In an interview with her children, I talk about my late friend Ruth Jordan, biographer of several historical characters including two composers – Chopin and Halévy.
For almost every book she wrote, she learned a new language.
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Why would a genius like Chopin, as well as others like him, have strong anti-semetic views? If it were just based on differences then it would seem likely that they would have similar disdain for other ethnic groups, nationalities, and races as well. This is simply something that never seems to be fairly addressed.
He grew up in Poland, where antisemitism has been a way of life for centuries.
It was not at all uncommon in those days. That doesn’t make it right, but there you have it.
Um, what are you talking about? The history and the causes of anti-semitism has been explored thoroughly by thousands of researchers. I’m sure if you google “history of anti-semitism” you will quickly find what was particular about the social geographical context that created this problem.
Secondly, yes there are unfortunately racist views against many other groups as well. Anti-semitism isn’t the only form of prejudice held by musicians.
Lastly, being a musical “genius” does not imply that they are morally superior to any other regular person of the same time. Of course they’d also be subjected to same social values and conditions as others, thus often resulting in prejudice.
Easy. Because of the very strong and important presence of Jews in Poland.
After reading Professor Alan Walker’s magisterial one volume biography of Chopin, I’m inclined to believe that Chopin’s anti-semitism wasn’t strong, but based on daily grievances with publishers, piano dealers, or with anyone he transacted business. He was a chronic complainer even to his friends and a complex man, a trait shared by many geniuses. Thank you, Mr. Lebrecht, for the talk with Ruth Jordan’s children about your memory of her. She comes across as a remarkable woman and scholar. Her two books you’ve referenced above are available through Amazon and would make an excellent addition to my collection.
Dare us ponder the following: Perhaps sometimes such grievances are justified.
as “justified” as my negative feelings about you without knowing you.
Facts don’t care about your feelings. – From a famous Jew
“facts” are often distorted
I think it would be surprising if he didn’t hold anti-semitic views since they were so common then. And I also would be surprised if his views of other groups were any more enlightened.
He was Polish; I do not speak to the truth or nontruth of Chopin and his attitude to Jews. I do know that a considerable number of Poles are/have been anti-semites.
A whistle-blower is someone who seeks to make public an objectionable practice so that the culprit is brought to book and ceases to offend. The expression is probably derived from football referees who blow the whistle to stop play when a serious breach of the rules takes place so that remedial action can be taken. But he also blows the whistle to mark the end of the game. At that point, he can no longer blow it to highlight an infringement.
With that in mind, the game in question ended with Chopin’s death in 1849. To call Ruth Jordan a whistle-blower over his alleged anti-Semitism is therefore nonsensical as she could not stop it. In any case she did not identify anything that wasn’t already known.
It was my privilege to know Ruth Jordan; about 40 years ago she gave six lectures about Jewish composers – I seem to recall that they were Meyerbeer, Gottschalk, Alkan, Offenbach, Halevy (whose biography she was then writing) and one other whom I don’t recall at the moment – probably Mendelssohn. Her research was exceptionally thorough and as a presenter she was amazing. We remained friends afterwards until her untimely death in 1994. She was exceptionally modest and I doubt that she would have wanted to claim that she had ‘blown the whistle’ on anybody.
Regarding Chopin, whom she mentioned during her Alkan lecture, as the two of them were close neighbours in Paris, I remember her pointing out, (as has been mentioned previously in this thread) that being Polish in those days, he probably ingested some anti-Semitic tendencies with his mother’s milk. She also mentioned that Chopin’s Mazurka in A minor Op 17/4 seems to quote ‘Ma Yafit’, a Jewish melody.
All in all, Chopin deserves a D minus (or D flat?) and ‘could do a lot better’ for his performance as an anti-Semite; although his correspondence is littered with antisemitic jibes, he was a friend of Alkan (an observant Sephardic Jew), Mendelssohn, Meyerbeer, Moscheles and other Jewish personalities. If I were the ref, my whistle would remain in my pocket. If anyone appealed against my failure to dish out a red card, a yellow one, a free kick, a penalty or other appropriate sanction, I would look at the VAR, which show the words ‘MAN OF THE MATCH’. What Pele was to football, Chopin was to music.
Doesn’t it seem more that anti-Semitism was “in the air” of all Europe at the time, and not just the Polish part of it?
Schumann once flew into a fury at Liszt for a very mild criticism of Mendelssohn, making it all the more jarring to read (in Judith Cherniak’s recently published biography) of Schumann’s privately expressed reservations about Mendelssohn in anti-Semitic terms , although Cherniak allows that the Nazis probably over-emphasized the anti-Semitism of Schumann as a justification for furthering their exclusion of Mendelssohn’s influence and reputation.
Clara evidently agreed with Schumann’s anti-Jewish comments re Mendelssohn, and of course her father enthusiastically greeted the publication of Wagner’s infamous essay. Speaking of which, and to add to the irony, Hermann Levi himself rejected and resented the conclusions of Wagner’s essay but pointed out that some of Wagner’s own best friends and champions were Jews, including Levi himself. The same “yet some of his best friends were …..” defense (wrong word I know; there is no defense) can be said of both Chopin and Schumann — a few of those Jewish best friends were even shared. And those were not begrudging or reluctant friendships. I suggest that shows how powerful and durable that “in the air” anti-Semitism really was. There is no use trying to make a list of all Europeans who shared it. Too few didn’t.
Do we know if Ruth Jordan in her book used the letters between Chopin and Delfina Potocka that Paulina Czernicka allegedly discovered? There’s evidence suggesting that those letters are forgeries. We, also, now know that the long standing opinion of Franz Liszt manifesting anti-semitism is a canard. Liszt gave Princess Carolyne Von-Sayne Wittgenstein broad authority to proof read and edit his written words. Unbeknownst to him, she would insert her anti-semetic views, especially in later years when Liszt was ailing. Ironically, she was a Zionist before Zionism became popular. The Princess believed Jews should be given their state in Palestine, but her reasoning is bigoted.