bipolar).

Wagner was part of the Bayreuth Circle, which was one of the notoriously anti-Semitic discussion groups in Bavaria during the 1870s and 1880s which greatly influenced National Socialists such as Adolph Hitler.

Igor Stravinsky was an ardent supporter of Mussolini and Italian Fascism, as were Pietro Mascagni, Giacomo Puccini, Luigi Dallapiccola (who recanted after 1940 and became an anti-Fascist), Richard Strauss stayed in Nazi Germany and flourished as conductor and performer; Hans Pfitzner became Musical Senator for the Third Reich and Florent Schmitt (a French composer) actively worked on behalf of the Third Reich.

Now that I've ruined classical music for everybody, we can all start listening to hip-hop and rap!

 

[UberLutheran]

I choose to separate their personal lives from their music. Wagner was a human dirtbag at best; a list of his sins would force me to break this into two posts. But as loud and bombastic as his music is, it's also fantastic. Die Walkure is awesome, as anyone who watches Bugs Bunny knows. The man who inspired 'Kill da Wabbit' is worthy of praise for his music genius.

UberLutheran <- ardent Brahmsian

 

[Mr_Hursh]

I love their music. I have no problem listening to it. I didn't "know" about Tchaikovsky, and it'll probably be a while before I can listen to his music and enjoy it again without feeling a little weird...

I did know that Stravinsky was a tad weird, but really, I couldn't care less about the composers. The music is good.

 

[mpshiel]

It is one of the great Christian hypocracies in which I take delight and always have - the assumption that if something doesn't have words then it must be "good" in the same way in the music section here classical music isn't in the "secular" section.

I've always observed that Christians tend to use a persons lifestyle or music content to simply dismiss music that they dislike or fear while not caring too much about where music they do like comes from, I mean after all who cares if Zamfir is a cannibal (he isn't).

I believe music is music and you can take or reflect from it what you will - a great deal of the most popular classical music has nothing at all to do with Christianity whether that is the celebration of the massacre of men (the 1812 overture) to the popular piece created for the Nuremburg Nazi Rallies (go Carl Orff!).

As occasionally musical organizer I have played many different metitative pieces of modern classical music from Enigma (known and proclaimed Satanists, including a write up of dedicating their music to Satan - but very pretty) to Moon Shadow and other Nordic Pagan groups. Often people will come up afterward wanting to know where they can get that "hymn" which put them in touch with God. I mumble something about "complicated sourcing" as I figure they don't really want to know that the "hymn" was actually dedicated to Aphrodite.

I personally like minimalism but find regardless of it's fame, "The Shaker Movement" inspired by the early American Christian Movement is not something anyone particularly wants to listen to generally, in church or otherwise. And I think there are about 16 of us around the world who listen to the Michael Nyman Band, though works such as MVG whuch use 7 different time beats are a thing of wonder to hear (though others say it sounds like an orchestra falling down a hill).

 

[jochanaan]

It is one of the great Christian hypocracies in which I take delight and always have - the assumption that if something doesn't have words then it must be "good" in the same way in the music section here classical music isn't in the "secular" section.

Well, without words it's hard to accuse it of "doctrinal error"!

As occasionally musical organizer I have played many different metitative pieces of modern classical music from Enigma (known and proclaimed Satanists, including a write up of dedicating their music to Satan - but very pretty) to Moon Shadow and other Nordic Pagan groups. Often people will come up afterward wanting to know where they can get that "hymn" which put them in touch with God. I mumble something about "complicated sourcing" as I figure they don't really want to know that the "hymn" was actually dedicated to Aphrodite.

Yeah, I'll play things and not give the title. A while ago I played Debussy's Syrinx, accepting the compliments while staying silent about the pagan mythology that inspired the music.

I personally like minimalism but find regardless of it's fame, "The Shaker Movement" inspired by the early American Christian Movement is not something anyone particularly wants to listen to generally, in church or otherwise...

Unless Aaron Copland sets it in a ballet.

 

[Lake]

I tend to believe it had something to do with the darn wigs they wore.

 

[jochanaan]

That doesn't explain Beethoven, whose hair was real, or Stravinsky, who had none.

 

[tuke]

Ha ha! Made you look! ... and as for Wagner...!
...
I have come to the conclusion that the way composers lived doesn't really matter to us. Now, I don't expect to find Wagner or Berlioz in heaven...
By the same token, Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring depicts in music a quasi-pagan ritual in which a young woman dies by dancing; but the music is magnificent and awe-inspiring. (And that's not just because it's so incredibly hard! ) .... Other views?

But I do expect to find his Nibelungenlied in heaven.

Based solely on your post, I highly recommend CS Lewis's The Personal Heresy. He takes the counter position against another professor, Tillyard, that an author's personal philosophy means nothing, ie. ~ the play's the thing. In other words, in literature only content matters, not intent nor happenstance.

 

[jochanaan]

Well! I'm glad to know the greatest theologian of modern times agrees with me! But I don't know about Der Ring; I suspect there will be even better music up there, so much better that we won't even miss the Nibelungenlied.

 

[tuke]

As stated elsewhere, Lewis derived ecstatic joy from Der Ring, hence my superlative.

I'm sort of a Lewis disciple; which is to say only something more than a fan.

 

[neilius73]

Someone mention Stravinsky? I would guess the firebird suite will be played in heaven! Gosh what a beautiful piece of music!