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For a week, friends and fans of the pianist have been outraged by a controversy in the feature film section of the “SZ”. Now the editor-in-chief has apologized. Too.
The pianist Igor Levit.
It is not as if there are no texts in the German media that downplay the hatred of Jews or portray Israel as the villain of world politics. On the contrary: you read them regularly. The “Süddeutsche Zeitung” has also printed anti-Semitic cartoons in the past, and their reporting on Israel is, to put it amicably, often one-sided.
The fact that the accusation of anti-Semitism is seldom made in the right place and all the more violently in the wrong place has been impressively observed these days: a text by the music critic Helmut Mauró published in the news section of the “ Süddeutsche Zeitung ”under the title“ Igor Levit is tired ”, appeared, went to court with the controversial Jewish pianist. He speaks of an “ideology of claiming victims.” The author scoffs at Levit’s tweets as a “fun hobby.” Is that anti-Semitic? Many of Levit’s fans and friends are convinced of this.
A harsh but gutted judgment
You can certainly criticize Mauró’s text. The question then arises as to why he doesn’t go into more detail about Levit’s playing technique, which he initially called insufficient. Instead, he compares Levit to another celebrated colleague and presents the former as musically inferior. There are numerous critics, not just in Germany, who appreciate Levit as a world-class musician. The author of the “SZ” does not have to adopt his judgment, but must justify his opinion professionally and not simply spit on it. The Münchner Zeitung, which with Joachim Kaiser set the standard in German music criticism, is still well below its potential here. Mauró is also not interested in the fact that Levit has received serious threats for years and is regularly cursed with anti-Semitic abuse.
Inappropriate Craftsmanship: The author and his newspaper have to endure this accusation. But anti-Semitic? No, this text is definitely not. The term “victim claim ideology,” for example, by which Levit supporters are particularly outraged, clearly refers not to him in particular, but to a general pattern of behavior on social media. There is also no Jewish-hatred line in the rest of the article.
That Twitter is a medium that often shoots faster than expected: free. In Levit’s case, however, there is also the fact that, as Mauró correctly writes, he is “a friend of the right journalists and multipliers.” And they are loud. Together they staged a shit storm that made waves past the middle. You can find out who belongs to this wide-ranging community in one of Levit’s tweets. There he celebrates a selection of “wonderful people,” from Fridays For Future activist Luisa Neubauer to “FAZ” journalist Patrick Bahners.
In addition to numerous tweets, several letters to the editor also reached the “SZ”. Like the reactions on Twitter, the newspaper has published excerpts of these. There is talk of “many scolding and little understanding.” In a first attempt to appease critics, the newspaper published the same day
Our opinion on the text “Igor Levit is tired” (https://t.co/XOtAUQF2d8) pic.twitter.com/3r7mykd8Jg
– Süddeutsche Zeitung (@SZ) October 16, 2020
“> an opinion. In it, he emphasized that criticism can certainly hurt, and emphasized that there have already been glowing articles about Levite.
The editor-in-chief of “SZ” seems driven
But when the protest did not end, the newspaper sent a second statement later. “The editor-in-chief apologizes to Levit and his readers,” he says now. Some feel the text is anti-Semitic, others see Levite not just as an artist, but as a human being (he himself reportedly sees it that way too). Many editors of the “SZ” also shared this opinion. It’s a strange and sinuous statement. It would be appropriate if, according to Levit, one of the editor-in-chief was initially behind Mauró in an email. If that’s true, then the top of the “SZ” would not be the conductors, but driven by these feces.
Journalism lives by different opinions, even within an editorial office. It must and must be discussed. It is precisely this inner freedom that the SZ editor-in-chief undermines with his apology. The penchant for hurt feelings and, in this case, unsubstantiated accusations of anti-Semitism is, hardly to be overlooked, off-the-hook. Kowtowing carries the risk of publishers self-censoring in the future, especially considering the few who deviate from the majority opinion of Munich.
Igor Levit likes to tweet controversially and often below the belt. Anyone who does that should expect headwinds. The pianist, on the other hand, sees himself “degraded as a person”, as the “SZ” writes. This is interesting because Levite himself denied being human to those who think differently. Did you apologize to them?
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