This is going to be a sensitive one.  Fair warning.

Summertime. We’re nearly there, though friends of mine in the eastern US have been sweating their asses off for some time now. Despite torrential downpours and some extreme flooding throughout Germany there have been a few gorgeous, sun-filled half-days sprinkled in for good measure. One of which was a week or so ago when I went to my first open-air gig (aside from a festival) in a very long time. It was in the center of the small town of Dachau, only about 20 minutes by SBahn from Munich: Grizzly Bear and an unremarkable opener I don’t care enough about to look up. Grizzly Bear was good. That’s all I have to say about them.

Now. I’ve spent the better part of 3 years living in western Europe and I am well aware of (and was prior to my move) the unbelievably ugly history a certain small group of folks from the place I now call my home have branded on the entire world, not to mention their relationship with my homeland as far as WWII is concerned. It must be said that the beauty of this country, of Bavaria, the people here, the art, the multicultural neighborhoods, the food, the architecture..everything… far outweigh the aforementioned historical stain. I have to admit I really didn’t pay the history that much attention aside from learning about it in school, realizing its horrors, lamenting on them and then going to math class. Right or wrong that’s the truth. Two summers ago I had the opportunity to visit Normandy, Omaha Beach specifically. The overwhelming sense of loss and sadness I felt while visiting there coupled with the complex emotions my better half, a German, was having were practically unbearable, but necessary. Then I came home and la la la life went on.

I love music. Not all of it. That’s a shite statement given by people who could give a fuck about music at all. “What bands and music do you listen to?” “Oh, you know…everything. The radio…” GAH. Anyhow, while I have definite favorites, my eardrums can bend toward specific and completely different genres depending upon my mood. “Even classical music, Abby? Operas?” Why yes, even classical music. Specifically Richard Wagner. I can almost feel the mood lowering.

Yes, Wilhelm Richard Wagner. You know him from such hits as “Flight of the Valkyries”. And the fact that he is one of the, if not the most controversial composer in history. I think the first time I heard Tristan und Isolde years ago I was enraptured. Hooked. It is just so. painfully. beautiful. You can read all you want about his life, his works, his successful attempt to bind theatre and stage and orchestration and opera and visual art into one glorious, spine-tingling bundle. His attempt to escape creditors, his affairs and his exile to Switzerland is gloriously gossipy. What always seems to stand out however, as it should, are his anti-Semitic political writings and, posthumously, the fancy a certain German political leader of the 1920s-40s took to his music. So. Quite the conundrum, right? Is it wrong, for obvious reasons, to listen?

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