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The Effect of Richard Wagner’s Music and Beliefs
Wagner’s now-tainted reputation is not exactly unfair, considering his
political views.
2
It is a dilemma that people have not yet been able to
overcome. For instance, consider the Israeli state, which after World War
II allowed many Jewish immigrants to come if they sought refuge.
3
As
they welcomed more and more immigrants to Palestine, anti-German
feelings became stronger and stronger. Beginning in the 1930s, Israel,
understandably, instituted a ban on all performances of Wagner’s music
as a result of his strong anti-Semitic views.
4
In addition to being a composer, Wagner was also at the forefront of the
political arena. In 1850 he wrote his most famous article entitled “Das
Judentum in der Musik,” or “Judaism in Music.” He originally wrote
under a pseudonym but later decided to take full credit, publishing it
under his own name. His prejudice toward the Jewish people can be seen
clearly through his writing. In the article, he says that “the Jew—who, as
everyone knows, has a God all to himself—in ordinary life strikes us
primarily by his outward appearance, which, no matter to what European
nationality we belong, has something disagreeably foreign to that
nationality: instinctively we wish to have nothing in common with a man
who looks like that.”
5
His opinions are clearly derogatory; belittling the
Jew based on looks alone, he claims that “every non-Jew is viscerally
repulsed by Jews,” although he supports that position with little
evidence.
6
Wagner argues that the Jewish person “speaks the language of the nation
in whose midst he dwells from generation to generation, but he speaks it
always as an alien.”
7
According to James Loeffler, Wagner was intent on
describing the Jews as “Other,” and so “with no genuine or organic
connection to German or any other European language, the Jews could
2
Teachout, “Hitler’s Accompanist.”
3
Na’ama Sheffi, “Cultural Manipulation: Richard Wagner and Richard Strauss
in Israel in the 1950s,”
Journal of Contemporary History
34, no. 4 (1999):
622.
4
James Loeffler, “Richard Wagner’s ‘Jewish Music’: Antisemitism and
Aesthetics in Modern Jewish Culture,”
Jewish Social Studies
(Indiana
University)
15, no. 2 (2009): 3.
5
Richard Wagner, “Judaism in Music,” in
Richard Wagner’s Prose Works,
vol. 3,
The Theatre
, trans. William Ashton Ellis (London: Kegan Paul, Trench,
Trübner, 1894), 82–83.
6
Michael Haas,
Forbidden Music: The Jewish Composers Banned by the
Nazis
(New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2013), 32.
7
Wagner, “Judaism in Music,” 84.