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| Gustav Mahler, hiking in the Alps |
After tying myself in knots over questions of moral agency and aesthetic premonition in regards to late 19th century German music a recent post received a number of incisive comments. My musings prompted a lot of comments and, I think, show once again the value of a blog like this. After much thought I have decided that my misgivings about late 19th century German music and its notional relationship to tragic events in the 20th century are nothing more than bias or prejudice with no real foundation in principle or perception.
I got that one wrong. And luckily, commentators were ready to step up and say so.
I like to think that I look at musical and artistic products with some fairness and balance so I guess I will have the opportunity to demonstrate this. I have never seen a good live production of a Richard Strauss opera in a major opera house, so I had already decided to request a ticket to the Salzburg Festival's production of Elektra. Now I think it would be a very good idea to also request tickets to at least one of the major performances of something by Mahler or Richard Strauss or Brahms, of which the festival program is well-provided. I might opt for a Mahler symphony on the grounds that there are a couple available and I have never heard a Mahler symphony performed live by a really major orchestra (the closest was No. 4 with the Montreal Symphony years ago).
So, mea culpa.
