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This topic comprises 3 pages: 1 2 3
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Author
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Topic: National anthem performance in a jazzed fashion
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Michael Schaffer
"Where is the
Boardwalk Hotel?"
Posts: 4143
From: Boston, MA
Registered: Apr 2002
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posted 02-12-2004 03:49 PM
I don`t remember what they sang in Casablanca, but I will pay attention next time.
Claude - Wagner had some antisemitic tendencies, but he was also anti church, anti bourgeoisie, anti authority, basically anti everything - an extreme nonconformist and individualist. Later in his life, he regretted that he had made negative remarks about Jewish music as a young man, out of jealousy of Meyerbeer, who was a very successful composer in Paris. Many of the musicians who worked in Bayreuth where Wagner had founded his own festival were Jews, including Herrman Levi, who conducted "The Ring of the Nibelung". Hitler was a big fan of Wagner, but that he got these ideas from Wagner and more specifically from the "Ring" is pure nonsense. That came from many other sources.
BTW, you can find many motifs from "The Ring of the Nibelung" in "The Lord of the Rings".
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Christian Appelt
Jedi Master Film Handler
Posts: 505
From: Frankfurt, Germany
Registered: Dec 2001
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posted 02-12-2004 05:59 PM
The Nazis in Casablanca sing a song called DIE WACHT AM RHEIN (Watch on the Rhine). IIRC, it originates in the mid-19th century and certainly was nationalistic, but it was there long before the Nazis.
BTW, the DDR (German Democratic republic, a.k.a. East Germany) had a really strange national anthem. It is credited to Hanns Eisler and is called AUFERSTANDEN AUS RUINEN (Risen from the Ruins). However, it is an almost note-by-note carbon copy of a song called GOOD BYE, JONNY from the UFA film WASSER FÜR CANITOGA made in the 1930s.
This song was composed by a popular (later West German) band leader named Peter Kreuder, who even tried to sue East Germany at the UNO copyright commission.
When Kreuder did a concert tour through East Germany in 1976, he also played GOOD BYE JONNY just for fun, and every time the audience rose because they thought the national anthem was played...
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Michael Schaffer
"Where is the
Boardwalk Hotel?"
Posts: 4143
From: Boston, MA
Registered: Apr 2002
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posted 02-13-2004 04:46 AM
The blond hair/blue eyes thing was a very common stereotype of the "Germanic ideal" at the time. Hitler did not get that from Wagner - it was all over the place. To say that Wagner gave Hitler the idea for the holocaust is shallow nonsense.
Hitler was a huge Wagner fan though. There are certain elements in his work that he and other nationalists admired, for instance Wagner`s celebration of Germanic mythology and the grandiosity of his music. As Leo already pointed out, they generally chose to ignore the warnings included in "The Ring". After all, the whole thing ends in complete catastrophy.
Much more problematic is that Wagner`s heirs, foremost of all his daughter in law - who ironically was from England - teamed up with Hitler and sought his protection for the Wagner festival in Bayreuth. They gave him a sort of legitimation he, a failed artist, craved. That is what made the Wagner-Nazi association so problematic, not Wagner`s work.
On the other hand, a lot of great Wagner conductors were and are Jews - Georg Solti, James Levine, Daniel Barenboim, Lorin Maazel - all of which have performed in Bayreuth. That should make you think.
Barenboim played the "Tristan and Isolde" prelude as an encore of a concert with the Staatskapelle Berlin, the orchestra of the Berlin State Opera of which he is music director. He made a little speech before doing so. I watched it on TV. There wasn`t a big scandal, but some audience members chose to leave.
Another composer unhappily associated with the era is Richard Strauss. He was president of the national musicians organization for a year or two when the Nazis came to power, but he fell out completely with them and they even forbade all official celebrations of his 80th birthday in 1944 - an outrageous insult to the greatest living German composer at the time. His music was not performed in Israel for a long time. Interestingly though I once watched an Israeli movie from the 50s (but I don`t remember the title), and there was a scene with someone listening to Strauss on the radio.
Zubin Mehta, who has been the Israel Philharmonic`s Music Director for many years, once said in an interview that it was not possible to play his music live, but that they played the music sometimes in rehearsals, because Strauss` orchestral works are very demanding and essential training for the orchestra. But in recent years, it seems that the audience in Israel has been reconciled with Strauss. This year, the Israel Philharmonic even plays his biggest orchestral work in concert.
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Gerard S. Cohen
Jedi Master Film Handler
Posts: 975
From: Forest Hills, NY, USA
Registered: Sep 2001
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posted 02-13-2004 12:08 PM
I remember the first time I heard a non-traditional rendering
of The Star Spangled Banner": it sent chills down my spine.
For Jimi Hendrix's rendition was widely regarded as his protest of the war in Vietnam, specifically of the mass bombings of Hanoi.
Hendrix's glissandos with electronic distortion effectively mimicked the doppler shreiks of approaching missles and bombs, while his booming bass notes rendered the ground explosions with shuddering accuracy.
Were it not for the historical context, one might think he was merely illustrating "the bombs bursting in air" of the Fort McHenry action. The original lyrics were composed during an anti-colonial struggle, and many Vietnamese regarded the U.S. intervention as a continuation of France's colonialist war. This
context, plus the widespread opposition to the war and Hendrix's
overwhelming brio, gave his ironic version the iconic status of an audio Guernica, burning in my memories of that struggle along with the shooting at Kent State, the photo of the naked girl and boy running from the napalm attack, and David Duncan's photos of American wounded.
When I found my JHS students singing the National Anthem mondegreen fashion (Jose', can you see...?) I taught a lesson during which we parsed the lyrics of the first stanza, so they could understand the three-fold question and the implied significance of the answer. Understanding America's break with its colonial master, it seems to me, is important to appreciating our national heritage.
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