[78-L] War/peacetime souvenirs?

[DAVID BURNHAM]

I don't know about souvenirs, but one infamous German wartime issue was Bach's St. Matthew Passion on HMV, (I'm currently in Camden N.J. to raid a huge collection of classical 78s tomorrow so I'm not near my records and can't give more details about the recording).  This performance was edited to satisfy Nazi priorities.  I haven't listened to it closely enough to find out what changes were made but basically what I've heard is that references to Jews were omitted.  Naturally this treatment identifies this recording as anti-Semetic, (although the copy I have I got from a Jewish friend who wasn't aware of the treatment).  It is interesting that this arrangement is anti-semetic because references to Jews are removed and St. John Passion, in fact the Gospel of John, is considered anti-semetic because it has more references to Jews than any other gospel.  I got into an interesting discussion with a Rabbi friend about this perception.

db