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acroyearI realize that press reporters like to (and by tradition, need to) add aside comments and alternative names and references to people in order to avoid using the name over and over again, but sometimes they need to double-check whether or not a factoid they pull out is in any way relevant, and whether or not it brings in an utterly unnecessary and distracting emotional reaction out of the reader.
Case in point, this article about which of Richard Wagner's descendents will maintain a festival of Wagner's works after the 86 year old grandson retires or dies: "War of the Wagners" rumbles on in Bayreuth (Reusters - Karin Strohecker):
This factoid is both irrelevant and utterly insulting to the woman in so many ways its disgusting. There is absolutely no reason, 70 years after the peak of the Nazi movement and 60 years since the man's death, to have to associate anybody who wasn't even there (being either 50 years before or 50 years after) with the madness that was the Nazi party and its leader.
Wagner might have felt insulted 70s years ago, but his great grandaughter should be infuriated at the association this writer put forth, both as an insult to the composer and to herself for being mentioned in the same sentence.
To make matters worse, it probably isn't even true. Hitler's diaries show more of a fondness for Nicholai and Bruckner (who was from the same county as he) than Wagner. In the end, though Wagner's own view of anti-semitism is quite well documented (and were hardly unusual for its time), his music was appropriated by evil men for far more than it should have been.
Case in point, this article about which of Richard Wagner's descendents will maintain a festival of Wagner's works after the 86 year old grandson retires or dies: "War of the Wagners" rumbles on in Bayreuth (Reusters - Karin Strohecker):
The battle for the succession has been fierce in recent years, but the frontrunner is now Wolfgang Wagner's chosen heir, his 28-year-old daughter Katharina -- great-granddaughter of Hitler's favorite composer.[emph mine]
This factoid is both irrelevant and utterly insulting to the woman in so many ways its disgusting. There is absolutely no reason, 70 years after the peak of the Nazi movement and 60 years since the man's death, to have to associate anybody who wasn't even there (being either 50 years before or 50 years after) with the madness that was the Nazi party and its leader.
Wagner might have felt insulted 70s years ago, but his great grandaughter should be infuriated at the association this writer put forth, both as an insult to the composer and to herself for being mentioned in the same sentence.
To make matters worse, it probably isn't even true. Hitler's diaries show more of a fondness for Nicholai and Bruckner (who was from the same county as he) than Wagner. In the end, though Wagner's own view of anti-semitism is quite well documented (and were hardly unusual for its time), his music was appropriated by evil men for far more than it should have been.
