A few days ago I was admonished by an anonymous right-wing arts blogger (!) who took issue with my and Scott Spiegleberg‘s defense of Lorin Maazel’s statements concerning the United States’ record on human rights (specifically torture). I won’t go into what was said – you can read it for yourself.
Today, my esteemed colleague in both viola and blog, Robert Levine, came to my defense and also wrote briefly, but effectively about the conflicts between politics and artists. More specifically, he cites Richard Strauss, Nazi apologist, and his work Metamorphosen (a great work) which concerns the firebombing of the city of Dresden by the allies in World War II. Richard Wagner might also come to mind in such a discussion of how and whether to separate the person from the art (or producer from the product), as might Franz Liszt and many other notorious musical characters with peccadilloes both minor and truly ghastly.
I’d love for discourse on any subject, not just politics, to involve debating the facts as each “side” sees them, rather than resorting to attacking the person whose views differ – say why Maazel or Fleischer is right or wrong, and refrain from the easy, cheap-shot tactic of attacking them rather than showing why their views are flawed.
I’d love to write more, and in fact have written several pages more, but deleted it. Because this is not a political forum. It’s a place in which I try to highlight what’s going on in the classical music world, and in the Portland classical music scene in particular.
Left, right, or centrist – all are welcome here.