Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Entertainment/2017 November 16

= November 16 =

Why would Beethoven sound more Nazi than Wagner?
In Pynchon's novel Gravity's Rainbow, a musician says: "a person feels good listening to Rossini. All you feel like listening to Beethoven is going out and invading Poland. Ode to Joy indeed. The man didn't even have a sense of humor."

Why blame Hitler on Beethoven rather than on Wagner? 62.147.24.85 (talk) 13:07, 16 November 2017 (UTC)
 * It's a fool's errand trying to expect everything in that novel to make sense. It's dense, allusive and not to be trusted. That said, there is no reason why the joke wouldn't work with Beethoven as well, since he was German and sounds pretty Teutonic. Incidentally, Woody Allen later made the same joke, but he did use Wagner: “I just can't listen to any more Wagner, you know...I'm starting to get the urge to conquer Poland.” --Viennese Waltz 13:31, 16 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Pynchon himself expands upon the answer to that in the book. Taking a single line from the entire discourse out of context, as you have done, makes it impossible to elucidate what the author meant.  The discouse between Gustav and Säure is more nuanced, and it is clear from context that Gustav is not saying that Beethoven sounds Nazi.  It is very clear, if you actually read the whole discourse (which one can see quoted here), that he's speaking on the way that the composers reflect the "national personality" of Germany vs. Italy, and not making a statement on Fascism or Naziism in any meaningful way.  It is also clear that Pynchon himself is not taking sides or presenting the statement as his statement.  He's an author of fiction, and as such, the characters are presenting the statement, as a means to demonstrate something about themselves.  It's also quite relevent that Gravity's Rainbow is a bit of absurdist literature and its text is dense and complex; it is frequently ranked up there with Finnegans Wake as among the most difficult to understand texts (the Pulitzer Prize Jury, in selecting Gravity's Rainbow as a candidate for the 1974 Prize, literally called it "unreadable".  And that's from people who supposedly found it a good book!), and much of what Pynchon is writing is not to be taken at face value.  -- Jayron 32 13:35, 16 November 2017 (UTC)


 * Beethoven didn't like Napoleon very well, so it's doubtful he would have liked Hitler. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 20:53, 16 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Beethoven admired Napoleon and originally dedicated Symphony No. 3 (the Heroic Symphony) to him. He soon got disillusioned with his hero. According to our article:


 * "Beethoven originally dedicated the third symphony to Napoleon Bonaparte, who he believed embodied the democratic and anti-monarchical ideals of the French Revolution. In autumn of 1804, Beethoven withdrew his dedication of the third symphony to Napoleon, lest it cost the composer's fee paid him by a royal patron; so, Beethoven re-dedicated his third symphony to Prince Joseph Franz Maximilian Lobkowitz – nonetheless, despite such a bread-and-butter consideration, the politically idealistic Beethoven titled the work "Buonaparte". "
 * Later, about the composer's response to Napoleon having proclaimed himself Emperor of the French (14 May 1804), Beethoven's secretary, Ferdinand Ries said that: "Bonaparte, First Consul, by Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres In writing this symphony, Beethoven had been thinking of Buonaparte, but Buonaparte while he was First Consul. At that time Beethoven had the highest esteem for him, and compared him to the greatest consuls of Ancient Rome. Not only I, but many of Beethoven's closer friends, saw this symphony on his table, beautifully copied in manuscript, with the word "Buonaparte" inscribed at the very top of the title-page and "Ludwig van Beethoven" at the very bottom ... I was the first to tell him the news that Buonaparte had declared himself Emperor, whereupon he broke into a rage and exclaimed, "So he is no more than a common mortal! Now, too, he will tread under foot all the rights of Man, indulge only his ambition; now he will think himself superior to all men, become a tyrant!" Beethoven went to the table, seized the top of the title-page, tore it in half and threw it on the floor. The page had to be recopied, and it was only now that the symphony received the title Sinfonia eroica."
 * "An extant copy of the score bears two scratched-out, hand-written sub-titles; initially, the Italian phrase Intitolata Bonaparte ("Titled Bonaparte"), secondly, the German phrase Geschriben auf Bonaparte ("Written for Bonaparte"), four lines below the Italian sub-title. Three months after retracting his initial Napoleonic dedication of the symphony, Beethoven informed his music publisher that "The title of the symphony is really Bonaparte". In 1806, the score was published under the Italian title Sinfonia Eroica ... composta per festeggiare il sovvenire di un grande Uomo ("Heroic Symphony, Composed to celebrate the memory of a great man")."

Apparently Beethoven hated tyrants who violate human rights to serve their own ambitions, and who proclaim their own superiority. Dimadick (talk) 10:38, 17 November 2017 (UTC)

FOLLOW-UP: I was after some actual link, such as, "Hitler listened to Beethoven while drawing his military plans" (MADE UP example) or something? I've read GR twice and the more you know or look into annots (such as http://www.1010.co.uk/org/autotate.html that goes beyond Weisenburger's Companion), the more you see how much weird stuff was actually an allusion to something prior, however esoteric or untrue. So why not here?

Of all the possible criticism the fan of Rossini could level at Beethoven, why would Pynchon have him use such a specific thing as "invading Poland"? (I mean, it's not just calling it bombastic or militaristic or only good for soldiers -- it goes all the way to the Godwin point.) Could there be some anecdote (real or debunked) linking Beethoven's music to the Nazis, that the character was referencing? 62.147.25.228 (talk) 11:57, 17 November 2017 (UTC)
 * There isn't. There is Pynchon being Pynchon.  You're overanalyzing this...  -- Jayron 32 12:29, 17 November 2017 (UTC)

"Could there be some anecdote (real or debunked) linking Beethoven's music to the Nazis"

No idea. Several classical musicians in Nazi custody were send to the Theresienstadt concentration camp, where some of them performed and composed music prior to their executions. There are reports of at least 15 performances of Requiem by Giuseppe Verdi. No idea if they also performed Beethoven works.

The Auschwitz concentration camp had its own orchestra, the Women's Orchestra of Auschwitz, but I don't know what music they performed. There is a report that one of the doctors, Josef Mengele, asked the Orchestra to perform Träumerei by Robert Schumann for him. Dimadick (talk) 19:41, 17 November 2017 (UTC)


 * I hesitate to get involved in this, but the OP has a point: "Much of Beethoven’s music was interpreted by Nazi critics as serving a German national myth marked by a certain belligerency. Arnold Schering suggested that the Fifth Symphony, for example, represented a “fight for existence waged by a Volk that looks for its Führer and finally finds it” An introduction to music research - 4.3 Beethoven and the Nazis from The Open University.
 * Those with time on their hands might like to read The Third Reich vs. An die Freiheit: Opposing Uses of Beethoven's Ninth Symphony in 20th Century German Society. Alansplodge (talk) 23:18, 17 November 2017 (UTC)

Thanks, Alansplodge, that led to a smoking gun: Hitler had "Ode to Joy" for his birthday in 1937 and 1942! (The characters arguing in 1945's Germany would have such things in mind, and that's probably why the Rossini fan was so specific -- that is, why Pynchon made him so.) Once you know what to look for, googling is easier: Against zebras, Pynchon wins again... 62.147.27.236 (talk) 04:56, 18 November 2017 (UTC)
 * "Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony was subject to some particularly interesting interpretations in Nazi Germany. Its closing choral section was performed at the 1936 Berlin Olympics, and it was heard in its entirety in a performance by the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra conducted by Wilhelm Furtwängler for Hitler’s birthday in 1937. This was at the specific request of Joseph Goebbels and, as the newspaper Der Angriff noted, the symphony was regarded as a perfect choice because “with its fighting and struggling” the work denoted the Führer’s capacity for “triumph and joyous victory” (Dennis, 1996, p. 162)." from http://www.open.edu/openlearn/history-the-arts/introduction-music-research/content-section-4.4
 * "In 1938, it was performed as the high point of the Reichsmusiktage, the Nazi music festival, and was later used to celebrate Hitler’s birthday." from http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/24/opinion/24zizek.html
 * "The Ninth in the Third Reich became a victim of this entanglement of ideology and music. It was one of the most performed pieces in Beethoven's oeuvre during the Third Reich and was often played at prominent state events such as the opening ceremonies of the 1936 Olympics. The 1936 Olympic's instrumentalization of the Ninth was typical of the Third Reich's approach to the Ninth. Coming at the climax of a festival of Olympic Youth which blended a series of tableaux representing medieval and modern themes with some 10000, the finale of "Heroic Struggle and Death Lament" featured mass dance routine of a sacrificial death for the fatherland, in which "Ode to Joy" would signal a rebirth accompanied by searchlights and a ring of fire around the stadium that created a dome of light." from https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/3x7mrn/what_did_the_nazis_think_of_ode_to_joy_and_its/


 * Conversely, the British Government (or at least the BBC) used the opening of Beethoven's Fifth as the signature tune of its efforts to raise resistance movements in occupied Europe, by virtue of a strange coincidence - see 'Music as a ‘psych-weapon. Much publicity was also given to concerts at London's National Gallery by Myra Hess, the programme "featured popular works by Beethoven, Mozart, Bach and Brahms" - see Myra Hess's wartime concerts'' - much was made in newsreels of British people being free to listen to German music. Alansplodge (talk) 00:16, 20 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Mozart was Austrian. And did "Germany" even exist during the lives of the Three B's? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 00:58, 20 November 2017 (UTC)
 * As a modern state, no, but the concept of Germany as a nation is over a thousand years old. Putative German states include the Kingdom of Germany, which existed in some ephemeral form under the Holy Roman Empire until 1806, while the other German states include the German Confederation of 1815-1866 (usually adjudged in retrospection to be somewhat less-than-statelike) and the North German Confederation from 1867-1871, finally followed by the German Empire from 1871 onwards.  Beethoven lived prior to 1806, so he for a time lived in the Kingdom of Germany.  Bach lived his whole life under the Kingdom of Germany, while Brahms lived for the last 25 of his life under the German Empire.  So every one of them lived under a legal state which was known as Germany, which ignores the very real fact that even if the state didn't exist for some of that time, the nation of Germany as a socio-cultural entity was very real and they all lived there as well.  -- Jayron 32 12:36, 20 November 2017 (UTC)
 * Also, Austria and Germany were the same country in 1941, see Anschluss. Alansplodge (talk) 22:01, 20 November 2017 (UTC)
 * As far as I know, Mozart was not around in 1941. In any case, trying to blame Beethoven for Hitler is like trying to blame Tchaikovsky for Stalin. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 23:43, 20 November 2017 (UTC)
 * I'm not sure what you're disagreeing with here. Point a) is that "Beethoven, Mozart, Bach and Brahms" all originated from the area covered by Germany in 1941 and therefore might well have been considered to be the music of the enemy, but weren't (thus implying some moral ascendancy over the Nazis and their petty bans). This is not my argument, but that of the British Ministry of Information (I'm still looking for a source for that, apologies). b) As established above, Beethoven's music was used and abused by the Nazi regime and would made unpleasant connections for those who endured it. Nobody is "trying to blame Beethoven for Hitler". Alansplodge (talk) 11:23, 23 November 2017 (UTC)