rrizzo@bbncca.ARPA (Ron Rizzo) (08/23/85)
Musical Life Under the third reich (continued) ====================== =========== Pianist Walter Gieseking (1895-1956): "Apart from the years of WWII and its aftermath, when he was accused (but eventually cleared) of cultural collaboration with the Nazi regime, he enjoyed worldwide fame and success for the rest of his life." Tenor Beniamino Gigli (1890-1957): "A favorite of Mussolini, Gigli was at first under a cloud after the dictator's fall, but returned to sing Tosca at the Rome Opera in March 1945." Hans Werner Henze (1926) was drafted into the German army in 1944 and initially served in Poland and Magdeberg. He was then sent to a unit "specially formed for the making of propaganda films." In 1945 he "returned to civilian life after a brief spell as a British POW." He didn't have a famous nazi father, as I claimed: his family was lower middle-class, his father a schoolmaster who quarelled with him over politics, yet allowed him to pursue musical studies. The three Jochum brothers, conductors Eugen (1902) and Georg Ludwig (1909-70), and choirmaster and composer Otto (1898-1969), all spent the entire nazi period in Germany. Eugen succeeded Muck and Boehm as general music director of the Hamburg Staatsoper and principal conductor of the Hamburg Phil- harmonic Orchestra in 1934, posts he held until 1949, but "avoiding much of the political pressure of the Nazi regime and continuing to perform the works of Bartok, Hindemith and Stravinsky at a time when they were banned elsewhere in Germany. He was also engaged to conduct the Amsterdam Concertgebouw Orchestra in the occupied Netherlands" but I remember reading something in the Boston Globe within the last year to the effect that he resisted the Nazis and may've even aided their victims in Germany and the Netherlands. George Ludwig was music director of the city of Muenster (1932-34), first conductor of the Frankfurt Opera & director of city concerts there (1934-37), holding a similar position in Plauen until 1940, and general music director in Linz (1940-45), Austria. "During this time he conducted the Bruckner Orchestra of the German radio and the Bruckner festivals at St. Florian from 1943." Both he and Eugen were noted for their interpretations of Bruckner. Otto's 1932 oratorio Der Juengste Tag (opus 28) won a national first prize. In 1933 he became director, & in 1935 professor, of the musical singing school in Augsberg. In 1939 he "held seminars in choral music and led a chorus bearing his name." "...some of his simple patriotic choruses were very popular in the early 1930s. Many of his other choral works are arrangements of folksongs..." Whether his choice of material was naive or expressed a sympathy with ultra-nationalism, I don't know. Arturo Benedetti Michelangeli (1920) won the Geneva International Piano Competition in 1939, and was made principal professor of piano at the Martini Conservatory in Bologna that same year. During WWII he was first a pilot in the Italian Air Force, and then a member of the underground anti-fascist resistance. Pianist Wilhelm Kempff (1895) "taught summer courses in the Marmopalais, Potsdam, in company with Edwin Fischer and Walter Gieseking" during the period 1934-41. Composer Carl Orff (1895) produced Carmina Burana in Frankfurt am Main in 1937. "During the war Orff remained in Germany, but only after 1945 could he develop his work fully." Operatic composer Hans Pfitzner (1869-?): "In 1934 Pfitzner, in poor health though still mentally active, was relieved of his `life' post in Munich [Munich Academy of Music]; he spent the years of Nazi rule, which he detested, as a conductor and accompanist." Conductors Bruno Walter (1876-1962) and Otto von Klemperer fled the Nazis when they came to power. Walter first moved to Austria in 1933, then during the Anschluss in 1938 to France, and the next year to the USA. The works of Austrian composer Anton von Webern (188?-1945) were banned by the nazis as examples of "cultural bolshevism", but Webern was sympathetic to the regime, expressing this in the lyrics of his Cantatas #1 and #2. Mistaken for someone else, he was tragic- ally shot by an American soldier at war's end. Austrian conductor Karl Boehm (1894-?) introducted Berg's opera WOZZECK to various musical centers, including Darmstadt in 1931. 1933: "The year turned out to be decisive for his further develop- ment: he first conducted the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra in opera and concert performances." In 1934 he was appointed director of the Dresden State Opera: "His 9 years at Dresden represent a golden era. He established a close friendship with Richard Strauss, whose devoted and inspired interpreter he remained throught his career." From 1943 to 1945 he was director of the Vienna State Opera. He invited Elizabeth Schwarzkopf to join it after she gave a "very successful debut recital...in the Beethoven Saal, Berlin" in 1942. Next & Final Posting: Schwarzkopf & von Karajan