VPO Quickly Deletes SS
Reference
By William
Osborne
[Sent to various
lists on Jan. 1, 2000]
For those who
read my post yesterday about the Vienna Philharmonic's website, there is yet
more interesting news.
I reported that
the website quoted SS officer, Wilhelm Jerger, to substantiate the Vienna
Philharmonic's claim to stylistic uniqueness and purity. Jerger, a former
Chairman of the orchestra, and an SS Lieutenant, wrote a highly racist book
about the orchestra in 1942. I
mentioned that Jerger's book contains long father/son genealogical tables of
some of the major string players in the orchestra, and that asterisks are
placed by the names of all individuals who were "non-Aryan." I also noted that the Vienna Philharmonic
is the only all-white orchestra in the world, and the only one that
substantiates its claims to stylistic purity by quoting an SS officer.
This morning I
looked at the Vienna Philharmonic's website again, and sure enough, they have
deleted all references to SS officer Jerger!
There must have been quite a panic somewhere! They must have thought no one would know who Jerger really was,
or about what his racist book (which has become relatively rare) really says.
The website's
section on the Philharmonic's string sound is now only about half as long as it
was yesterday. Also, a side bar that
allowed one to jump from section to section on the website is gone--a change
that was probably necessitated by the emergency sanitization.
It seems that the
Vienna Philharmonic, Columbia Artists, and/or Carnegie Hall has someone on the
IAWM list keeping a watch on what we have to say and what plans we make.
Let's keep that
sexist, racist orchestra and its supporters hopping until significant changes
are made in the Philharmonic's employment policies.
Their latest
little gesture of "de-Nazification" is a good way to start the next
millennium.