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Chopin is not the one who is saying "some of my friends were Jews", its we who are trying to get a glimpse into his personality, by looking at the relationships he had. Chopin also dedicated some of his greatest works to Jews, as mentioned above. If it was the same hate as Wagner, he wouldn’t have done it.


Chopin, no matter what his problems where with the Jews, it was all a preaching type of hate, where people brainwashed him into believing idiotic things about the Jews, but he never experienced anything that was really bad from the Jews, because the Jews are and were and always will be the most peaceful nation in the world, as we are known to be 'the people of the book'.

Come here into our community and see how many Poles decided to live among the Jews in the Jewish section of Brooklyn, even though Brooklyn is divided into Irish, Italian, Russian , Chinese, Polish, and Indian neighborhoods, many Poles like the peace and quiet they find in the Jewish Neighborhood.

Me and my dad sometimes joke that the Police station where we live has the easiest job in the world, the Jews are absolutely, peaceful and quiet, and law abiding tax paying citizens, the streets are clean, and there are no drugs, violence, and profanities in our neighborhoods, everything is organized and controlled by the community boards, there is a local neighborhood watch, many charity organizations, such as soup kitchens, that are open to every human being to eat for free no matter his race, color and religion.

Therefore Chopin's anti Semitism was based on vicious and dark 'fairy tales' that people have told him, but when he actually met Jews and saw how nice and peaceful and intellectual they were, all of these stereotypes were exposed as pure fabrications, and that is the reason that he had so many Jewish CLOSE friends, and that's why he dedicated some of his greatest works to Jews. But if it was real and hardcore hate just like Wagner had, then he wouldn’t have done so.

To come in here and to ignore all of these points and differences that exist between Wagner and Chopin, and to put them at the same place, is just wrong.

P.S I will edit stefi’s picture..

Does anybody else get the feeling of entering the Twilight Zone when reading this thread? What's all this stuff about noses, for Heaven's sake? And why (apparently) can men not be whores? And what have Arabs got to do with Chopin?

This is just way to surreal for me.

Aight, edited the picture of stefi, and deleted the comments about Arabs, they were only made for an example.

Cheers,

Saul

I don't need to believe Chopin was perfect. No human is. I can love people 'warts and all', but I don't believe this anti-Semitism is the sort of 'blemish' it's made out to be.


That sums up my point about the matter, though I would modify that to read "the average European Gentile."

And isn't that what Chopin was, after all, despite profound musical genius? What degree of 'sophistication' (read: political correctness) should we expect from an average 19th-century European Gentile with average education and average intelligence?

It's not a delusion that Chopin was some perfect and godlike creature that would allow anyone to turn a blind eye to faults such as prejudiced and uninformed beliefs. It's the knowledge that he was human, and flawed, and a product of his environment -- just like every one of us.

Good job taking those things out, Saul. I guess you don't automatically realize the kinds of things that aren't real good to post, and it's great that you're taking some suggestions on it.

BTW: In case there's any doubt, since most of my posts are so stupid ....I mean this sincerely.

Some people need their own personal moderators, I guess!

Well, I think a lot of us do sometimes.

I mean, people have given me suggestions, and I've even followed them once or twice.

Thank god I don't believe in God; I am free from having to identify with a religion.

Glad to hear it! Think for yourself! Ahh, individuality, the greatest gift God gave us...

No problem, Mark...

Cheers,

No, I am not comparing them at all. I'm saying that there's no need to bring up Wagner every time anti semitism is the subject regarding Chopin (or any musician).

I don't think you can compare one person's anti-Semitism to another person's anti-Semitism and say well this isn't that sort of blemish. If it walks like a duck...What would you say of a person who used the "n" word, for example? Would you call them a racist or say "oh well, this person is no worse than the average...oh wait...yes, the average racist." There's simply no excuse for it, yet what's so very interesting is how many are so willing to forgive a figure like Chopin, because he was Chopin. Don't get me wrong...I love Chopin, but I love him for the musical genius that he was. I'm not saying I have a problem with Chopin, for the reasons I've stated, but I am aware of who and what he was, which I think is important.

I've said this before, but I'll try again: if he's forgiven, it's not because he was Chopin -- but rather because this happened 200 years ago. I wouldn't expect P.C. thinking from him when it was basically unheard of then or hold him to a higher and more enlightened standard than his contemporaries because he was Chopin.

Re your awareness of "who and what he was", do you have a deeper understanding than other people? What is the record of "who and what he was" other than his own correspondence and anecdotes about him? Please do share what you know! Otherwise, the magnitude of this 'blemish' seems of minor significance.

Why does it matter that it was 200 years ago? Does the fact that many Americans (including most of the founding fathers) were slave owners at roughly the same time make that ok as well? It's not politically correct thinking to abhor racism in any aspect no matter what century we're discussing.
I'm not saying I understand Chopin any better than anyone else, I simply said that I understand who and what he was...what's so difficult to grasp about that?
I'm sorry, but, for you to deem something of this nature a "blemish of minor significance" casts you in the same light, as far as I'm concerned. Let's not beat around the bush...people overlook things, because of who certain people are and this is one of those cases.

Where does it end, should Jews stop driving German, Japanese and ford cars?
Should Jews stop enjoying all the technological breakthroughs that came from historically hostile countries?

Where do we draw the line?

I say, that there has to be a distinction between 'Feelings' and 'acting upon those feelings', otherwise people wouldn’t do business with each other.

Just look how much the British hated the Germans, these were two Christian countries who waged wars and murdered each other's innocent civilians, in WW2, and perhaps even before that. What about the French under Napoleon occupying Germany in the time of Felix Mendelssohn? What about the time when France was in war with Great Britain? tens of thousands killed on both sides. What about the inward Christian bloodbaths between different Christian sects, like the departure and reformation of mainstream Catholic religion into different branches, that began with Martin Luther, the notorious German anti-Semite?

What about wars of controlling Israel and Jerusalem between the Crusaders and the Muslims? Hundreds of thousands dead on either side.

Should the Japanese stop doing business with the Americans because they dropped two atomic weapons on them?

Should the Americans stop eating Sushi because of pearl harbor?

Should the Chinese, stop doing business with the Japanese because the Japanese in 1937 murdered 900 thousands innocent Chinese men women and children and also raped between 20.000 to 80.000 Chinese women?

How can the world function as one single unit, sharing this world, this planet if people wont do business with those they had historical conflicts and tragedies, and sufferings?

I tell you the truth, I live in Brooklyn, and Jews do drive German made cars, and wear Swiss Watches, and wear Italian and French designer clothing, and they drink Kosher French and Italian wines, and they also drink Russian and Polish Vodkas, and they don’t see anything wrong with it.

But I believe, and this is my theory, that when it comes to generality, a country, people and I Say all people generally don’t care, and they do business and drink and eat and wear goods that were made by a country that was historically hostile to them.

But when they identify an individual that was famous in poisoning the minds of his countrymen with hate, and was physically engaged in promoting this hate, when people can personally identify this individual, then the matter becomes more sensitive to them , and they decide not to associate themselves with this person, and distance themselves from him.

Its really hard to take an entire nation and completely disassociate yourself from it, because that nation is a part of this world, existing even today, and doing things that people need, like cars, watches, food, and other things. But an individual that ceased to exist and was responsible for so much hate, its way more convenient, and easy since he is not a part of this world, to completely disassociate from him, anything of him, be his writings, his views, his art and his music.

And now we come to the root of this debate. Some people were so hateful , that they translated their hate into action, and inspired millions to hate, that was Wagner, the entire evil and demonic Nazi establishment were inspired by him.

But casual hate that some people have for others, a personal dislike without physically been involved in inspiring others to hate, is not a reason to blot out this person from the face of memory and history.

Lets be honest about it, many people here including myself have certain feelings about some people, but we are in no shape or form advocating to hate, its not an agenda for us, its not an aim, or a purpose.

To say the truth I too hold some bad feelings about the Christians and the Arabs for their persecution of my people throughout history, and I'm sure that others here have certain feelings about other people because of certain grievances. But as long as these feelings are not the center of our lives, or our aim or our purpose, that doesn’t turn us into 'Hateful people'.

I remember watching a film about Chopin, its called 'Fantasi Impromptu', there was a scene where Liszt is shown to talk about Chopin in a very negative light, saying "Here that Pole comes again'...with very negative connotations. Its as if he said on Mendelssohn :" Here comes the Jew again"... I would have been offended.

Why the Poles don't have a national unified position not to listen to any of Liszt's works after that denigrating and anti Polish remarks by Liszt on one of their greatest composers?

You know why?

Because Liszt wasn’t busy with hate, yes he was human subject to the society that he was raised in a certain mind set. They didn’t like the Jews, and they didn’t like each other, and they didn’t like the Poles, and I'm sure that different European peoples didn’t like other people from other European countries, and we have many wars to prove that down the history.

So if we are going to put such demanding qualifications on all composers and artists saying that even if they hated other people , whatever the reason may be, the result would be that no one would be able to listen to anyone's music, because I'm sure that each and every composer, had within him certain grievances, and feelings of hate, or anger at other people.

You can't really punish people for been human, and yes the vast majority of the people of this world are not Saints, and they were subject to the human condition, no one is perfect.

But said all this, there were certain individuals who took this hate and intensified it within themselves so passionately, they felt that they must 'inspire' others to hate even to the point of violence. And this is where this behavior ceases to be in the parameters of the 'Human Condition', and becomes to be a rare form of evilness and brutality, and cruelty, been so consumed with the hate of the other, (especially when other is a peaceful, generous, law abiding, intelligent, and loyal citizen of your country who has done nothing wrong to you, as the Jews were in the time of Wagner, for not even a single Jew did anything wrong to Wagner, and even if one did, that was no excuse to write books about all Jews in general and vilify them, as Wagner did).

So this distinction is necessary, and vital and I believe just, and its a major difference between Wagner and Chopin.

Hmmm. Seems like you're making this personal, and I think that's uncalled for. You can give the information in question whatever weight you wish. and I'll do the same. And while I think it's myopic to judge people harshly for offhand remarks without considering context, you can read much more into the situation than I do. We're just not going to agree on its significance!

But by the way, are you equally certain of "who and what" Chopin was from his correspondence with Tytus Wojciechowski? I think the jury's out on that subject as much as on the anti-Semitism issue, and for the same reasons: historical context and cultural norms, plus the basic fact that none of us is able to know what was in the hearts or minds of dead people.

So that’s what’s hard to grasp. When you state that you “don’t understand Chopin better than anyone else” but yet you simultaneously claim you “understand who and what he was”, it seems contradictory because it's not a claim that most people would make. If you understand "who and what he was", then you do understand him better than anyone else!

No, I wasn't making it a personal thing. I'm finished with the topic, because you want to turn the most basic things into something more than they are.

I don’t know what that even means, but I'm glad it's not 'personal'! And note that the 'topic' was not about allegations of Chopin's anti-Semitism until you brought that up with your first post in this thread

Anybody want to talk about the Mendelssohn piece again, or maybe Hummel’s influence on him and Chopin … or even Garrick Ohlsson’s performance, which somehow never got discussed at all?

Still in the Twilight Zone, I see. Has anybody mentioned Hitler yet?

Or that Ohlsson is gay?