By David Amos
David Amos
SAN DIEGO–This is the second of two parts in which I review and offer a few insightful quotes on the controversial life of conductor Wilhelm Furtwangler, as documented in Sam Shirakawa’s book The Devil’s Music Master, published by Oxford University Press in 1992.
Another fascinating aspect to this book is a different overview of the Third Reich. No, not with the horrors, persecution, war, extermination and concentration camps, but the backstage manipulation of the Nazis to gain control of the arts which they considered most important. The propaganda machine was essential to Hitler, and as we know, he revered the great German composers, mainly Richard Wagner. A priority of the Third Reich and the war effort was to promote public morale through a very systematic and structured use of the arts to both showcase the greatness of German tradition and Nazi philosophy, and at the same time degrade and ridicule the so-called “degenerate arts and artists” including, of course, anything that was Jewish.
Back to Furtwangler, this book details and documents not only his troubled times when he chose to remain in Germany, but in as different and very disturbing way, the world’s reaction against him after the war, his “Denazification Hearings” before a tribunal in 1947 (of which he was totally cleared) and the attacks and distortions against him, mostly by the American press. The only two real accusations against him were that A) He remained in Germany, and B) There was guilt by association. As late as 1983 there have been articles which falsely have accused him of firing all the Jews in the Berlin Philharmonic, and selecting Jewish musicians to be sent to the concentration camps. Quite the contrary, he actually had Jews that were already relocated to the camps administratively removed from there and given exit visas.
What about Richard Strauss, the Nazi’s official composer? Shirikawa says, “At worst, Strauss was indifferent to the Nazis. He lived only for his royalties so that he could keep his henpecking wife Pauline happy. A professional musician in the modern sense, he energetically sought the best possible showcases for his works and appears to have no specific political inclinations. Strauss was willing to accept flattery from anyone who could keep him in the lifestyle to which he and Pauline had become accustomed”.
Only until recent years, the music of Richard Strauss has been played in public concerts in Israel.
My only personal contact with someone who was closely involved with Furtwangler during the early 1930’s was Gilbert Back, who was a violinist in the Berlin Philharmonic. I knew him during my college days at San Diego State University in the 1960’s. Mr. Back was the music department’s chamber music instructor, and brought to SDSU an enviable reputation of excellence in the performance of German and other European traditional music. He coached and taught many string players who are active in our San Diego area today. In my conversations with him, he always staunchly defended Furtwangler. There were many stories, including Furtwangler’s negotiations with the authorities as to who was a full Jew, one half, one quarter, one eight, married to a Jew, or even associated with Jews. At first, only the full Jews in the Philharmonic were no longer allowed to play, including its concertmaster, Szymon Goldberg and principal cello Nicolai Graudan. Furtwangler lost that round, but arranged exit visas for them, Mr. Back, and others. He received concessions from Goebbels as to the part-Jews and ones with Jewish spouses, but even these privileges were gradually removed. Gilbert Back completely supported and defended Furtwangler, both artistically and ethically.
Another intriguing player in this drama was Arturo Toscanini. The great Italian conductor, never shy to express his political views, loathed Hitler and Mussolini, was most outspoken against Facist doctrines, and vowed never to conduct in Nazi controlled countries. (Did you know that he was the conductor who led the first concert of the Palestine Orchestra in 1936, later to become the Israel Philharmonic? He was strongly motivated to help all the displaced musicians who had found refuge in Jerusalem and Tel-Aviv).
Toscanini’s celebrated exchange of opinions with Furtwangler took place in Salzburg in 1937, while they were both conducting at the renowned yearly music festival. The encounter accidentally took place in the street. According to the recollection Furtwangler gave to his biographer Curt Riess, Toscanini approached him smiling and twirling his walking stick. “In the world of today”, said Toscanini, “it is impossible for a musician who conducts in an enslaved country to do so in a free country. If you conduct in Bayreuth, you should not conduct in Salzburg”. “I am the same man I was six months ago when you reproached me for not accepting your invitation to come to New York”, replied Furtwangler.
“Those were different times. Today, there is only either-or”.
“I should be quite willing to give up coming to Salzburg, if that meant your activities here would continue. Personally, I believe that for musicians, there are no enslaved and free countries. Human beings are free wherever Wagner and Beethoven are played, and if they are not free at first, they are freed while listening to these works. Music transports them to regions where the Gestapo can do them no harm”
Toscanini made no reply.
“If I conduct great music in a country which is, by chance, ruled by Hitler, must I therefore represent him? Does not great music, on the contrary, make me one of his antagonists? For is great music not utterly opposed to the soullessness of Nazism?”
The old man shook his head. “Everyone who conducts in the Third Reich is a Nazi!”
“By that”, replied Furtwangler, “you imply that art and music are merely propaganda, a false front, as it were, for any government which happens to be in power. If a Nazi government is in power, then, as a conductor, I am Nazi; under the Communists, I would be a Communist; under the Democrats, a Democrat. No, a thousand times, no! Music belongs to a different world, and it is above chance political events.”
Toscanini again shook his head. “I disagree.” He walked on. The conversation lasted only a few moments.
What is veritas, truth, or emet, we each must decide for ourselves. This is a subject that has so transfixed the world and influenced writings in all the disciplines. Even in another book which I have read and reviewed, The Maestro Myth, by Norman Lebrecht, which is a chronicle of the great conductors in history, so much of the writing is devoted to each conductor’s attitude and relation to the Third Reich and the Jewish connection, or lack of it. It is almost hypnotic in its obsession.
Let us end with a quote by Furtwangler himself: “Cultural policy is impossible. The only criterion for art is the truth to which art alone can produce.”
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Amos is conductor of the Tifereth Israel Community Orchestra and a guest conductor of professional orchestras around the world.
