Something for the weekend. Tchaikovsky: Symphony Number 6. Blaming a whole culture for the misdeeds of a national leader is too stupid for words.
Tchaikovsky: Symphony Number 6
- Donald R. McClarey
Donald R. McClarey
Cradle Catholic. Active in the pro-life movement since 1973. Father of three, one in Heaven, and happily married for 43 years. Small town lawyer and amateur historian. Former president of the board of directors of the local crisis pregnancy center for a decade.
That was my favorite in high school. How about this one:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KrVMmRWzRSM
Great videos, gentlemen, thanks. I absolutely love Tchaikovsky, from his symphonic works through his chamber music and solo piano pieces. I even like Eugene Onegin.
And God bless the Brit orchestras for being sensible about this.
Cancelling Tchaikovsky for what Russia is doing is as stupid as cancelling Beethoven for what Germany did.
“Roll over Beethoven
Tell Tchaikovsky the news”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WO1dLCOJ7m4
Wagner’s been cancelled because of WWII in many places for decades. The usual defense of the cancellation is that Hitler liked Wagner’s music, and maybe Wagner ranting about how talentless Jewish musicians were more popular than him.
Looking into this a bit more, I found that the groundwork has already been laid to also dismiss Russian artists for being anti-Semitic:
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/why-do-we-pounce-on-wagner-s-anti-semitism-and-ignore-that-of-the-russian-composers-
We are deep enough into cancel culture and the Ukraine conflict has been pushed as such a primary moral concern that it’s too late to stop things now. Certainly continue to listen to Russian composers and spread their music, but they are still going to get banned.
RH, Zubin Mehta in 1981 conducted Wagner’s Liebestod at Tel Aviv (Israel Philharmonic) even though the man Wagner was an anti-semite, his music was important in the 19th century. This generated, shall we say, a heated exchange of views. But Mehta was supported by his Jewish musical friends (Lenny Bermsteom. Izhtak Perlman, and others). Is this an example of art transcending politics and the person?
The golden-era of pick and choose hypocrisy. The Germans should put their money where their mouth is and burn their Hugo Boss suits.
And God bless the Brit orchestras for being sensible about this.
Something to keep an eye out– I’m not sure if it’s folks liking high drama, the thrill of finding oneself so much better than others with very little effort, or if there’s propaganda behind it, but I’ve noticed a lot of the stories about canceled-because-Russian are at best very lightly based on a true story, with important aspects removed.
For example, the claim that an Italian university in Milan had stopped teaching Dostoevsky because of the Russian invasion… poking around Vatican nonsense stories let me find out that one free lecture series was canceled by the author/lecturer who gives it, because he got an email (implied from the college) requesting he include something on Ukrainian authors in the free to the public lecture series. The head of the college says he didn’t email that request, and there’s been at least three results going around in response– full cancel, delay to avoid
people being idiotscontroversy, and moving to a new place entirely.For one lecture series. Of the “free to the public” sort, which means it’s advertising in the first place.
The “Banning Russian cat-breeds” stories likewise turned out to be not doing new registrations on cats bred in Russia, and not letting Russian-based cat owners show, in that one group’s shows. That is, making it so that cats can’t be a vector for washing money sent to Russia, which protects Russian cat breeders and owners.