English translation of the French transcript, made with AI and not yet proofread — click a paragraph to jump to it. Show the French original
Letter from a Berlin correspondent and the Klemperers 0:00 Hello everyone, so Musicosophie, tenth session. Dominique has just sent me a letter from a reader, a listener, which pleases us very much. So we're going to read it, of course while preserving the anonymity of this letter. And I think that will allow Dominique not only to respond, even if a written answer will probably come too, but in any case to respond orally, and to expand on the terms he raises.
0:31 So, dear Mr. Dominique Pagani, dear comrades, I have just attended, I would even say inwardly and ardently participated in, through a screen, but a screen that is not a barrier, your luminous talk on the Greeks, myth and music together with Aymeric Monville. A living word, luminous and illuminating in this dark winter, in the heart of former East Berlin, near the Zionskirche, where I have lived for so long, first as a teacher and translator of Victor Klemperer's war diary, then as a retiree.
1:01 I have long followed your various talks, notably at the Librairie Tropiques. I find myself entirely present, as in a friendly word, a brotherly word, inaugurating at every moment what is very ancient, very buried, bringing it to light like an unheard-of, infinitely precious novelty, a beginning. It is for this breath of life that I thank you. That really does give pleasure, but above all it stimulates thought and reflection. Dominique, didn't you get what I understood? Yes, hello everyone.
1:32 I myself was about to say that I'm astonished. I'm very happy. I feel very positive about the fact that we're being followed from Berlin, and dare I say from Prenzlauer Berg, a neighborhood I know well, that is, the heart of the former East Berlin Hauptstadt, as it was called in the days of the Deutsche Demokratische Republik of East Germany, not the Communist League.
2:04 And above all, I see that this gentleman, according to...
2:34 Forgive me for beating around the bush a bit and being somewhat paraphrastic, but it's going to be very clear. So he applies himself to translating Victor Klemperer's diary. Just pronouncing the surname Klemperer, we come straight back into our musical subject, so to speak. Why? Because Klemperer — not Victor, but his cousin, Otto Klemperer — was an immense conductor, I'd say, one of the conductors. For me he's without doubt the greatest living conductor, but well, one could find ten others who would do just as well.
3:39 I mean, it's a place afterward. The great Russian conductor, sometimes slandered because he has cordial relations with Putin, so that makes him a bad conductor. In the musical world, and especially among orchestral musicians the world over, I mean, his... So I see that Khatia Buniatishvili doesn't fail to say that indeed, she won't play in Russia, even though she speaks Russian, so she checks all the boxes, including of course beauty.
4:15 You're talking about the Georgian pianist. She also has excellent political views. That's what I wanted to say. Yes, in that case, since you bring it up, it shows that there is indeed a musico-political field taking shape, which I'm focusing musicosophie on today. Since you mention her, I'll mention Valentina Lisitsa, I believe.
4:47 I don't know if that means anything to you. Yes, yes, but the other way around... It's exactly the reverse. She's a Russian from Ukraine, forced to flee Ukraine because of the Nazism rampant there and the Russophobia that our great philosophers and human-rights-mongering Atlanticists, right, were unleashing there. They are unleashing it there, in one of the worst regimes in the world, along with perhaps a few Baltic republics. I recall — I have a memory lapse, I don't know if it's Estonia or Latvia, one of the two, not Lithuania in any case — that there is a war memorial to Soviet soldiers, since a good 200,000 fell just to liberate the Baltic states, young men of the Red Army, and that war memorial was torn down and replaced with a statue of an SS man who was active there during the German occupation of the Baltic countries.
5:48 And it's in these Baltic countries that the record for Jews deported per capita was set, you should know that. Yes, yes, absolutely. No, but I mean those who... That's even rarely known by the Zionist Atlanticists, what I'm saying here. Just by the way. Now, back to Klemperer — it's of course a Jewish family descending from an illustrious line of rabbis, indeed in the case of Otto Klemperer.
6:25 These are families such as we no longer produce — there are two brothers who are giants in the history of biology and medicine, and there is one of the greatest, I'll come back to him, Otto Klemperer, the charismatic conductor, that's the word I was looking for, whom I said had disappeared for a while but will come back. I'd say a few conductors today are very promising, with more and more women, and all the better for it. And of course this Victor Klemperer, who was a philologist and a specialist in French literature in Germany in the 1930s, was born in '81 and died in 1960 — you see what period he lived through.
7:13 In 1883, yes. There, born in '81, he was born two years before the death of Wagner and Marx. Wagner and Marx died the same year, in '83, that's interesting. And incidentally, Wagner was born the same year as Verdi, none of this is made up, since we're dealing with music and history, right? And he died in '83, the same year as Marx. Let me go back a bit — he was born in 1813, the same year as Verdi. That is, two musicians whose respective destinies are linked — well, whose destinies are linked respectively to German unity, Wagner being a contemporary, right, of Bismarck's Germany, with whom he had very tense relations.
8:01 And the other with Victor Emmanuel's Italy, well, with Italian unity and Cavour — it's quite interesting to see this kind of counterpoint, I don't know if one should call it a sly counterpoint, between two traditions so close and so distant from one another at the same time.
8:32 I say this because before the message you just read from our dear follower — but I don't like the word 'follower' because in France it's pejoratively connotated, but... Correspondent. Yes, our correspondent, there we go. And I like the word reader, I don't know if we shouldn't keep it metonymically, but especially when I'm dealing with a publisher... Yes, yes, because I can tell you there are more writers than readers now, that's the real problem.
9:03 There are more writers than readers, that's the paradox of our age. Readers are rare, we're short of readers. Yes, yes. And don't forget the women writers, or you'll get yourself in trouble. I forgot. Right. There we go. Yes. The brother, the conductor Otto Klemperer — I recommend that those kind enough to follow us, to listen to us, look up on YouTube some breathtaking recordings by this conductor who never had the aura, except of course among music lovers, where he is, forgive me for speaking Franglais, among the top ten greatest conductors of the twentieth century, I'd say, of course.
"Germany is a problem": ambivalence and ambiguity 10:03 And for some, the very first. And we're going to get to another subject. Well, let me say it in a word, to stop beating around the bush. What fascinates me about the subject I'd like to tackle today is what sounds like a paradox, but a painful one, and one that sums up the destiny of Germany. So much so that I keep postponing — you see, before laying it out, I'm so fascinated by the subject that I keep beating around the bush, and I want to introduce it with the best formula ever spoken on the matter, one that comes from a great French communist historian, I'm thinking of Gilbert Badia in his History of Germany in the 1950s, where he says: 'France has problems, Germany is a problem.'
10:57 That is what today's session will illustrate. I was about to say 'France has problems, Germany is a problem' with something of Hegel's accents. Because it's so well observed. Germany's problem is its extraordinary ambivalence, that both the best and the worst come out of it, that it produces both Heidegger and Marx. It was even Hegel who spoke of the conceptual richness of the German language, an ambivalence sometimes within the very terms.
11:30 A word can mean one thing and its opposite. Absolutely. But I insist here on ambivalence in the Freudian sense, which must not be confused with ambiguity. Ambivalence is more serious. Why? Because when we say 'that guy is ambiguous,' it means — let me speak plain French — it means he's a bit of a hypocrite. It means he's hiding his thought from us, he says this, but it's not clear. I say 'no, I'm not speaking metropolitan French anymore, I'm speaking the French of Abidjan.'
12:01 'That guy isn't clear.' Well, that's what 'ambiguous' means. So it's conscious, it's someone deliberately hiding his thought. Whereas ambivalence is a contradiction that exists without the person even being aware of it. It doesn't know it's contradicting itself. So ambivalence is constitutive of the person's very identity.
12:31 So I'm starting here, drawing on the internal contradictions within the Freudian subject. A conflict, for example, a contradiction between the Ideal-Ich, the ego ideal, and the superego which tells it 'You're nothing but a pathetic little wretch, right?' It's the one who thinks he's Napoleon, or Jesus, or both. It's rampant in asylums, unfortunately.
13:01 But this can very well be extended to the Marxian notion of ideology. Because ideology, the Marxian critique of ideology, says exactly the same thing. I think of myself as a philanthropic Quaker and I justify making children work ten hours a day in Manchester in 1840, because it keeps them from becoming hooligans in the street. And sometimes it's sincere.
13:32 These are people who had tears in their eyes thinking of life's misfortunes, right? So ambivalence is something inscribed not only in the psychic field but also in the political and ideological field. Bad faith too, that fits in. There we go, something along those lines. So Germany — I'm developing this here, one might think I'm straying from music. On the contrary, it's to cite...
Mahler, the ninth, and Mozart, a European composer 14:03 It's to come back, as we haven't done enough since we began these conversations, because I dare not speak too much of what I love. I have a particular affection for a whole constellation of proper names that I'm going to cite. It ranges from Otto Klemperer, the conductor I was speaking of, to composers like Schoenberg and Berg for instance. Mahler, of course. Mahler who... Yes, who was much performed by Klemperer, precisely.
14:33 Not only was he performed by Klemperer, but indeed, I recommend those following us look up some recordings on YouTube. I'm thinking of Mahler's symphonic testament, his Ninth... Do you know what curse afflicts German musicians after Beethoven? It's the number nine, right? To the point that Mahler forced himself to compose a Tenth Symphony — he died before it could be performed — so as not to be left on the fatal number nine.
15:06 Right? Yes, certainly. Weighed down by the colossal presence of Beethoven. Right? There you go. The Eighth is already the 'Symphony of a Thousand'? There you go. It's something conclusive... whereas... Yes, the Eighth holds the record for forces, in number of choristers and instrumentalists — though at the instrumental level, I'm glad to plunge back, thanks to this theme, into the heart of the most complex period in the history of music.
15:37 That is, particularly at the level of so-called classical music, what happens, let's say, between 1850 and 1950. You see how overdetermined that period is, since it includes nothing less... We spoke of the break of June '48. There you go. Nothing less than two world conflicts... It's the imperialist stage of capitalism. There you go. Two world conflicts without precedent.
16:07 And the very strange transition from a music that was European in Mozart's time — Mozart is the greatest Italian, French, and German composer of his era. Yes, yes, that's right. Bach too, actually. So a composer in... The French suites, the English suites of Bach, it's the same. It's the same thing. But there. A composer of Germanic language like Mozart composed the summits of two operatic genres as different as opera seria — I'm thinking of La Clemenza di Tito — and opera buffa, in which he excels like no one else.
16:45 These are genres very precisely codified. Opera buffa, of course, from The Marriage of Figaro to Così fan tutte. Passing even — though here I'm stretching it a bit — through Don Giovanni, for which Mozart specifies a very particular genre, dramma giocoso. But it's closer, right? Everyone will understand, dramma giocoso, to opera buffa, that is, a played action, or a playful action.
17:18 I don't know how you'd translate that, but it's more like a playful action. Yes, exactly. And besides, he wrote Bastien and Bastienne, which is typical even of French opera, with clear diction and spoken recitative. And finally, he wrote a German opera. And he was the first, well before Weber and Wagner, who are said to have created German opera in the Romantic era. No, no, no.
17:49 He is the first, not only with The Magic Flute, but before that with Die Entführung aus dem Serail, The Abduction from the Seraglio — he was the first to create grand German opera, and he pounds the table. In his correspondence he says it might be time to write German opera, because when it comes from Wagner's pen, people think it's chauvinistic nationalism. Well, which is often the case, I'm being a bit annoying. But in Mozart's case, that's not at all so. I've worked enough on the status of music south of the Sahara to know that national sensitivities play a very important role in the history of music.
Ravel, Debussy and the birth of national schools 18:25 I think it was Ravel who said 'I'm only nationalist in music,' because that's where nationalist traits truly express themselves. You say it's because he was a musician he was a bit internationalist. That's where the international... I misheard. That's where national traits express themselves. Ah yes. But it's precisely because he was a musician that he could see these national traits. I say indeed one is somewhat internationalist, that is, one brings nations together. But simply, nations do exist, this is to avoid denying reality. Of course, his naivety was in thinking that these traits weren't visible anywhere except in music.
18:55 And it's true that it also stemmed from a good intention, that is, a genuine cosmopolitanism, not understood as internationalism. Between us, I find his formula more intelligent — expressing a more intelligent attitude aesthetically, and even politically, though that wasn't at all Ravel's domain, politics — than his colleague Debussy. It's certain that Debussy isn't making musical value judgments. Patriotardism. And Debussy, whom I place, if that means anything, even above Ravel — not in orchestration, Ravel being without doubt one of the greatest orchestrators of all time.
19:30 No, no, but even at the level of inspiration, there's a mystery and an elliptical audacity in Debussy that is somewhat caught, in Ravel's case, within metric horizontality. That's what I mean. But otherwise, I find it more intelligent than Debussy signing 'Claude de France' from the beginning of the 1914 war. Debussy — they're at opposite poles on this. There you go, he doesn't speak at all of... he didn't say... 'It's only in music that I feel French because I'm resisting the Boches by composing.'
20:00 No, no, it's not that. It's that, as you say very well, and I recommend it, when doing what's called blindfold tests, when you're told you have to guess who wrote this — I say it in English because it's very common in jazz, a trio, I'm the bassist in this group. And when doing blindfold tests, I often advise those competing to first try to figure out which school it belongs to.
20:31 Russian school, Italian school, French school, German school. That puts you on the right track much faster than one might think. Now, precisely, coming back to what you said about Ravel, it's interesting to see, and we're right in the middle of the history and geography of music, that it often happens that one rightly confuses a French composer and a Russian composer. Never. We talked about it last time. There you go, never a Russian composer with a German one.
21:02 I'm thinking of a Poulenc or an Albert Roussel especially, who can often be confused with Prokofiev. Ah yes, quite so. Or even Stravinsky. Or vice versa. The greatest creations of the Russian musical avant-garde were made in Paris thanks to the vogue of Diaghilev's ballets. Yes, that's true. From the late nineteenth century and especially the interwar period. One must not forget that works as decisive for the history of contemporary music as The Rite of Spring, Petrushka — a little less known — I'm not talking about The Firebird which is very well known, but the...
21:48 Ah, sorry, it'll come back to me, it's an opera by Prokofiev. The Fiery Angel, sorry, was premiered in French. The Firebird, you mean? The Firebird? No, no, The Firebird is Stravinsky. But there's also The Fiery Angel, a lesser-known opera by Prokofiev, a marvel by the way, that was premiered in Paris in French.
22:18 He had to rewrite a Russian version. You see? So there are, in this way, what one might call isomorphisms elsewhere, and I understand very well what Ravel means. And you're right to say we mustn't deny that identities exist. Sometimes, I mean, people say I'm fiercely against identities. No, against identitarianism, yes. That is, against imputing naturalistic functions to identity.
22:51 Yes. I occupy it, for instance, I mean. But in fact, identities can also add up. I think that's it. Precisely, musicians, as you say, Mozart is also the greatest Italian opera composer. But there, it's not a matter of genes. But he does indeed compose within a framework that is that of Italian opera, and which is itself subverted in a certain way. But this framework does exist. There you go. And so you bring us back to the thread of what I was saying, because if I referred to Mozart, it was to illustrate this era when music was still European, not yet national.
23:25 even if, I recall, Mozart pounds the table saying it might be time to write German operas, but still, nine-tenths of what he composed express a music that is more or less the same in style whether played in Paris, in Mannheim — via Mannheim, because the Mannheim school would play a great role in the emergence of forms like the sonata form or the symphony.
23:55 There we are. And then, all of a sudden — well, all of a sudden, gradually, especially during the course of the 19th century, in particular with the geopolitical crisis undergone by the largest European empire, the Austro-Hungarian Empire — we see national schools appear in music. Of course the Hungarians are among the first, aren't they, to challenge their allegiance to the Germanic power, to the Austrian empire.
24:32 And very quickly, we're going to see figures like Grieg in Norway — I'll go quickly. Le Vendé-Kolchek, sir. There we go, that will go all the way to the 20th century with... I don't know if Sibelius... No, no, I'm thinking of the Romanians, of Enescu, George, in Romania, a marvelous musician — I especially recommend his sonatas for piano and violin, and his Romanian rhapsodies.
25:04 Bartók in Hungary, Bartók or Zoltán Kodály, who — there we are — so, and music that becomes European again, even international, I mean, starting with the Second Viennese School of Schoenberg, Berg, Webern; it's interesting to see this dialectic spreading.
25:35 So I come back to my — to my tragedy, I don't see any other word, well, or in any case to this drama — everyone can judge for themselves whether it's the trajectory that gets carried away or something else — to this fact that the best of German music at its peak, and God knows if that's something in the history of music, German music at its peak, I mean its summit, is the incredible trajectory that runs from Bach — because before Bach it's rather Italy that reigns over European music — from Bach to Wagner, roughly, and even to the post-Wagnerians, let's say, that is the three great post-Wagnerians, Bruckner, Mahler, Strauss — it goes without saying that I mean Richard Strauss here, who has nothing to do, as Debussy said when reviewing him, with the Blue Danube waltz — it's a name, a very common surname, which simply means 'bouquet.'
26:37 Or 'ostrich,' depending. Ah, well, you're teaching me something. Is it a homonym? Yes, exactly. Really? There's no connection between the ostrich and the bouquet, then. No, I don't think so. For them, yes, in dreams there must be one, but... Forgive this realist consideration, in the sense... Why do you have to do psychoanalysis in your own language? There we go, there we go. No, no, this drama which means — I come back to it, it's the heart of my subject — that never has German music, the best German music, the highest, been so well conducted as by Jews, including in the worst periods.
The rigor of the Ring: the bird and the daughters of the Rhine 27:19 So I would like to focus... Bruno Walter, for... Ah well... That's the most... the most obvious one. Since we're talking about Bruno Walter, I'm still going to look for just a review, a review concerning the recording — well, historic, that, music lovers know it, well recorded for the period, I say this because there are some who are wary, who think, 'Oh no, Pagani's going to pull out another record that crackles and was recorded in appalling conditions.'
28:00 No, no. Well, I mean, it's a bit compressed, it lacks a bit of depth. Uncle Pagani's 78s, you know. There we go, there we go. No, no, but the sound recording is excellent for the period, I mean. It's not at all a heroic recording that only has documentary value. No, no, I'm thinking here of... I need to find the part concerning the isolated acts, as they say, there — the Valkyrie.
28:30 Ah yes, on the Valkyrie? Yes, yes, precisely, because there is a... Since I'm currently doing an analysis of the Ring in my weekly talks — it's a rather ambitious project — I would like, through the Ring, to show that one can be rigorous in the human sciences just as one is in the natural sciences. I know full well it seems a bit megalomaniacal, but I mean...
29:02 That's the rustic side, in any case, yes. I am well and truly obliged, with my feeble means, my gaps and my shortcomings, to rise up against the skeptical relativism of the prevailing neopositivism, aren't I? Which would like to reserve the epithet 'scientific' only for science and its objects, leaving subjects in contingency. There we go, yes, exactly. Which allows for an ambivalence, sorry, this time. Which allows the worst... They prevent us from coming closer, because it is science, after all, that brings men together. There we go, there we go, there we go.
29:32 And I show that the Ring — I'll give an example. Very simple, but one that will interest those with an attentive ear. I mean the ear of the mind as much as that of the body, right? If I take the bird theme — you know that in Wagner, often, things, objects, characters, ideas are linked musically to what are called leitmotifs, guiding motifs, which has become familiar through cinema. But well, I mean, there are precursors at that level.
30:03 So, if I take the bird theme — excuse me, there, let me take this off, there. There, it comes back periodically with a lot of variations, doesn't it? So, I'll repeat. Right, that's the bird theme. If I make a tiny rhythmic modification, I change the tempo, I keep the same notes, the same intervals, the same theme, but I just change it, I put dotted eighth notes and I do...
30:43 Sorry. And that, we recognize the theme of the Rhinemaidens. Yes, that's it, the beginning of... So what does that mean? It means that musically, under Wagner's pen, isn't it? And he's an artist, it's not someone who's going to demonstrate that to you with thoughts, it's not his conscious mind speaking. They're the first to agree. He's not going to leave the labels on, as Proust said. Because Wagner is a chatty fellow, as Schumann said, so there's also a lot of voice-over, theoretical writing in him.
31:14 No, no, I'm not talking about what he says and states consciously, where there's often nonsense, moreover, to stay in euphemism for once. But I'm talking here about his musical creation. Now, what does his musical composition say? That the girls are birds. That the birds are girls. That's exactly what Freud says in the study, in the five great case histories, there's the approach to the case of President Schreber, in the scatology — I'll skip that.
31:48 Are you talking about President Trump? Schreber, President Schreber. To me, that makes me think of President Trump. Of the president, sorry? Trump. Well, my word. That's a good introduction to Schreber. Quite so. You know that President Schreber is mocked in his hallucinations and dreams. He's a real psychotic. What's more, it's an exception. It's the only analysis — Freud apologizes for it — that isn't done with someone he met, but with a written text, with his confession.
32:18 Right. And, now, he is mocked by birds in trees, in his garden, who tell him it's a disgrace to indulge in these scatological practices when one is a great honorable doctor like you. Right. And he shows that in fact these birds are like mocking young girls. How does Aragon put it? 'The laughing girls at the fountains.' Isn't that so? Right. That one's Arthurian.
32:48 There, that was Arthurian, wasn't it — the girls at the washhouse, at the fountain, at the well, the maidens who emerge from wells in the Arthurian tradition, well spotted. No matter — you mean, moreover, we don't know, only scholars know it, but originally the Valkyries are swans, the birds, swans, who set down their wings in the grass to go bathe in the Rhine. You see, there's a whole system. To show the rigor — well, so, you see, between...
33:24 That's the bird. And you have... And that, one tiny rhythmic and tempo difference, and it gives you the Rhinemaidens. Or the equation girl equals bird, which we find in French when we say 'birdbrain' (tête de linotte), 'my little chick' (poule), or in German when we say 'dumme Gans' — there's nothing worse for a girl than to be called 'you stupid goose.' There you go.
33:54 In short, what in French is called 'bird names' [i.e., insults]. Let me give you an example. This is what I'm working on. And to illustrate this rigor that can be formalized, I would almost say mathematized, I work with mathematician colleagues — colleagues, wings, mathematicians quite robust and quite sharp, even compared to their peers, I'm not just saying compared to me because that's obvious — on this I've decided to illustrate it starting from...
34:29 because I'm asked to, I'm being pressured — 'you keep alluding to the Ring now and then in a rather pointillist way, lay out the whole story once and for all, it sounds fascinating.' There you go. I was hesitating, I hesitate to talk about what fascinates me personally, and so that's what I'm doing. Now, I come back to the recordings, and here it's a matter of... which I recommend to all those who want to get into it, it's a bit of a Bible on the technical level, the Michelin guide if you prefer, both remain valid, of the Wagnerian oeuvre, where you have everything about our librettos, you have the leitmotifs for those who can read music, and you even have — and this is where I'm getting to — a discography, isn't there?
Bruno Walter's Walküre in 1935 35:17 And this is where we're going to talk about Bruno Walter, as you were doing a moment ago. Well then, there we go. The separate acts of the Valkyrie, here we are. So, this concerns a recording of the first two acts of the Valkyrie made by Bruno Walter, isn't it, with the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, right?
35:47 In 1935, interrupted — can you imagine — by the situation in Germany, Walter says farewell and leaves for the United States, where he'll find himself with far more mediocre musicians, since in San Francisco there weren't yet very great musicians as is the case now in the United States — and I take this opportunity to recommend, it exists on YouTube, a rehearsal he does on a page called on YouTube 'Masters of Conducting,' excuse me, the great conductors, where we see Bruno Walter interpreting Brahms's Second Symphony, launching into Brahms's Second Symphony, a rehearsal in a sweater, shirtsleeves, with the young musicians of the San Francisco orchestra — it's very mediocre at first, you can see these aren't musicians with the skill of their European counterparts, and within a few minutes it sounds marvelous, as it were — better a conductor with mediocre musicians than the reverse, isn't it?
36:53 Now, here I'm referring to the interpretation by Bruno Walter, the same one, who also left theoretical writings, by the way, and who was of infinite kindness, well anyway — of the first two acts of the Valkyrie, interrupted unfortunately, with a vocal cast — I don't want to dwell on it, but I mean, we have never found again, to this day, and I hope it will come back, the overwhelming voices, formidable technically and overwhelming humanly, of this recording.
37:27 Let me just read you the review in this book. 'A miracle still just as present.' I would like to warn against the idea that this is simply my personal taste when I say that it has never been performed as well as by Jews, so-called defiled Wagnerians, by antisemites. 'A miracle still just as present. If you need only one record, a single one, to know Wagner, here it is.'
37:58 'On the eve of the Holocaust, 1935, Bruno Walter and the two greatest Wagnerian singers of his time offered the most human vision — as joyous as it was mortal — of the drama of the most forbidden love, since Siegfried's parents are twin brother and sister.' That's not done, as they say when it takes place. So, 'offered the most human vision, as joyous as it was mortal, of the drama of the most forbidden, most passionate love.'
38:33 'At a time when Wagner was played broad, thick, majestic, Germanic — well, Walter imposed a clarity, a lightness, a diligence, an emotion that would never be found again. Even today, when a leaner Wagner' — he must be referring to Boulez's recordings — 'even today when a leaner Wagner is in fashion, the prelude sets the tone, the storm is one of souls, the flight is from destiny and not from men, and the Vienna Philharmonic' — one of the most beautiful instruments in the world, isn't it, along with Amsterdam, well anyway — 'and the Vienna Philharmonic, from the very first instant, plays with an iridescence, a silkiness that will not be found again when it is conducted by Solti, whereas of this orchestral hedonism, pure source of emotion, a Böhm, a Boulez, a Karajan' — Karl Böhm, Pierre Boulez of course, and Herbert von Karajan above all — 'with other orchestras, will be reminded.'
39:37 'As for the voices, the evidence is total.' Solti — he's the first in stereo, isn't he? Yes, yes, yes, yes, it's a bit unfair, and one says we owe it to Solti to finally have had a Ring with a hallucinatory listening comfort, and he's one of the very great conductors of the 20th century, but it's true he doesn't reach overwhelmingly human heights — it's too smooth, that's not quite the word. There we go. 'On the vocal level, the evidence is total: Emanuel List, the bass, is immense, cold, precise, but also attentive, jealous, superior; Lauritz Melchior, the greatest Wagnerian tenor ever seen.'
40:14 I say in passing that it's a Scandinavian tradition — the great Wagnerian voices for women are Kirsten Flagstad or Birgit Nilsson, isn't it, it's a Norwegian voice. Flagstad has her statue in Oslo, and Melchior or Set Svanholm, somewhat less well known, are among the greatest tenors of Wagnerian discography. 'Lauritz Melchior, with his virile, powerful, imposing singing, can dare every tenderness, every vulnerability.'
40:44 Isn't that so? 'His radiant voice bends to every shadow as to every subtlety. The other vocal element, the soprano, becomes flesh, embodying just as definitively suffering, hope, dazzlement. A man, a woman, their slow discovery, delicate as much as sensual approach, remain a monument in the history of singing' — comma — 'forever indispensable.'
A Jewish constellation; Klemperer and Siegfried Idyll 41:14 There we go. Forgive this detour, but I didn't want people to think it was a personal whim of mine to tell you that there's a whole constellation — I can't find another word — and that's what makes up the substance of today's session: of Jews performing — and when I speak of Jews, I'm not thinking of genes, I don't think — I don't care, I mean, there are Jews who are very bad musicians — but it happens that, for essentially historical reasons, it's there, in the Austro-Hungarian Empire as much as in the German Reich, old or new, no matter, I mean, here there is an importance that has been studied — one doesn't need me for that, does one — since a great many professions had been forbidden well before the Nazi regime, industrial, commercial functions, etc., and it's the best among them, the most gifted, for those who care for that word — which isn't my case — but the best, in any case, concentrated on cultural matters,
42:24 so you find Jews who are immense writers, who are immense composers, who are... I don't even speak, because for me, in the term 'intellectual' I include the scholar, like a center... It's not manual labor, I mean, apart from his manuscripts, but well... There we go, and by the way, Otto Klemperer, the conductor, since that's where we started, has brothers who distinguished themselves in the history of medicine in the 20th century, and in Germany in particular, there we go, even if they're a bit less well known.
43:02 Klemperer — I recommend this tape where he's interviewed for a few minutes, and where he talks... where the interviewer talks to him about Bruno Walter, saying, 'Bruno Walter, who is a great moral figure, finds you to be one of his favorite conductors.' 'But I'm not moral at all, I'm wary of morality!' That's a...
43:32 And he has trouble speaking, and he broke — the neck of his femur, as early as 1950 — he was born in '85, in 1885 — he had several heart attacks, starting in 1951 he was forced to conduct sitting down. So he is a health tragedy all on his own; he goes through what is surely the most tragic period in German history for Jews like him; he lived the exile in the United States very badly, and even...
44:06 And I won't say even worse, but very painfully, the return to a Germany that would not entrust him, no doubt, was he too progressive, wasn't he? People thought of his brother who lived in East Germany, right? He was never given the best German orchestras. There we go. So I start from him and I recommend — I'm finishing this long stretch — at least listening to at least two discographic references of his. There, I'm no longer talking about Bruno Walter, I'm going to talk about the Valkyrie, about something within me, but for those who would find this session a bit long, indigestible, whatever you want — which I would understand perfectly well, even though I think they're missing out on something, but that's not serious.
44:51 As for Klemperer, to stay in the purely symphonic genre, purely orchestral, there are two absolute references. I know no better interpretation of Siegfried Idyll, the gift Wagner made to his wife Cosima, who is half-French — let's not forget she's the daughter of Liszt and Marie d'Agoult, French — whose birthday falls on December 25th, you couldn't make it up. So, for Christmas Day, Richard and Cosima, who lead a scandalous life, especially for the puritanical world of the time, since he had just stolen Cosima from her husband, who was among the best of Germany, Mr. Hans von Bülow, a great Prussian family with great generals in the Kaiser's armies, and who is a charismatic conductor — we'd say today, a bit the Karajan of the time, if you will, you see.
45:49 Both the Karajan and the Toscanini of his time, as authoritarian as he was flamboyant, wasn't he? A great enthusiast of Hindu philosophy, of Brahmanism. Which was like everyone else, I was going to say, at the time. There you go, there you go, typical of the era — I alluded to it very quickly when we spoke about variation already in Beethoven — who said that the variations of the Arietta of Beethoven's Opus 111 are a bit like Brahma casting off all his masks into one, you see.
46:20 He's the most famous cuckold of the era, isn't he, since Wagner steals his wife from him and lives with his children — living on love and fresh air since they're broke, and that's why Wagner decides not to give presents for Christmas with Cosima, that was agreed — but Wagner prepares a musical gift, he has musicians from the Zurich orchestra rehearse it, on a voluntary basis, since he's a refugee in Switzerland at that time — let's not forget he was caught with gunpowder on his hands on the barricades of '48 in Germany, and that he spent almost a third of his life in exile.
46:54 There, he's in Switzerland by the most beautiful lake in Switzerland, Lake Lucerne, in the house of another man whose wife he would also steal later, with that man's own money too, and with the children of yet a third man, who is Hans von Bülow — and behold, Cosima wakes up at 7am on her birthday, don't forget there was no hi-fi system at the time, and hears music, and doesn't know where it's coming from. Wagner has hidden musicians on the staircase after having them rehearse, and offers her this little symphonic serenade, which is a marvel that I recommend, whose main theme is called in the Tetralogy the theme, the leitmotif of peace, as if by chance, as if Wagner had finally found peace at over 60 years old with a woman 40 years his junior who gives him his first children.
47:49 the most precise interpretation, the most appropriate on a purely technical and score level, and the most overwhelming, the most human, is Klemperer's — so there, nothing to fear, a recording that offers all the guarantees of high fidelity even at that time, this is in the 1960s, already stereophonic — there you go, I recommend Siegfried Idyll by Otto Klemperer, and second reference, the slow movement, the final movement of Mahler's symphonic testament, the Ninth, that kind of immense slow movement which is a contemplative ecstasy as often with Mahler — there, he hasn't done Resurrection too, Mahler's Second, which is magnificent, of course, you know it well, with Hilde Rössl-Majdan, of course — no, no, but with Schwarzkopf, for me that's the reference version, but no, if we had to name them all, the most beautiful St Matthew Passion, with an astonishing cast of singers, including Fischer-Dieskau, is Klemperer's, there you go — no, but those are conductors, it's like the Sawallischs, it's...
Schoenberg's Christmas chorale, Bergson and Victor Klemperer 48:59 there we are, we're not going to list them all, or the Walter Goehrs, a bit less well known, who is immense — so you see, I'll allow myself a request, I say this in front of the audience, I'm addressing Emmerich, as both a request and almost a plea, to use as the theme tune for the broadcast of today's session Schoenberg's orchestration from the 1930s — he was on vacation in the Austrian Alps, there — he orchestrates in his own way, very modern, very 20th century, but without changing a single note of the melody, the Christmas chorale — he, the Jew, inscribes himself at the very heart of what is most intimate in eternal Germanness, the celebration of Christmas, Weihnacht, isn't it, 'O Tannenbaum' and its French translation 'Mon beau sapin' — right, and there, perhaps we should see
50:09 thanks to an admirable institution that I recommend, a website on the internet called the Schoenberg Archive Association, which is in Vienna — there is a Schoenberg museum — I recommend the clip, as we'd say today, a short film in which this beautifully performed score resounds, this Christmas chorale composed in the 16th century by Michael Praetorius, who is moreover an immense musicologist who left us a treatise on musicology that is essential for historians, and who is doubtless the one most inscribed in the hearts of Germans, much more than 'Stille Nacht,' which is much more recent and is a creation that is practically contemporary and much more sentimental — truly the timeless German Lutheran chorale, if you will, that Bach so often took up in his cantatas, orchestrated by Schoenberg — you watch the images, why I insist, because in them we see images of a Reich forever vanished.
51:20 before barbarism spread through this little winter sports resort, with the streets and alleyways of Berlin at the time—it's a superb montage. So I'll send the link, and I'll leave it to Aymeric to take care of it afterward, because it's not me who'll do that, I'll just post it like that, but on the other hand there will certainly be someone who'll work on it—yes, yes, I have the technicians I need on hand—but I propose to the editor that this piece and this clip be programmed as the title sequence, since we couldn't better illustrate this tragedy. Right, I come back to this, this dramatic situation that made it such a nightmare for people who had completely—you see, I'm not defending Zionism, it's almost—it's almost the opposite. I'm talking about Jews, you know that Bergson, our philosopher Bergson, was about to convert to Catholicism when the Pétain regime, ashamed of its own principles, as Merleau-Ponty puts it very closely in his eulogy of philosophy
52:30 when Pétain decides to grant him the honors of the French state—and there, Bergson, who had always confided, we have texts saying that his spiritual journey was naturally leading him to convert to Catholicism, that it was the culmination of his conviction, a bit like Simone Weil—at the last moment he refuses to convert, and he says, word for word, "to remain in solidarity with those who will be persecuted tomorrow." He says that right before the outbreak of the war. Well, exactly the same thing happens, since Victor Klemperer had also converted—though for him it wasn't a plan, he had actually converted—and despite his conversion he escapes Auschwitz because his wife is German. But then in February '45 the regime tightens its grip even further, if that's possible, into horror, and decides to deport him
53:40 as well, in February '45—the Soviets had already retaken the Auschwitz camp, just look a bit at the madness of the Reich—and at that point they decide that even those who have a German wife, too bad for them, they must be exterminated. And he's saved by what? It's awful to say, he's saved by the largest bombing raid of all time, since it's about Dresden, where he lived. And you know there were more deaths in Dresden—you don't know that, in that case I'll tell you—there were more deaths in Dresden than in Hiroshima, in terms of the number of deaths in a single bombing raid, it's the absolute record. Just as there were more deaths from the incendiary bombings of Tokyo than from the phosphorus bombings—of Tokyo, isn't that right—and the Americans never bombed a country as much as they bombed Cambodia—though of course they never say that, apparently the tragedy supposedly begins with the Khmer Rouge. I can hide nothing from you about my native region, my dear Aymeric—yes, yes, because we're talking about Vietnam, I was born in Hanoi, but between Vietnam and Cambodia there's a border that was crossed by what was called the Ho Chi Minh Trail at the time, and indeed the quantity of bombs—though this is in every encyclopedia—that fell on that region during the Vietnam War
54:50 yes, yes, that's it, but the largest amount fell on Cambodia and on Laos, let's not forget—yes, that's it—exceed the quantity of bombs dropped on all the battlefields combined, including the Pacific War, of the Second World War—yes, I believe that's right—there you go. And you know why the Americans went to war? Because of some idea about taking a stance for the ministers, the dominoes, 10,000 kilometers from home—they adopted that role 10,000 kilometers from home, well, I mean, let me point out in passing that, and things haven't gotten better since, isn't that right, now all it takes is for there to be elections in Burundi—I say Burundi at random, or Vanuatu, doesn't matter to me—for suddenly, at the Pentagon, people to say "wait, what are these elections, that's not clear, no, no, we need to look at this more closely." It's really extraordinary—3 million dead in Korea, trifles, because you were talking about those bombings, but Seoul, it's terrible, isn't it, the port of Chongyang, that port in Korea that was a martyred port, like Dresden—Incheon, that's it, Incheon, it was an appalling carnage of civilians. Well, let's not stray too far
56:00 but I'm telling you this because Dresden holds the record on that front. At the time of Communist Germany I knew survivors of that bombing, citizens of Dresden—in particular a volunteer who, despite being retired, kept looking after elderly comrades in difficulty—by chance, in a café in Dresden, and he told me he saw people fleeing their burning homes and dying in molten tar, you see, or picking up children from school, at the station, in the ruins of Dresden, whose parents had been vaporized by the heat—they found bodies in the trees. Well, he escapes the bombing by a miracle, and his German wife takes advantage of the surrounding chaos to tear off the yellow star, you see, in whose name he was about to be deported and die. And there, I'm talking here about Victor Klemperer still
Exile, proletarian internationalism and Thomas Mann 57:10 the cousin of the conductor Otto—and he ends up in the West for a while, he comes back despite the ruins, the misery of the immediate postwar period, to Communist Germany, to the German Democratic Republic, and again, he dies in 1960. You see, Schoenberg, like Otto Klemperer, exiled to the United States, like Bartók the Hungarian, you see, who isn't Jewish, but the common thread here is exile—now, isn't that right—but exile, and in the country least disposed to live up to their old European culture, isn't that right, and since we're talking about globalization today, people think I'm praising it, isn't that right—I'll talk later about Mozart, a European musician, so people will say "you're a bit globalist, you're a bit like Nietzsche who says the good old days are gone, Mozart's music was his swan song"—at the time music was European, we good Europeans, you see, you follow my gaze, no, no, no
58:20 I take this opportunity to recall some classics of Marxism and communism—I'm not setting national narrow-mindedness, to which I'm otherwise very attached for all sorts of reasons, against bourgeois cosmopolitanism—here I'm speaking the language of communism—I set proletarian internationalism against bourgeois cosmopolitanism. So one world can hide another, one globalization can hide another. I'm not talking about the globalization of the masters, I'm not talking here about Erasmus students—I'm delighted for them, but really, when you see their common look, I understand why they'd have a soft spot for Brussels Europe, I mean, it's not the same look as all those young people that Brussels Europe throws into unemployment, isn't that right, or would like to put back into apprenticeships instead of letting them finish school and university. There, I'm tracing back all the stakes behind my apparent internationalism, my apparent internationalism
59:30 no, no, no, I'm glad that those Jews who were condemned to straddle several cultures, isn't that right, through exile, through—yes, I think you were talking about Schoenberg in the United States, and right next door there was Thomas Mann writing Doctor Faustus, so he expressed precisely all the contradictions but at the same time the very essence of Germany, he expressed it right next to Schoenberg in the United States. I'm very glad you're adding the star of Thomas Mann to the constellation I'm building today, because this Thomas Mann, before—and the funniest thing is he did it thanks to, moreover, a very intense correspondence with Adorno—exactly—and I find his point of view more lucid, I think, than that of Adorno, who knew music very well, who was involved as an expert—there you have it, this Thomas Mann in question, before, the immense novelist, author of Der Zauberberg, The Magic Mountain, of Doctor Faustus and of Buddenbrooks, and so on—this Thomas Mann
1:00:41 before being exiled to the United States—what you're referring to—was exiled in London, from where he made a series of broadcasts called Deutsche Hörer, "German listeners," listen a bit to what I'm telling you, in which he makes this quote, which I take the opportunity to repeat because it can never be said enough: those who lump communism and Nazism together—all this said in '43, I do mean '43, on BBC radio—those who lump Nazism and communism together thereby prove their hatred of communism and their complicity with Nazism. I'll sum it up, I'll condense it: that's today's European Union, that's exactly the betrayal carried out last year by the European Union, officially in Brussels, to the point that soon we'll be back to the Berufsverbot, as it was called, on September 19th, the European Parliament put Nazism and communism on an equal footing—there you go, exactly, we'll never say it enough, and it was voted through in a fine unity ranging from the greens to the far right, we have to say, passing through the socialists, there, through social democracy to be more precise
1:01:51 that is, the same consensus as the full powers granted to Pétain—yes, yes, that's it—with the Daladier decrees, that only the communists refused the Daladier decree and the full powers to Pétain, and afterward the communists were handed over to the Nazis. That only the communists refused full powers to Pétain—the only ones, as an organization, because to be fair there were individuals anyway, they couldn't, they were in prison—there were individuals who weren't communists and who were hostile to the Pétain regime, there were even royalists, isn't that right, in the Resistance—no, but wait, let's stop—but as an organization, it was some volunteers who gunned down Jean Moulin, those royalists—I'd love to know what they did in the Resistance—but as an organization and as a party, only the Communist Party refused full powers to Pétain. We must never forget—those are individual destinies, that's their business, especially when it comes to commenting on armed resistance. Well, all right, so Dresden, Klemperer, let's get back to Dresden and Klemperer—yes, but then the constellation is: Klemperer the conductor, Klemperer the cousin the philologist, producing a body of work parts of which exist in paperback
LTI, Nazi jargon and Heidegger's paths 1:03:01 I believe it's in the Idées Gallimard collection, the history of eighteenth-century French literature—he also wrote a history of French literature from the eighteenth to the twentieth century, and above all he specialized, thanks to what he suffered during the war as a Jew, he specialized in studying how Nazi propaganda embeds itself in a new way of speaking, in propaganda, in the invention of new words, drawing on the German language's tendency to agglutinate elements of the language, isn't that right, to make a Lego game of lexical construction—there, Lingua Tertii Imperii, the language of the Third—there, my constellation is complete—yes, that's it, that brings exactly the lingua, the language, he says it in Latin on purpose, Lingua Tertii Imperii, the language of the—almost done—there, so my constellation is taking shape
1:04:11 Victor Klemperer the linguist, that's the common point between Klemperer and Adorno—we should mention his "Jargon of Authenticity," his critique of Heidegger precisely, of his famous jargon, which likes its beautiful little words, and there Emmanuel Faye did a pretty good job I think personally, especially circling around terms like völkisch, isn't that right, artfremd—yes, exactly—no but there are plenty, there's also, I think, Gleichschaltung, that's like starting a car, at the same moment you switch everyone over into—shifting into first gear, that's it, that's what it means, but it also means leveling, flattening—yes, but I'm thinking of völkisch because people believe—we're shifting from one register to another—it's a simple transcription, folk, popular music, pop music, all that is the same—no, pop music isn't popular music, pop music, the one in which are enclosed—we talked about this
1:05:21 I won't go back over it, in an earlier chapter of Musicosophy we talked about the sonic ghettos in which contemporary youth have been enclosed since roughly the 1950s—that's quite a long time already—it's undoubtedly one of the most conservative straitjackets in sonic history, static and fixist. Pop music is not only not popular music, but its historical function has been to flatten and practically liquidate popular musics in their rich diversity and to replace them with these
1:07:02 reassuring—you remember the text—it's so easy to pass yourself off as affable, considerate, isn't that right, speaking of the Germans, isn't that right, "the German fixes his little blue eyes on you" and the foreigner immediately mistakes it for a dressing gown, to cite just this striking passage—or "Holzwege," I take walks in the forest, I love that personally, never do that with an environmentalist, he'll ruin the landscape for you, he'll tell you it looks nice like that but acid rain has ravaged the trees, they look nice but in fact they're sick—no, no, I—yes, that's the famous German Gemütlichkeit—there, there, I love forest paths, but only the French tradition—well—the one that prevailed in the translation, "paths that lead nowhere," whereas strictly, Holz means wood, Holz means the trails you see in forests, the tracks made by man in forests, forest paths, and what is this shift there? It's me, I take the liberty—no one has ever pointed it out—"that lead nowhere," but what a job the comrades did, I know very well where those paths lead
1:08:12 they lead to those platforms where those who arrived by the wagonload vomited from fear, seeing, isn't that right, the excrement of those who had preceded them, before entering the crematorium, "leading nowhere," nothing to move around, nothing to see—that's the postwar Heidegger, the one I'm harshest on—all right, I'll be honest since I'm talking about the German tragedy, if I had lived, myself, an ordinary philosophy professor, in Germany in the 1930s, maybe I would have been worse than Heidegger, I can't be more honest than that, given my background, petit bourgeois, I was born in the colonial world, I wasn't surrounded by revolutionaries and Bolsheviks with knives between their teeth, or else I was well hidden in the Vietnamese maquis—there—but that wasn't my environment, as you can well imagine, so maybe I would have been worse than Heidegger before the war, with the blindness, the youthful—I knew at 16 already—but for Heidegger to take up again after the war his critique of technology, of productive force, saying that all the evil comes from there, after having written that the invention of armored divisions
1:09:22 was one of the great events in the history of Western metaphysics—but there it's ambiguous, because metaphysics is pejorative for him, of course—yes, yes, no, no, I mean—but for him the armored divisions were going to deliver us from the enemy, because if you want another quote so I'm clear, he says in the 1933 seminar: the enemy is the Asiatic, and believe me, for those people, it starts at the Vistula—I know my Germany—yes, there's the Pole already, there are the prominent cheekbones, we're not far from the hordes from the steppes, the Huns, well, I won't even mention the Russian, who is the black man of whiteness, isn't that right, that's a personal expression, I've lived enough in Africa to allow myself the comparison in every sense, the slave, the black man, so the Slav, whether the etymology is true or false doesn't matter, I note that's how it is in people's consciousness. So you see, "paths that lead nowhere" is terrifying because it's a way of sweeping away, of muddying the trail
Schoenberg, Tristan and the liberation of the tonic 1:10:32 it's true, of muddying the trails and making people forget where these paths lead, from the Grund, from the völkisch, isn't that right, there, from the mythological root of the popular—yes, there, there, I continue my constellation, in which you see there are first-magnitude stars, I mentioned Schoenberg, Klemperer, but there are also black holes, to keep my metaphor going, and I mentioned earlier the performance by Otto Klemperer of the Valkyrie by Bruno Walter—thank you—but I'm also thinking of conductors who are a bit less well known, and who were very politically committed, on the left of the political spectrum, which in the German world is harder to sustain than in countries where there was a strong communist party, like in France, in Italy—I'm thinking of René Leibowitz
1:11:43 who, between the rue de Rivoli and the Marais, generally speaking, north of the rue de Rivoli, these people who were a bit like Bergson, who wanted, whatever you want to call it, so integrated into French culture, into painting, into literature, and one day they're suddenly told that they're not part of our society
1:12:53 Germany, it's even worse. You see how much—that's why I hold on to that Christmas chorale by Schoenberg, which was embedded at the very heart of what is most intimate in German identity, even experienced from within, as a German. "You are being expelled." You're expelled from it and torn away from it, especially given the violence connoted by that word. So there is indeed a tragedy here, in that Schoenberg—here I'm not talking about him as a performer, but as a composer
1:13:27 His god is the one who wrote Tristan. He's the composer of Tristan because practically all atonality—with the apostrophe, that is, the disappearance of tonality as the reference point of sonic writing, but reference in the sense of a landmark, just as the downward direction, the one gravity forces on us, is a reference point in choreography, in dance for example, you can't abstract from it, except by creating—as I once formulated the hypothesis—a choreography in a spaceship freed from gravity, which would give you omnidirectional possibilities
1:14:06 Well, that's a bit what Schoenberg does with sounds, he frees writing from the dictatorship of what's called the tonic. The tonic is quite simple, you see? Well, that do—I make three, four, five, five out of eleven notes—the dictatorship of the tonic, in the slightest melody, you see?
1:14:38 There. That's why we said that dodecaphonism was the equality of all notes, so it was Bolshevik in itself—I no longer know whether that's meant as praise or what—yes, some people said that. Some people said that. So you see, to the point, by the way, since I'm talking about this tragic situation in which those who were perhaps the finest expression of German identity, since we were talking about identity, are hounded out by Germans not even ashamed of their own principles—I'll take this opportunity to generalize the matter
Judeo-Bolshevism and the accursed triangle 1:15:34 Can we take a short break? Yes. There, we're back. I apologize to our friends, it was a domestic incident, but I'm needed in a shared household. So, I was in the middle of saying that I'm going to generalize the problem a bit now. I was getting to repeating once again that surely what is best in German cultural identity has never been so well expressed—not exclusively, but most often—by German Jews, German-speaking Jews
1:16:14 But it's that in the Nazi era, no distinction is made. Because you were saying, they were hunted down, all it took was being a bit pink and you were treated as a Bolshevik. But the enemy of the Third Reich, this comes back persistently throughout the expression of the period, is the Judeo-Bolshevik. That is, it's not the case that on one side—as NATO managed to convince Western masses, isn't that right—that the Jews had two enemies, the Nazis and the communists, if you look closely, isn't that right, invoking the Doctors' Plot, whatever you like, the immigration of Jews in the 1970s to Israel, etc.
1:16:59 As if the problem of standard of living didn't count, isn't that right, or of way of life, to borrow a distinction from Clouscard—I recall that the Nazis... I recommend a book precisely on this subject, by Zhores Medvedev, because... By whom? Zhores Medvedev, who is a well-known dissident. Yes, yes, Zhores Medvedev, of course. He's very anti-communist, but he at least demonstrated quite a few fantasies regarding the antisemitism of that period. He did the same thing. Yes, it's only published in English
1:17:31 He's better documented on the subject than what depends on that propaganda. He has the same fate as Alexander Zinoviev, that is, when the dissident doesn't say exactly what the West expects of him, he doesn't get translated. Alexander Zinoviev—the first part of his books are published, not the second. Yes, the most popular of the dissidents is the antisemitic one, not in Russian. Yes, that's it. It's the same thing, he checks every box. That is, it's Solzhenitsyn who praises... No, no, because he's not Russophobic. Because now you have to be Russophobic on top of it
1:18:01 Well now, that's perfect. Yes, it's true. Yes, it's true. Panslavism—I don't know if that's the best praise for the Soviet Union, because after all Stalin wasn't Russian. Neither was Mikoyan, who created the MiGs. Isn't that right? The longest-serving foreign minister, Gromyko, was rather Ukrainian. I mean, if we start splitting hairs, there you go
1:18:34 And the best philharmonic orchestra, to get back to Soviet music, is the Leningrad one. Isn't that right? I take this opportunity to say I've never digested the return to "Saint Petersburg." Petrograd, maybe, if you don't want a communist connotation, I'm fine with that. But it seems a bit much to me given the suffering... For a martyred city, yes. For a martyred city, yes, but to go back outright to the Germanic name of the city, isn't that right
1:19:04 Imposed by the Teutonic Knights, by fire and by the sword. There. So there, the enemy is the Jew or the Bolshevik. Because for them, it's the same danger in the Nazi fantasy. The Jew like the Bolshevik—I'm speaking as the Nazis would here, which is typical of their strategy—how can one not think of a certain environmentalism today? It's what seeps into us, what pollutes us without our noticing, it's infiltration into ideology, into the press, you see, into propaganda, among intellectuals
1:19:45 Christianity founded by a Jew, isn't that right, Christianity which tells us that if you're struck on one cheek, you must turn the other, isn't that right, Bolshevism, communism. According to Nietzsche, in the Genealogy of Morals, it's Judaism triumphing with the French Revolution. But of course, but there, it's a tradition going back well before the Third Reich, but which the Third Reich brings to its paroxysm. There, that's it
1:20:16 In fact, it's the trial of progressivism. That is, and here I come back to current events, because I maintain that there is an accursed triangle—it should inspire a few composers, there's a very beautiful symphonic piece by César Franck called The Accursed Huntsman—there is an accursed triangle whose three angles are humanism, the universal, and progress. These are the three concepts most fought against since the early 1960s, in the West generally and in France in particular, or rather in France where the ideological battle was more intense than elsewhere, given the importance of French ideas in postwar Europe
1:20:54 When you look at the relentlessness of the structuralists, for example, against the notion of history, progress and the universal—no need to spell it out with Lévi-Strauss for instance—it's not cultural relativism. It's not the meaning of history. Or culturalism even, as we said, isn't that right? Each one in their—well, I won't say a rude word, but anyway, each one in their own culture. I'll take this opportunity to point out that for me, to be cultured is not to cultivate one's culture, it's to get out of it
To be cultured is to leave one's culture 1:21:29 And forgive me, I say this here as a Corsican, I mean. I couldn't be happier to be Corsican, frankly, but for reasons I won't go into and that are sufficient—one doesn't need me to see them—and not only because of the landscapes, isn't that right? All those who have gone around the world say there's nothing more beautiful. There, I'll just note that in passing. But "Corsican-ness" [as an ideology] is not on a level with Corsican-ness [as a reality]. When you walk through Corsica and see those mule paths on terrible slopes, made by shepherds, stone by stone, isn't that right, for the transhumance of herds—those people didn't have the word "Corsitude" in their mouths, they produced it with their hands and their heads and their brains and their effort, isn't that right?
1:22:17 They weren't constantly talking about Corsitude, like those who talk about it in the cafés near the University of Corte. There, I take a stand here, not to defend some parochial French nationalism, I mean, Corsica was a land of exile, of penal colonies, and heavily exploited on that front, and there are more—excuse me, more names on the war memorial, particularly regarding the war of 1914, than there are inhabitants in the village itself, I mean, so there you go, and then, I hold Rousseau's position, isn't that right, who praised the fabulous Corsican resistance to the double imperialism of Genoa and France—no, I'm not—but still, isn't that right, identities could come back into it, isn't that right, they exist provided we don't turn them into origins but into results
1:23:15 There, philosophically, what I wanted to stress is that it's no accident that the Russians came onto the classical music scene very late, starting from 1840-1850 with Glinka, but that afterward they caught up, to the point of producing perhaps the richest string of summits in violin and piano performance of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, even now—well, now Asia is taking over, but I just learned there are 71 million practicing classical piano students in China among children
Reply to the correspondent and memories of the GDR 1:23:52 So watch out, we'll have to hold on tight. There, I think I've said my piece, unless you want to add a counterpoint. Maybe you have a closing word about Klemperer, perhaps, for your correspondent? Yes, so precisely, already, I presume he's going to follow this episode since I learn, through the text you were kind enough to read, that he follows our Musicosophy conversations
1:24:22 First of all, an immense thank you, because—forgive me for suddenly getting a bit personal, I'll be brief, I won't linger—but I believe I said once on Musicosophy, I'm in the habit of questioning in the evening what I thought in the morning, I mean, so I'm always uncertain whether I've hit the mark. The party card that you tear up in the evening and glue back together the next day. There, there, that suits me perfectly. For me, the best communists are those who are always in conflict with their party, but constructively so
1:24:54 There. So, the... So what he tells me goes straight to my heart, and above all to my mind, because it sounds like encouragement to keep up the effort of transmission. It means, if it has an echo all the way to Prenzlauer Berg—and I have a small personal message for him
1:25:26 Because, there, I'll say it quickly, but it's not to get personal, it's because it touches on the universal. It's because I once took the road to the Baltic passing through Prenzlau, which is roughly halfway between Berlin and the Baltic coast. These aren't apparently remote places for a Frenchman. I've noticed, for several sessions now—it's not deliberate—since I've seen Rügen on your bookshelf for several sessions. Ah, I see. Since you're allowing me to, I'll do a bit of promotion
1:25:57 It's a small tourist brochure I bought in Communist Germany at the time, isn't that right? It's the seaside resort. There. I'm showing it because—maybe I'll end on this. My first stay in Communist Germany, I was surprised. By what? Because the weather was nice. I thought it would be gray. We're talking touristy. Oh no, no, but even me, even me, which shows how propaganda seeps into us no matter what we do or think. The sun didn't stop at the Iron Curtain. But of course, it's true that the regime doesn't influence the weather after all
1:26:29 I don't know that it doesn't speak. No, but it's interesting because, as much as I had human reasons, I was very eager to meet people, to discuss with people, so much for me, I was expecting to see concrete under the rain and in the greyness. And I see this. And I see, and I'll finish on this, the most beautiful, because the Baltic coast is the equivalent of our French Riviera. The Germans are delighted to have got it back since reunification, aren't they? That's where the most beautiful beach is. I camped on the Baltic beaches with wild boars that came prowling around the tent, leaving gigantic forests.
1:27:04 We're not used to seeing forests, are we, right at the edge of the beach. So it's the great seaside region, that's where Thomas Mann and his family, the German establishment with its villas, were — exactly the equivalent of the French Riviera. And I saw, I'll stay on this, I saw workers in bathrobes, sunglasses, looking at the sea from these villas swiped from those great nationalized families, on which was written Ferienheim, that is, how do you say it, holiday home, right, vacation center, for whom — milling-machine operators and lathe operators from Leipzig, right, railway workers from Dresden and other proletarians, printers or teachers, no matter, democratically — I had never thought, right, that in the communist world there were sunglasses and bathrobes facing the sea, with that — no but look how one is influenced, you see, that's why I have here the island of Rügen, which is — and I'll end on this dual nationality that I claim — the Corsica of Germany, this island, there you go,
1:28:14 quite in the north, because the northern symmetrical counterpart of this Corsica that I salute, there. There, and in any case, thanks to you, Paris was the Athens of the North, there, here. Thanks to your initiative of Musicosophie, above all. There, there, let's wait, let's hand out compliments. I salute our friends and I'll see them again and I recommend to them, we'll hope to put on the site the references I've listed. Yes, there will eventually be a version with excerpts.
1:28:46 There, I'll take that up, starting today, I'll take over, I'll post them tomorrow on our site, where we're friends with Éditions Delga — it's a friendly site — on our association's site and also on our collective Facebook page. I never use Facebook personally, but there you go. That's the professional one. Bravo, bravo for the references. Okay, I'll cut you off now, see you soon for Musicosophie 11. There, that was number 10. See you soon, dear friends, on February 11th, then.
1:29:18 No, 11 — no, it will be called number 11, Musicosophie 11, we did number 10 today. Oh sorry, number 11, I'm not doing well, I'm losing track of dates. Yes, of course, it's probably because my birthday is February 6th that I'm getting confused. Yes, that's quite funny actually, February 6th. Now, there's a January 6th too, yes indeed. There, there. January 2021, so sad. No, until the next session, next Thursday roughly. Next Thursday roughly, that's right, we can't. There. Thank you everyone, and thank you Aymeric.
