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This is the famous Hungarian March (Rákóczi March) from Part I of Berlioz‘s La damnation de Faust, Op 24 as interpreted by the inimitable Herbert von Karajan leading the Wiener Philharmoniker (I think so… the orchestra’s A is tuned a tad higher). There’s no shilly-shallying about… it’s a MARCH, after all. There are some who want exile Herbert’s memory to the outer darkness because he “collaborated with the Nazis“. Such people should get a life. Von Karajan was a musician… he didn’t participate in the madness. It’s much like Jeff Smith… I still have the Frugal Gourmet books he wrote, and use them. You separate the work from the person. One thing you don’t do is to enact a damnatio memoriae on someone’s memory. Even if someone’s a bastard, their misdeeds contain a lesson for us… therefore… we can’t pretend that Schmemann, Feodosy Lazor, Pierre l’Huillier, and Dmitri Royster didn’t exist. They did exist… their actions existed… we averted our eyes… how many were hurt? No one knows… does anyone care? Am I alone in wondering… WHY? If we continue to lie about these men, we’ll learn less than nothing… we’ll not only do the same things over and again, we’ll be told, “Ignore it… for the good of the Church”. I think it’s time that stopped…
BMD
