CHAPTER 11
Before the bullet was fired that led to World War I, the racial and religious policies of Europe and Russia had already started something that changed music forever. From its inception, the United States was the destination of choice for millions of oppressed peoples. Among them, a group of brilliant composers—frequently the sons of immigrants—would, along with former slaves from Africa, create what we call American music. The loss to Europe and Russia was palpable and arguably accounts for a draining of the “Old World’s” cultural leadership in the twentieth century.
In the last years of the nineteenth century, the flight of émigré Jews out of the ghettos and fleeing the pogroms brought us the naturalized American parents of George Gershwin, Aaron Copland, and Leonard Bernstein. What would Russian music be today if these children had been born in Europe or Russia? After the Great War, it was the music of these children that made American classical music both American and classic.
It also goes without saying that the American Songbook would be quite different without its many immigrant composers—and those who were sons of European and Russian parents—such as John Philip Sousa, Irving Berlin, Victor Herbert, Jerome Kern, and Harry Warren (born Salvatore Guaragna).
Geniuses are, by definition, rare, and any country that ejects its creative class will be permanently diminished. After World War II, however, the classical music community accepted the artistic leadership of the countries that had ejected these men from their communities and then acted as if their moral and aesthetic positions were somehow intact and objective. As people disappeared from their positions in the Fascist, Nazi, and Soviet conservatories—as well as their orchestras, opera houses, radio stations, and music journals—others willingly filled those positions. When America got Kurt Weill, however, what did Berlin get in return? When America got Hindemith and Schoenberg, who replaced them to teach and mentor Germany’s young composers? As a New Yorker growing up in the 1950s, the first conductor most of us regularly saw was Arturo Toscanini. What living Italian can claim that?
Germany, for example, has no living Kurt Weill tradition because he, his wife, and his entourage all settled in New York. The lineage of his theatrical tradition can be heard in the musical theater of John Kander and Fred Ebb (Cabaret, Chicago, and The Visit) and in the orchestral film scores of Nino Rota, who studied composition at Philadelphia’s Curtis Institute, and Danny Elfman—but not in Germany.
Vienna has no living Mahler-Strauss tradition. It is now an American symphonic tradition because native-born composers such as John Williams, Jerry Goldsmith, Elmer Bernstein, and Bernard Herrmann—not to mention film directors such as Steven Spielberg—were inspired by Korngold, Waxman, and Steiner, just as Vienna was simultaneously “discovering” Mahler—conducted by an American, Leonard Bernstein. Bernstein knew the Mahler symphonies because, in America, he studied with refugee conductors such as Fritz Reiner and Mahler’s assistant, Bruno Walter. And, lest we forget, it was anti-Semitism that drove Mahler out of Vienna in the first place. Where did he go? New York. Bernstein was busy building a bridge from New York to Vienna while new music by men who were trained in a direct line from Mahler and Strauss were mentoring young American composers in Los Angeles—the so-called Hollywood composers.
It is also important to stress that fascist policies were not simply a German issue. The Third Reich and Italian fascism found many eager supporters throughout Europe and America. Some musicians were willing and enthusiastic participants; others tried to “make accommodations” in the evolving political climate in order to save themselves and their families. And, of course, there were the quiet ones who kept their gaze downward and tried to get through it all. When “liberation” came, Americans were meant to believe that all the war-weary people of Europe had suddenly become pro-American, democracy-loving citizens of a new Europe. They were not.
More than a half-century ago—eleven years after the official end of World War II, when I was a first-time visitor to Europe—emotions were still raw. In London’s Tube, I was asked a question by an inebriated man. My answer elicited a torrent of invective about “you fuckin’ Yanks!” In Munich, when I could not remember the German word for mustard, I offered a bit of French and said “moutard,” to which the man behind the counter yelled with fury in his eyes, “Senf!!!” Later, at the Wagner festival in Bayreuth, I wrote the following in my diary:
Mark [Rubenstein, a fellow student] and I were in a milk bar when 3 German soldiers, each about 18 years old came in. We were all at a counter. One of them came over to us, with a gentle smile and said in perfect English, “We just got back and had no time to change out of our uniforms. We normally would have. Many people however think the Germans are fond of uniforms . . .” (August 7, 1966)
Three days later, in a letter to my parents, I wrote of a dinner I attended with Wagner’s granddaughter, Friedelind, which her mother, Winifred, also attended.
Friedlind [sic] left Germany at age 19 because of her hatred for the Nazis. She lived in England for a while and gave speeches on the radio and lived in America with Toscanini’s wife. In fact she is an American citizen. Well, we asked, “You can get back your German citizenship now, can’t you?” “Of course I could, but I’d rather be a Hottentot.” She came back to Germany in 1953 but retains an apartment in New York. The U.S. returned the Festspielhaus to Friedelind and her 2 brothers, but she got 34%. As you know, Winifred was one of Hitler’s favorites. Winifred is actually English (!) but raised in Germany. At one point, the old Winifred crossed the room to another table. “There goes Mother on to one of her Nazi friends,” said Friedelind.
And it must also be said that the United States had many who secretly—and not so secretly—felt that there was something really good going on with Hitler (and Mussolini and Stalin, too). Whether this was ideology, business, practicality, careerism, or a level of “distaste” for the power of non-Aryan and non-Christian peoples (ranging from discomfort to outright hatred), there is a much broader accountability in this story. Europe had, after all, 1,500 years with anti-Semitism as an officially—or implicitly—sanctioned way of life. Hitler did not invent it. Neither did Richard Wagner.
Waves of intolerance and violence—whether racial, tribal, religious, or philosophical—are a significant component of the history of Europe, with its inquisitions, pogroms, and marauding armies fighting wars in the name of specific interpretations of the writings of Moses, Jesus, or Mohammed. This was normal, and it was not until after World War II that Europe had the longest period of peace in recorded history—even as an unseen war, the cold one, was being waged. And while America has been the recipient of centuries of creativity from immigrants and slaves, it is not and never has been immune to the very same intolerance carefully taught to us by our European parents.
John Waxman, the American-born son of composer Franz Waxman, remembers as a boy hearing his parents and fellow refugees, who had successfully escaped the Nazis’ official anti-Semitism and were making a successful living in Los Angeles, discussing the sad fact that they were unwelcome to dine at certain restaurants in Los Angeles. These restaurants were, to use the euphemism of the day, “restricted.” Jews certainly could not be members of most country clubs or serve on the board of the Los Angeles Philharmonic, which also disdained performing the music of their resident émigrés—whether or not they were Jews.
When the Los Angeles Philharmonic presented the West Coast premiere of Gershwin’s Rhapsody in Blue at the Hollywood Bowl on August 13, 1927, the program notes by Bruno David Ussher surprisingly referred to him as “Russian-American composer George Gershwin” and said, “Gershwin’s ‘Rhapsody in Blue’ has been ‘legitimized’ by arrangement for symphony orchestra. It is perhaps the first pretentious application in the concert hall of the combined principles known as syncopation and jazz purporting to establish the higher musical possibilities of these effects.” It is up to the reader to decide what hidden meanings are buried in those words.
Anti-Semitism “was disguised and very evil,” recalled John Waxman. “And this was America! They didn’t expect this. It was the Wild West, where a bridle path still existed between Beverly Hills and Hollywood. There wasn’t grass there. There was dirt where people would ride their horses. My parents were pretty upset. They would talk about it at dinner.”1
Additionally, the fear of Communist infiltration subsequently led to a witch-hunt mentality that played into (and masked) the anti-Semitic traditions of the United States. Composer Alex North, for example, had his passport taken away and would not be hired because he was suspected of being a Communist. North’s family had emigrated from Russia, changing their name from Seufer to North after they had moved “north” within the United States. Growing up poor in rural Pennsylvania, North needed scholarships to pay for his musical education at the Curtis Institute (in piano) and the Juilliard School (in composition). In order to pay his expenses in New York, he learned to be a telegraph operator, working from six in the evening until two in the morning, and then going to Juilliard during the day. Because he idolized Prokofiev and hoped to study with him someday, he accepted an offer from the Soviet Union, all expenses paid, to work as a telegraph operator there. Soon he was able to audition for the Moscow Conservatory, where he studied composition for two years—though, according to his widow Anna, he never got to meet Prokofiev.
As if this were not suspicious enough for the FBI, years before North’s trip to Russia, his older brother had been the recipient of a citizenship award, and when it was discovered that he was Jewish, the award was rescinded. According to Mrs. North, his brother became an activist as a result and ultimately became an editor of the Daily Worker, America’s Communist newspaper.
Alex North, the man who scored A Streetcar Named Desire, Spartacus, Cleopatra, and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, an alumnus of the Curtis Institute, the Juilliard School, and the Moscow Conservatory, had the center of his creative life cut out in America—the land of freedom that was a refuge for his parents, who had fled the anti-Semitism of Russia. Was North a Soviet fellow traveler, intent on bringing down the U.S. government? Apparently some people thought it was a distinct possibility.
While it is easy to express outrage at those who misjudged our own citizens and even misjudged the capacity of the Soviet Union, some might also whisper that perhaps this was the correct decision, for certainly we are not living in a world of Communist domination. And anyway, we are now far more enlightened than those who fought the culture wars of the last century.
Or are we?
AESTHETICS
We have all participated one way or another in creating today and perpetuating yesterday. We try to “make sense” of times past, drawing straight lines by connecting the dots of events, memories, and published accounts, but in actuality we can find arguments to explain and justify just about any theory. All eras are murky.
For example, we continue to criticize the aging Richard Strauss for having been a Nazi. As stated earlier, because his son Franz had married a Jew, his grandchildren were Jewish in the eyes of the German government. The borders were closed. He was being watched. What would you have done?
Igor Stravinsky made many accommodations to the Nazis in their early years, ensuring the flow of his royalties. He also wrote and said truly embarrassing things about Mussolini and fascism, as he did in an interview with the Roman music critic Alberto Gasco in La Tribuna in 1930:
I don’t believe that anyone venerates Mussolini more than I do. To me, he is the man who counts nowadays in the whole world. . . . He is the savior of Italy and—let us hope—of Europe.
There have been allegations that Sibelius was a Nazi sympathizer, too. After all, his music represented an attractive and muscular Aryan dream of Nordic heroism. It is now known, thanks to the work of American musicologist Timothy L. Jackson, that the Finnish master was kept on a generous pension by the Nazis throughout the war.
It is helpful to contextualize Finland’s historically inimical relationship with Russia. The threatening and acquisitive Russian bear was the monster lurking in the subconscious of all Finns, and if Sibelius had to choose between supporting the Bolsheviks or the Nazis, he would have to side with Germany, much as Pope Pius XII did, but for different reasons. Sibelius was living through an immense writer’s block and had ceased composing in the 1920s. His royalties were being withheld because of the war. Veijo Murtomäki, a professor of music history at the Sibelius Academy, has responded to the allegations by saying, “So, Sibelius was selfish and flattered by his fame in Germany and wanted the money. I am sorry for that.” What would you have done?
Even as the day-to-day decisions of life and death during a century of war recede from living memory, we learn more of the complex situations that arose from them, as documents are released and historians do their best to clarify what happened. Are there fixed conclusions in anything other than fiction? Most stories begin and end with some version of “Once upon a time . . . They all lived happily ever after.” In between those two oft-repeated lines is the truth: the process, the transitions, and the transformations. By its definition in physics, the inevitable conclusion of a revolution is to end up exactly where you started. Evolution is something quite different.
Throughout the past century music has been a weapon, a symbol, and a target. That said, it should not be viewed as collateral damage. Music is our collective story; it is how we can understand who we are; and it demands our attention and respect—all of it—because, quite simply, music contains the world’s memories.