最近开始尝试听交响作品。有名的指挥家多如牛毛，我眼熟的名字也不少，但多数是在我听协奏曲的时候遇到的那些。就协奏曲来说，A. Toscanini和F. Reiner给我的印象都不错。但就更广泛的交响作品，我就完全不熟悉。同一作品，不同演奏家的演绎千差万别，但是对刚刚接触的人来说，以谁的演绎作为范本呢？钢琴作品中，我认为Rubinstein的版本可充当范本；对交响乐作品，我决定以Furtwangler指挥的版本来熟悉作品。这都是根据网友们对Furtwangler几乎没有骂声（对Rubinstein很不屑之人尚且大有人在）。

但Furtwangler在生时运气没这么好。二战时期他没有离开德国，一直为纳粹工作。战后，他被认为是拥纳粹分子，受到了世界性的咒骂和抵制。在美国Toscanini和一群犹太音乐家，包括Heifetz，Rubinstein，Menuhin还有Toscanini的女婿Horowitz组成了一个反对Furtwangler的阵营，阻止他访美。直到最近，他的真实经历才被公诸于世，得到一定程度的平反。电影《Taking Side》就是讲述他的这段故事的。

实际上，我所了解的，也只限上述的这些。为了更多地了解这段历史，我Google了一下。无意中看到这篇文章。文章提到并以激烈的措辞形容了Heifetz，R. Strauss，Furtwangler和Karajan等音乐家。如：

Egomaniacal sewage Jascha Heifetz was a vile self-hating Jew who saw nothing wrong with playing demonic German Nazi music – Heifetz insisted on playing the compositions of German Nazi Reich Music Chamber President Richard Strauss, the official head of the Third Reich’s music culture bureaucracy before and during the Holocaust.

Another Hitler musical flunky was Wilhelm Furtwangler, who “never gave the Nazi salute in public” – In large part because “he never gave the Nazi salute in public,” Nazi German conductor and composer Wilhelm Furtwangler was pardoned after World War II for complicity in the crimes of the Nazis. Among his Jewish defenders was “Lord” Yehudi Menuhin, a self-hating American Jew granted entry to the British peerage. Furtwangler’s recordings include ones of Beethoven symphonies conducted in 1943, at the height of the Holocaust.

An unrepentant German Nazi orchestral conductor who joined the Nazi Party not once but twice – and who died decades later as the richest classical musician in history, worth an incredible $500 million – Herbert von Karajan joined the Nazi Party on April 8, 1933, one day after a Nazi civil service law banned Jews from state posts, and reenlisted on May 1, 1933, one day before a freeze on new membership. Thereupon rising rapidly in an intellectual community from which all Jewish competition was absent, he proudly led oratorios in praise of Hitler, celebrated German Nazi military victories and routinely opened his concerts with a Nazi anthem boasting that “Jewish blood spurts from our knives.” After the war, Karajan was lionized in Germany despite – or rather because of – his Nazi past and despite the fact that he was repeatedly caught lying to cover it up. (Karajan conducted fellow Hitler flunky Richard Strauss’ tone poem Death and Transfiguration.)

对Karajan我认为至少在战时他是拥纳粹的，他的行动证明了这点。但在这里我觉得有趣的是这段文字的措辞和逻辑非常像我国愤青文章——要么缺乏事实证据，要么通过将两件没有关联的事情联系起来以制造一种假像。例如，文中特意提到Furtwangler在1943年录的贝多芬交响曲，恰好同时是大屠杀的最高潮时期；说Strauss在大屠杀时及其后是第三帝国的音乐文化部长等。尽管Heifetz在战后是反Furterwangler的“犹太帮”之一员，也没能避免在这篇文章中被称为“自卑的犹太儒夫”。其逻辑似乎是，大屠杀时录音，或者大屠杀时当文化部长，都要承担大屠杀之罪。其潜台词就是，大屠杀时在德国生活的德国人——无论有没有入纳粹党——都是罪人。原来犹太人也有愤青。

Gutmann的网站有一篇详尽的全面介绍Furtwangler的文章，我想，应该能了解到更多历史事实，以作出我们自己的判断。况且，无论如何，我关心的是音乐，不是政治。战后反Furtwangler最猛烈者之一Toscanini也说：“在作为音乐家的Furtwangler面前，我要脱下帽子，但在作为人的Furtwangler面前，他想再戴一顶”。只是文章太长了，我要花点时间才能看完。

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