A Glorious, if Nazi, Voice

“And don’t give me that stuff about Fischer-Dieskau being Hitler’s favorite baritone,” snapped Pablo, as I waited in line yesterday to get the popcorn. And did eyebrows rise?

Of course not—we were at the Metropolitan Opera Rebroadcast, and the movie theater was filled with people who have been hearing this argument for years.

As it happens, the jury is probably in on Fischer-Dieskau. Yes, he was a member of the Hitler Youth—as was everyone’s favorite Pope Emeritus—but neither man probably had much say in it. And he served in the German army, at one point caring for horses in the Russian front, and later getting captured by the Allies. The point is that he was a young man during the war, and hadn’t started his musical career: Hitler probably had never heard of him.

OK—so what about older musicians, those who had been established at the rise of Nazism, especially those who were German? Did they have the moral obligation to speak out?

Specifically, what about Elisabeth Schwarzkopf—certainly one of the greatest singers of the last part of the 20^th century, but also a Nazi? And if so, how much of one? Because look, it’s one thing to get—grudgingly—into bed with the bastards, it’s another thing to seek them out, flirt outrageously, and commit outrageous libidinous acts with them.

And according to The Guardian, Schwarzkopf went quite a ways with the Nazis: she joined the Nazi Student League, which according to The Guardian was hardly unusual: half of the students were members. But according to The Guardian:

What was unusual, however, was that she volunteered to become an ANSt leader, at least for one term. That demonstrated dedication to the cause of Nazism beyond the call of duty, and was an obvious sign that she wanted to get ahead quickly in her profession.

There’s more—she may have had an SS general for a lover when she contracted tuberculosis and had to spend a year in a sanatorium. She joined the Nazi party, although only one in five musicians were active in the party. When the war ended, Schwarzkopf was with the Vienna State Opera, which was handy, since she was more easily “de-Nazified” there than in Berlin.  And she later took an American boyfriend after the war, and then married an English Jew, which gave her British citizenship (and allowed her to earn a title). Nor was that all: the husband was Walter Legge, artistic director of EMI Music, and a man who would shepherd her career adroitly for decades.

Her defense? Well, according to The Washington Post:

"Everybody at the opera joined," she told the New York Times. "We thought nothing of it. We just did it."

As well, she told the Times that it was the equivalent of joining a union: if you wanted a job, you joined the party.

Think this is just about Nazism? Hardly, since Gustavo Dudamel, the Venezuelan conductor of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, has recently been criticized for not having criticized the current president of Venezuela, Nicolás Maduro. Worse, according to his critics, Dudamel played a concert in Venezuela the day after a particularly bloody protest. And Dudamel’s defense? Well, he is a product of a remarkable program called El Sistema, which takes kids out of the barrios, puts instruments in their hands, and teaches them both how to play remarkably well, and how to be disciplined, how to work together, how to succeed. And for that program to work? It needs government support.

Nor is Dudamel alone—what about Valery Gergiev—the Russian conductor who has supported Putin and his actions in the Crimea and the Ukraine? Oh, and has been comfortably silent on the draconian anti-homosexuality laws? Doesn’t he have the moral obligation to speak up?

If we say yes, then the question becomes “why?” Why hold Dudamel / Gergiev to a different standard than a rock star, a movie star, a writer? If we demand that classical musicians and no one else stand up and denounce repressive states or dictators…well, aren’t we claiming the moral high ground? Aren’t we saying that what we do is better than anyone else?

Why not come out and say it?

Yes.

I could invoke the philosopher Schopenhauer; here’s Wikipedia on the subject:

"[...] “Schopenhauer thought that music was the only art that did not merely copy ideas, but actually embodied the will itself.”[29]

He deemed music to be a timeless, universal, language which is comprehended everywhere, and can imbue global enthusiasm, if in possession of a significant melody.

But why not put Schopenhauer aside, and just say that there’s something special that we do—those of us who have spent years practicing our art? True, Michael Jordan spent years practicing his hoops—but I’m sorry, it’s different.

It’s curious—Schwarzkopf was known for her recording of Strauss’s Four Last Songs, but it was actually another soprano, the Norwegian Kirsten Flagstad, for whom Strauss wrote the work. And Flagstad took some heat for returning to Norway during World War II; here’s Wikipedia on the subject:

Nonetheless, against the best advice of her friends and colleagues, including former president Herbert Hoover, who pleaded with her to stay out of Europe, she returned to Norway via Lisbon, Madrid, Barcelona, Marseille, and Berlin in April, 1941.[3] Though during the war she performed only in Sweden and Switzerland, countries not occupied by German forces, this fact did not temper the storm of public opinion that hurt her personally and professionally for the next several years.[4] Her husband was arrested after the war for profiteering during the occupation that involved his lumber business. This arrest, together with her decision to remain in occupied Norway, made her unpopular, particularly in the United States. The Norwegian ambassador and columnist Walter Winchell spoke out against her. In 1948, she performed several benefit concerts for the United Jewish Appeal. In defense of Flagstad's husband, Henry Johansen, it should be noted that after his death it was revealed that during the occupation he was arrested by the Gestapo and held for eight days. Also, Johansen's son by his first marriage, Henry Jr, had been a member of the Norwegian underground throughout the war.

Well, I spent time listening to the great, last song of the Four Last Songs, “Im Abendrot.” Schwarzkopf has the more technically perfect recording—it sounds as if it were recorded yesterday. Flagstad has all the creaks and crackles of an old recording, and the quality of the recording isn’t high. But it’s easy to get a sense of what an amazing voice it was, and what an interpretation she gave the song.

Somehow, however gloriously Schwarzkopf sings, it’s the voice of Flagstad that seems less mannered and more majestic.

Or is it just that a Nazi isn’t singing it?

A Sacred Non-Believer (reposted)

Revisiting a post published on February 2, 2013…. Enjoy the music!
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Right—let me at least acknowledge the news, so that you know that I, son and brother of newspapermen, have done my job. One person is dead in Ankara, Turkey, in a terrorist suicide attempt. Protesters in Egypt have attacked the presidential palace. US army suicides are at a record high, and so, by the way, is the Dow Jones Industrial Average, at least since 2007.

And I could tell you, since I was compelled to watch it, that Muslim fundamentalists are attempting to enforce Sharia law in parts of London. Actually, it’s happening all over Europe, in neighborhoods that are heavily Muslim.

Here’s the question—does any of this make you feel better?

If the answer is no, then you really should check out the clip below. First of all for the quality of the performance—these are some skilled guys, in particular the first cellist, who looks like he’s only recently been toilet trained. But wow, what a musician!

Then there’s the piece itself, which is some of the most gentle, tranquil music Brahms ever composed. And it’s one of those pieces that you know but somehow never hear. Then, of course, you do, and you immediately say, “I’m gonna listen to that much more often!” It’s that old friend that you really love but somehow never see….

Brahms is one of those guys you love or hate—and several of my friends, including Mr. Fernández, are in the hate camp. “There’s something he does in every composition where the violins are screeching or maybe it’s the harmonic progression but it just drives me nuts,” he reports.

I, on the other hand, absolutely love the music. Nor am I alone—Brahms was popular in his own lifetime, and died a wealthy man, though he was born in poverty. What sort of poverty? Well, his father had to play piano in dance halls, according to Wikipedia.

Which may be employing euphemisms; I always heard that it was brothels. Brahms himself acknowledged that he had a little difficulty with women, perhaps because of his father’s professional activity, perhaps because his mother was seventeen years older than his father.

Then there’s the other theory—Clara Schumann. It’s undeniable that they were devoted to each other, and Brahms spent the two years following Robert Schumann’s death bucking up Clara. He moved into an apartment in her house, and gave up pretty much everything—concerts and composition. So, our inquisitive modern mind wants to know—were they an item?

Gentle reader—there are some places you don’t go.

Or rather can’t, since both Brahms and Clara burnt their letters.

Nor was that the only thing destroyed—there’s the twenty string quartets that Brahms decided weren’t up to snuff. Legend has it that he ripped up a number of attempts at symphonies, too—he had the weight of Beethoven’s Ninth always on his back.

He was rich, but he lived simply. He took long walks, carrying candy for the children, but was grumpy at times to his friends. A story often told about the E Minor cello sonata has the cellist screaming, “I can’t HEAR myself!” Brahms, thundering away at the piano, shouts back, “you’re lucky!”

He writes a requiem that is among the most moving works of sacred music, but doesn’t, apparently, believe. It worries Dvorak, who writes in a letter, "Such a man, such a fine soul—and he believes in nothing! He believes in nothing!"  

There’s a school of belief that says that the real essence of Brahms are the little works, the small works—not the symphonies. Hearing the sextet below, I begin to think that may be right.

Fourth Shade of Grey—When Opera Isn't Sung

OK—there are some times when opera is not sung, but played. There’s the overture, for example, which starts the opera and which does a couple of things. First of all, it gets people to their seats, if not to stop talking (the tradition had been to ignore the overture and just keep chatting—hint, don’t try it today…). It introduces the themes, perhaps, as well as sets the mood. Finally, it’s just traditional.

Any orchestral music played at any other point in the opera gets called something else. Often, it will be called a prelude, sometimes an intermezzo, perhaps a dance like a waltz or polonaise. And here again, the idea is to set the mood and introduce the themes that will be heard—and sung—later.

So James, in 50 Shades of Grey, has the heroine listening at one point to the Prelude to the first act of La traviata. And it’s typical Verdi—tuneful, cheerful, and sticky. Get ready, you may be whistling this all week.  

Nice, hunh? Right—nothing substantial, but there's a place in the world for light and pleasant. 

But if you want heavy, I can give you heavy. In fact, Richard Wagner mines heavy like Reynolds mines aluminum. And here, I gotta come out—Wagner is one composer that makes me want to run screaming out of the opera hall. Nor am I alone—Clara Schumann wrote that the opera from which the clip below is taken “was the most repugnant thing I have heard or seen in all my life.” And a young Richard Strauss said that the opera, Tristan und Isolde, "would kill a cat and would turn rocks into scrambled eggs from fear of [its] hideous discords.”

To be fair, the conductor Bruno Walter said, “So there I sat in the topmost gallery of the Berlin Opera House, and from the first sound of the cellos my heart contracted spasmodically... Never before has my soul been deluged with such floods of sound and passion, never had my heart been consumed by such yearning and sublime bliss... A new epoch had begun: Wagner was my god, and I wanted to become his prophet.”

So there are two camps on Wagner, and very few people who are neutral. Oh, and be sure to eat a full meal before embarking on a performance of any opera Wagner wrote, because after hours five hours of sturm und drang, you’ll emerge famished if you haven’t. Granted, as Mr. Fernández once said, there are beautiful moments in the opera—and hours in between them.

Here, at any rate, is the prelude from the first act of Tristan und Isolde—you be the judge.

Sometimes, for apparently no reason, the people in the opera decide, “hey, let’s dance!” In fact, it was the tradition in the Paris Opera that every opera also had to have a ballet. So Gounod, in his opera Faust, decided to stick a ballet into the last act; in the ballet Faust, having sold his soul to the devil, is presented a series of visions of a particularly ghoulish nature. And though it is often omitted—Faust is an expensive opera to mount, and throwing a ballet into it seriously ups the tab—it adds a lot to the opera.   

The final two pieces are right on the border of terminal sweetness. The first, Massenet’s Meditation from the opera Thaïs, is frequently hauled out as an encore piece, as it clearly is here. The second piece, the Intermezzo from Cavalleria rusticana is also frequently performed as a concert piece.

Four Last Songs

Well, maybe Toscanini said it best: “For Strauss the composer, I take off my hat; for Strauss the man, I put it back on.”

Ouch. But there may have been some good reasons for Richard Strauss to be unpleasant. He was born in 1864 into a musical family; his father was a horn player in the Court Opera of Munich, and Richard Strauss grew up attending rehearsals of the Munich Court Orchestra.

He began composing young, and also conducting; he became the protégé of Hans von Bülow, who determined that Strauss would succeed him as conductor of the Meiningen orchestra.

His early compositions are in the tradition of Schumann and Mendelssohn; his work later became progressively more modern. And whatever else he was, he was a master of composing for the human voice, specifically the female voice. That’s not surprising, his wife—whom Wikipedia charitably describes as “irascible, garrulous, eccentric and outspoken”—was a famous soprano.

The couple had a son, who married a Jewish woman, Alice von Grab. In the Second World War, Strauss initially cooperates with Hitler, of whom he had a low opinion. In fact, Strauss became the president of the Reichsmusikkammer, the State Music Bureau. Later, he interceded several times to protect his daughter-in-law, even going to the Theresienstadt concentration camp to plead for the release of Alice’s mother. And he makes it clear in his diary of his contempt for the Nazis, writing, “I consider the Streicher-Goebbels Jew-baiting as a disgrace to German honour, as evidence of incompetence—the basest weapon of untalented, lazy mediocrity against a higher intelligence and greater talent.”

It tarnished him, this association with the Nazis, and may have been the reason for Toscanini’s remark above. But there’s no question, Straus looked at horror at what had become of his country, and wrote, “the most terrible period of human history is at an end, the twelve year reign of bestiality, ignorance and anti-culture under the greatest criminals, during which Germany's 2000 years of cultural evolution met its doom.”

In 1945, he was liberated by the Americans; he was also 81. He wrote his last works, of which the Four Last Songs are perhaps the most famous. He never lived to hear them performed; he died in 1949, the songs were first performed by Kirsten Flagstad in 1950.

There’s some question if Strauss meant the four song to be a unified set; the first three might be, since they are all based on poems by Hermann Hesse, the last is by Joseph von Eichendorff. In fact, it was the publisher who put them together and called them the Four Last Songs.

Whatever he meant, they’re some of the most beautiful, most haunting, most autumnal works around. By the end, Strauss seems beyond sorrow, even beyond acceptance; he seems transfigured.

Song 1: Spring

In shadowy crypts


I dreamt long


of your trees and blue skies,


of your fragrance and birdsong.



Now you appear


in all your finery,


drenched in light


like a miracle before me.



You recognize me,


you entice me tenderly.


All my limbs tremble

at
your blessed presence!


Song 2: September

The garden is in mourning.


Cool rain seeps into the flowers.


Summertime shudders,


quietly awaiting his end.



Golden leaf after leaf

falls
from the tall acacia tree.


Summer smiles, astonished and feeble,


at his dying dream of a garden.



For just a while he tarries


beside the roses,

yearning for repose.


Slowly he closes
his weary eyes.


Song 3: Going To Sleep

Now that I am wearied of the day,


my ardent desire shall happily receive


the starry night


like a sleepy child.



Hands, stop all your work.


Brow, forget all your thinking.


All my senses now
yearn

to sink into slumber.



And my unfettered soul


wishes to soar up freely


into night's magic sphere


to live there deeply and thousandfold.


Song 4: At Sunset

We have gone through sorrow and joy


hand in hand;

Now we can rest from our wandering


above the quiet land.



Around us, the valleys bow;


the air is growing darker.


Just two skylarks soar upwards


dreamily into the fragrant air.



Come close to me, and let them flutter.


Soon it will be time for sleep.


Let us not lose our way

in this solitude.



O vast, tranquil peace,


so deep at sunset!


How weary we are of wandering--


Is this perhaps death?