Who will get the Berliner Philharmoniker gig?

[North Star]

MishaK conveniently overlooks facts.  And if he has written a thesis on Right Wing extremest groups in Europe he is hardly in a position to speak objectively about any of the issues.  I know enough about writing a thesis to know that one has to collate evidence/research to support an a priori belief or case.

You may know that in order to write a thesis one has to leave out facts that don't support it. Others might not. Your claim that someone who has studied the subject can't speak of it objectively is just priceless. Reminds me of the 'turtles all the way down'.

[...] unrest now in Finland where a government looks set to be thrown out because of attitudes on immigration.

Unrest? Government thrown out because of attitudes on immigration? Where did you get this, the Pravda?

[Phrygian]

Apropos the thesis;  gathering ALL the facts - looking at all sides of the issues which give rise to the position.  Not just a one-sided angle;  looking at the myriad complexities which cause people to behave/respond the way they do.  That's what I was driving at.

I heard the news today about the government of Finland on the German news here in Austria and on Austrian radio itself this morning.  We have cable TV in our apartment and the news is given in the English language on radio.  But if you don't like what you hear you are free to turn it off yourself, or shoot the messenger who has mentioned it.

And if you think it's "priceless" that somebody would write a thesis to prove an argument he/she already believed then you obviously haven't heard of debates and counter-arguments where somebody else has a very different opinion.  Why, it's even been suggested - particularly in newspaper and magazine essays (you know, expositions) - that people have written from a biased viewpoint, conveniently leaving out facts.  This may be remote from your experience, but I read current affairs debates and essays - full of facts and 'evidence' - which are refuted by another advocate/academic/journalist.  We have in Australia what we call "the history wars" or "the cultural wars" where two famous academics both wrote books with totally different treatments about the history of the aboriginal population in Australia.  Both were contradicting each other, yet both were written by academics who had a political bias.  Critics from both the Left of politics and the Right both praised the works, saying their own man had presented the facts.  Trust me, both *academics had been able to gather plenty of "facts".

*Both distinguished professors of history at leading universities - yes, we have them in the antipodes.  I myself have a research masters degree.

I'm not going to play your games.  And to make matters even worse for you, I'm female!!!  And a grandmother.

[North Star]

I heard the news today about the government of Finland on the German news here in Austria and on Austrian radio itself this morning.  We have cable TV in our apartment and the news is given in the English language on radio.

I haven't seen or heard (of) any unrest. There is no unrest. And the government isn't 'thrown out'. Finland is democracy with several parties, and the new government will be formed after yesterday's election. The populist anti-immigration True Finns lost one place, while admittedly losing less than the two other largest parties of 2011 elections, and the Center Party rose from fourth to first place. But all this is directly related to the 2007 Finnish campaign finance scandal, which decimated (more like in the modern sense) Center Party's popular vote. Now, with a new leader and a government that hasn't gotten on with the structural changes to healthcare and municipal reform, voters went back to Centre. Obviously some nutjobs vote for True Finns because they want immigrants off their lawn, but they're still a very marginal segment of the nutjobs.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-32370742

[Karl Henning]

There may well be nutjobs anywhere one goes . . . .

[Phrygian]

I haven't seen or heard (of) any unrest. There is no unrest. And the government isn't 'thrown out'. Finland is democracy with several parties, and the new government will be formed after yesterday's election. The populist anti-immigration True Finns lost one place, while admittedly losing less than the two other largest parties of 2011 elections, and the Center Party rose from fourth to first place. But all this is directly related to the 2007 Finnish campaign finance scandal, which decimated (more like in the modern sense) Center Party's popular vote. Now, with a new leader and a government that hasn't gotten on with the structural changes to healthcare and municipal reform, voters went back to Centre. Obviously some nutjobs vote for True Finns because they want immigrants off their lawn, but they're still a very marginal segment of the nutjobs.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-32370742

If only the people opposed to immigration were nutjobs and not ordinary folk who feel disenfranchised.  Of course, there are ratbags amongst them - same as any university protest and the rabble that attracts.  But you can call people who hold different views to you "rabble", "nutjobs", misguided, xenophobic - whatever you like.  This (a) won't worry them one bit in terms of deterring their actions, (b) remove the problem.  You see, I happen to believe that the rise of shock-jock radio (so called) is a direct result of ordinary people feeling disenfranchised from the polity.  The educated middle class has seized the agenda on some spurious high moral ground and, in Australia for example, these ordinary TAXPAYERS are labelled ignorant rednecks.  These are presumably the people you describe as "nutjobs".  They pay for your children to get a school and university education.  And because they feel they aren't heard because they don't have a university degree they ring up local radio and air their grievances.  Fancy, university-educated people sniff and look down their noses at these people.  Well, now they're not happy and the problem isn't going to go away.  Talk to them;  see what their grievances are;  you might find them decent people who want somebody to hear their voices.

But you won't because you seem to have contempt for the little guy.  I don't.

This discussion has gone way beyond the remit of "General Classical Music Discussion".  I'm out.

[MishaK]

MishaK conveniently overlooks facts.  And if he has written a thesis on Right Wing extremest groups in Europe he is hardly in a position to speak objectively about any of the issues.  I know enough about writing a thesis to know that one has to collate evidence/research to support an a priori belief or case.

Not where I went to school. You have to take in the totality of available information on the subject, address leading past, present, conforming and countervailing theories and make a logically sound argument based on the available data that anticipates potential criticism and acknowledges the limitations of the available data.

How about the rise of protest movements in Great Britain, riots in South Africa, unrest now in Finland where a government looks set to be thrown out because of attitudes on immigration.  The world is changing faster than people can handle and this is bound to cause disruption and protest and, at times, ugly violence (which I do not condone).  Youth unemployment is currently one of the greatest challenges in Europe and if people feel that others are going to come from other countries to possibly threaten their own employment prospects no amount of arm-chair expert advice is going to stop that.

This is what I mean with your "shadowboxing against arguments I never made." What on earth do you think you are disproving with the above? Did I ever claim that everything is hunkey dory in Europe? Did I ever deny that right wing extermism is a reaction by those fearful of being left out of economic developments too rapid for them to comprehend? WTF do South Africa and the UK have to do with Christian Thielemann?

And if you don't like CT and his 'weasel words' then tell us how you feel about Gergiev who seems to have cosied up to Vladimir Putin.  Does that fact exclude his entitlement to a good conducting job too?  Some people seem to think so.

Gergiev is not up for the BPO job. Different topic for another day.

Perhaps you are of the view that artists in the public eye are not entitled to their opinions.

When did I ever say that anyone is not "entitled to their opinions"? Do you understand what these words mean that I wrote?: "Freedom of speech means not just that you are entitled to air your ideas, but that those ideas will be tested in a free speech "marketplace of ideas"."

I'm old enough to remember how certain American films stars were publicly eviscerated for their views on the Vietnam war;  not debated, eviscerated. 

Who are you talking about now? (Not that this has anything to do with the topic, and not that Vietnam is in any way comparable to the role of Germany in WWII.)

And what of the article from "The Guardian" where Angela Merkel is reported to have suggested (in 2010) that multiculturalism has failed in Europe.

What about it? How do you imagine this affects, let alone contradicts anything I said? (PS: you citing the Guardian, of all things, is possibly the most amusing thing in this thread so far, especially after I got skewered for citing Vox.)

And I can tell all about the scurrilous messages I've sent you, since you've mentioned these publicly.  Today I sent you a message telling you that an ongoing telephone poll on a German news station about whether Germany should accept more migrants has, as I write this, found 13% for and 87% against.  As I told you in my message, this does not necessarily imply a national trend but it does point in a certain direction.

And again, this proves what exactly?

All this proves that Christian Thielemann and others also have an opinion.

And I denied this where?

That it doesn't conform to your own doesn't make it any less valid an opinion, unless he's inciting people to war or violence - which he is not.

No. The issue which you have failed to grasp from my very first post here despite numerous reiterations is not that it doesn't conform to *my* opinion, the issue is that it is unlikely to conform to the predispositions of the international roster of musicians of the BPO who will be voting on the next MD. Do you get this now? International, non-German musicians are unlikely to want to work with a nationalistic German revisionist and undeclared potential latent closet Nazi. Whether he agrees with my opinions or not is completely, utterly immaterial.

I've presented you with some fact by PM which contradict your rose-coloured view of multi-culturalism in Germany and you've chosen to become very aggressive.

Hello! Earth to Phrygian: as I said before, I grew up as a foreigner in Germany. I emigrated (!) precisely because I have absolutely no illusions about multi-culturalism in Germany and don't expect that in my lifetime my Asian wife and bi-racial children would ever be treated fairly as full members of society in Germany. Who do you think you are debating with and about what arguments exactly?

I also reminded you that, contrary to your questioning of my statistics on migrant movement from Africa, there were precisely the number moving (10,000) in one week which I initially asserted.

No, you didn't. You said:

And I don't understand your citing figures about population statistics when just yesterday a boatload of illegal immigrants - 10,000 in one day - arrived yet again in Europe, heading straight for Germany and the UK.

(Helpful original emphasis yours!) "Day" and "week" do not have the same meanings in the English language. You know that, right? And unless they hijacked the Queen Mary and filled every square inch of space, 10,000 isn't a "boatload" either. PS: had you actually read the CNN article I linked earlier, you would have noticed that it, too, said 10,000 in a week, and that accordingly you are not teaching me anything new.

[Phrygian]

There may well be nutjobs anywhere one goes . . . .

True.  Also misogynists, bigots and people with way too much time on their hands on the internet.

[Karl Henning]

"People are the same everywhere."

[Phrygian]

Your argument has gone full circle, Misha.  You've accused a conductor of making vile statements which don't represent Berlin and yet the article on Merkel directly contradicts that view of multi-cultural Berlin.  You say only Dresden has this mindset. 

The news report I heard again was 10,000 immigrants in one week.  I repeat what I have heard.  If you think it's false - and it was repeated again today on Austrian radio as I told you in my PM - then you should lodge a complaint about inaccurate reporting in Austrian media.  All day they have been running graphs and charts here showing the exact composition of groups of arrivals to date, their destinations, the ongoing costs and the political implications.  That's all I can tell you. The discussion is being had with or without Christian Thielemann, with or without the Berliner Philharmoniker.

And what about Gergiev;  Putin's mate?  Do you think he's a contender?

This is going nowhere;  we are never going to agree, and it's getting ugly.

Now I have other things to do.

[MishaK]

Your argument has gone full circle, Misha. 

If by "full circle" you mean it has consistently stayed the same, notwithstanding your tangential and irrelevant attacks, yes.

You've accused a conductor of making vile statements which don't represent Berlin and yet the article on Merkel directly contradicts that view of multi-cultural Berlin.

Do you realize that Berlin =/= Germany? Berlin is one (very cosmopolitan and extremely left-leaning) *subset* of the general German population at large. Nothing Merkel said "directly contradicts" that. She was speaking of Germany as a whole, not Berlin, and even then she was only expressing an opinion (and pandering to a certain part of the electorate), not telling us an objective truth. And even so, failed multi-cultural integration *even in Berlin* would not negate the fact that Berlin has a largely cosmopolitan, left-leaning population, unlike, for example, Dresden.

You say only Dresden has this mindset. 

No. I never used the word "only". There are plenty of other, far more benighted places. I am much more precise with language than you. You really need to be a lot more careful with reading. It would prevent you from engaging in all this completely unnecessary hostility.

The news report I heard again was 10,000 immigrants in one week.  I repeat what I have heard.  If you think it's false - and it was repeated again today on Austrian radio as I told you in my PM - then you should lodge a complaint about inaccurate reporting in Austrian media.  All day they have been running graphs and charts here showing the exact composition of groups of arrivals, their destinations, the costs.  That's all I can tell you.

HELLO! I agree with the reports. I don't agree with your initial mischaracterization of the reports. Do you even understand that difference?

And what about Gergiev;  Putin's mate?  Do you think he's a contender?

That much you could have understood from my previous post:

Gergiev is not up for the BPO job. Different topic for another day.

To elaborate: Gergiev guest conducts them about once every five years and not to ecstatic rave reviews either. Not exactly evidence of a close artistic collaboration that could yield a music directorship, whatever the politics.

[Brian]

No. My comment was not based on ethnicity at all but based on a position of dominance within a society.

Exhibit A: Please compare the rosters of the Staatskapelle Dresden and the BPO:
Exhibit B: CT is extremely circumspect to avoid any public display of anything that would clearly give rise to an accusation of being a fan of regimes past.

[etc]

*I would actually pay money to hear a Weimar era festival that combined the efforts of CT's programming with that of James Conlon, if that were possible. It would be a really interesting artistic glimpse into a fascinatingly disjointed and frenzied society.

So far as I'm concerned, this ends the argument. Misha has explained himself persuasively, and Phrygian has failed to directly reply, instead trying to change the subject.

I wasn't fond of Thielemann as a music-maker to start with, but this discussion has been very enlightening about him as an artist in general. Particularly, I did not know that Thielemann programmed crap music by Nazis and refused to perform Mahler, Zemlinsky, etc., or about the incident with the Jewish members of the BPO.

[MishaK]

and refused to perform Mahler, Zemlinsky, etc., or about the incident with the Jewish members of the BPO.

Well, this is again one of those things one has to be careful about, lest CT would sue you for libel. He hasn't exactly "refused" to perform such music, only the fact is that he hasn't performed it. He will probably tell you that he performs music when he feels ready for it, etc. bla bla. But you may draw your conclusions.

[king ubu]

... or about the incident with the Jewish members of the BPO.

and yet his haircut doesn't matter 

[MishaK]

....and I should clarify, that this "incident" wasn't really an incident, except that observers noticed certain conspicuous absences in that particular concert program:

Viele prominente Philharmoniker spielten in diesem Programm nicht, auch die beiden jüdischen Streichersolisten Guy Braunstein und Amihai Grosz waren abwesend.

Translation: many prominent members of the Philharmoniker did not play, including the two Jewish solo string players, Guy Braunstein (since retired) and Amihai Grosz, who were absent.

Source: http://www.welt.de/print/die_welt/kultur/article13360605/Im-Reich-der-Misstoene.html

[North Star]

If only the people opposed to immigration were nutjobs and not ordinary folk who feel disenfranchised.  Of course, there are ratbags amongst them - same as any university protest and the rabble that attracts.  But you can call people who hold different views to you "rabble", "nutjobs", misguided, xenophobic - whatever you like.  This (a) won't worry them one bit in terms of deterring their actions

Thanks for stating the blatantly obvious.

(b) remove the problem.  You see, I happen to believe that the rise of shock-jock radio (so called) is a direct result of ordinary people feeling disenfranchised from the polity.  The educated middle class has seized the agenda on some spurious high moral ground and, in Australia for example, these ordinary TAXPAYERS are labelled ignorant rednecks.

So, what you're saying is, morals don't matter, and if you pay taxes, you can't be ignorant.

These are presumably the people you describe as "nutjobs".  They pay for your children to get a school and university education.  And because they feel they aren't heard because they don't have a university degree they ring up local radio and air their grievances.  Fancy, university-educated people sniff and look down their noses at these people.  Well, now they're not happy and the problem isn't going to go away.  Talk to them;  see what their grievances are;  you might find them decent people who want somebody to hear their voices.

Show me a 'fancy, university-educated' Finnish politician who sniffs and looks down their nose at [the lower middle class] people.

But you won't because you seem to have contempt for the little guy.  I don't.

I mostly have contempt for this small man, a figurehead of the xenophobic wing of True Finns:  http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Jussi_Halla-aho
But, if a taxpayer votes him, good for them right? 

[Jo498]

It is certainly better to stick to the point. As Misha explained the point is not the mood in the general German populace concerning immigrants. But rather that Thielemann has done a lot to not qualify as an ideal match for Berlin and the Berlin Philharmonic which both are very different from the average German town (even large cities) as far as percentage of non-ethnic Germans and multicultural attitudes are concerned. Sure those are extra-musical reasons but they do matter. And there is some connection to Thielemann's musical preferences as well. It can hardly be denied that his preferences are not very "international" compared to Rattle, even to Karajan (who did quite a bit of e.g. Tchaikovsky, Sibelius, Verdi).
Of course he is entitled to these preferences and maybe he is the best Wagner conductor of our time. But again, the point is simply that this is not the main qualification for the position in question.

[MishaK]

even to Karajan (who did quite a bit of e.g. Tchaikovsky, Sibelius, Verdi).

Karajan did *everything*, he even challenged himself to figure out the things he wasn't really originally comfortable with (Rite of Spring, Mahler 5, etc.). He never shied away from new repertoire nor from huge challenges. He certainly deserves a lot of respect for this.

[Pat B]

The issue about CT is the totality of his political attitudes, as also frequently expresed in his musical choices, and whether they might affect CT's eligibility or likelihood of election as the next MD of the BPO.

A particularly interesting post. Thanks, Misha.

I have no prediction except that if the BPO chooses anybody but Thielemann, then I fully expect accusations of "censorship."

[Ken B]

So far as I'm concerned, this ends the argument. Misha has explained himself persuasively, and Phrygian has failed to directly reply, instead trying to change the subject.

I wasn't fond of Thielemann as a music-maker to start with, but this discussion has been very enlightening about him as an artist in general. Particularly, I did not know that Thielemann programmed crap music by Nazis and refused to perform Mahler, Zemlinsky, etc., or about the incident with the Jewish members of the BPO.

The part I objected to has nothing to with Thielemann at all. Until this comment I have not even mentioned him. I expressed displeasure with stereotyped arguments about people based on their race and gender. Still do. Even if you gussy them up with mass psychologizing about "dominant groups."  I object as well to expressions of contempt for interlocutors being held up as "exemplary." 

[MishaK]

The part I objected to has nothing to with Thielemann at all. Until this comment I have not even mentioned him. I expressed displeasure with stereotyped arguments about people based on their race and gender. Still do. Even if you gussy them up with mass psychologizing about "dominant groups."  I object as well to expressions of contempt for interlocutors being held up as "exemplary."

You do realize that being dominant or not is a temporary, ephemeral coincidence of history, whereas race (even though it is a political construct at its root) and certainly gender are given, right? My analysis was based on the (undeniable) fact that Western society is still dominated and organized around and for the benefit of white males from the locally dominant ethnic group. It is hard to analyze any reaction by the current powers to any challenge by marginalized groups without mentioning that elephant in the room (especially when the distinction with the relevant marginalized group is one of race or gender). It is what it is, whether you dislike it or not. As to the supposed "contempt", how exactly should I respond to someone who wilfully and persistently fails to read what I write and throws random accusations at me?