The campaign against Russian conductor Valery Gergiev: Middle-class hysteria in the service of war.
Following the launch of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, and after months of endless pro-war propaganda by Western governments and the corporate media, a chauvinist anti-Russian campaign is now underway in the US and Western Europe. Its targets include Russian musicians, conductors and singers.
New York City’s Carnegie Hall announced that acclaimed Russian conductor Valery Gergiev would no longer be conducting the Vienna Philharmonic at the famed venue on Friday. Management also canceled a performance by respected pianist Denis Matsuev, who had been scheduled to perform Sergei Rachmaninoff’s Piano Concerto No.2.
Many other Russian classical performers now face similar threats. Various orchestras have even begun removing pieces by Pyotr Tchaikovsky and other Russian composers who died a century or more before the war in Ukraine began.
There is staggering hypocrisy behind this campaign. It goes without saying that not a single figure in American music has ever faced any retribution for supporting the wars in Serbia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Libya … and the list goes on.
This disgusting spectacle is the product of war fever whipped up by the US government with the help of the pliant capitalist press, including theTimes, theWashington Postand other pillars of what once passed for American liberalism.
