Handel’s famous oratorio, “Judas Maccabaeus,” has been “Aryanized” by substituting a new text with a German hero, according to the Prague Nazi newspaper Der Neue Tag. The work has received the new title “The General.”
The Nazi paper said the original text was “an oriental extravaganza” characterized by “overheated voluptuousness,” while Handel’s music “is a musical speech which rises into the pure air of Nordic-German spirituality.” “Handel’s music,” the paper said, “is now freed of a contradiction which the 18th century lack of racial insight could not grasp.”
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
