[frau kaleun]

Originally Posted by the_tyrant

Hitler ruined all the fun

He ruined a style of facial hair, a symbol, and now a composer

Wagner's anti-Semitic views were a matter of public record long before his work became widely associated with Hitler and the Third Reich. That association may be what taints his work for the public at large (insofar as the public at large cares about it), but certainly those whose "business" is classical music would be aware of it one way or the other. It wasn't exactly a secret before Hitler came along, is what I'm sayin.'

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard...d_antisemitism

Under a pseudonym in the Neue Zeitschrift für Musik, Wagner published the essay "Das Judenthum in der Musik" in 1850 (originally translated as "Judaism in Music", by which name it is still known, but better rendered as "Jewishness in Music.") The essay attacked Jewish contemporaries (and rivals) Felix Mendelssohn and Giacomo Meyerbeer, and accused Jews of being a harmful and alien element in German culture. Wagner stated the German people were repelled by Jews' alien appearance and behaviour: "with all our speaking and writing in favour of the Jews' emancipation, we always felt instinctively repelled by any actual, operative contact with them." He argued that because Jews had no connection to the German spirit, Jewish musicians were only capable of producing shallow and artificial music. They therefore composed music to achieve popularity and, thereby, financial success, as opposed to creating genuine works of art.

Wagner republished the pamphlet under his own name in 1869, with an extended introduction, leading to several public protests at the first performances of Die Meistersinger. He repeated similar views in later articles, such as "What is German?" (1878, but based on a draft written in the 1860s).