The Vienna Philharmonic & their trumpeter
Mon, Mar 11 2013, 8:55PM
In view of the revelations today about the VPO, that half their members were Nazi party members & the new year's day concert was established in 1939 as a Nazi propaganda stunt how should we regard them today? Norman Lebrecht just said on the radio they should begin next year's concert with a minute's silence for the victims of Nazi persecution; fair comment?
I have always enjoyed my 3 Vanguard LPs "The Virtuoso Trumpet" of baroque concerti with Janigro & I Soloisti di Zagreb; lively, well recorded performances. Now I find from today's Times that the chief instrumentalist, VPO trumpeter & subsequently orchestra executive Helmut Wobisch was a leading Nazi & SS informer. Can I listen to the records again without being reminded of this?
Mon, Mar 11 2013, 9:58PM
#2
RE: The Vienna Philharmonic & their trumpeter
Perhaps then it's just a repeat of the Mengelberg/Karajan/Furtwangler scenario.
Mon, Mar 11 2013, 10:05PM
#3
RE: The Vienna Philharmonic & their trumpeter
A fascinating and important topic, this.
I'm always reminded, a little uneasily (though I'm sure he's right, for all the luxury of being able to be a liberal academic commentator rather than a victim of persecution), of what Harold Bloom wrote in The Western Canon (1994) about whether contact with the arts makes us morally 'better' people. He's talking here specifically about (Western) literature, but I think it applies too to music:
'The study of literature, however it is conducted, will not save any individual, any more than it will improve any society. Shakespeare will not make us better, and he will not make us worse, but he may teach us how to overhear ourselves when we talk to ourselves.'
So you wonder - hopefully not in an immediate rush to condemn - why close association with Mozart and Schubert and Bruckner and Brahms (and yes, even Wagner) failed to make half the Vienna Philharmonic not think twice about joining the Nazi party. Maybe they thought it was an irrelevance? But then, when players started disappearing from their own ranks...?
Tue, Mar 12 2013, 12:54AM
#4
RE: The Vienna Philharmonic & their trumpeter
Brumas, Karajan's behavour in the war was FAR worse than Mengelberg's. Mengelberg died in exile in Switzerland in 1951 while all he did was continuing conducting during the war (like Furtwängler). He never was politically active and he even saved some Jewish members of the Concertgebouw orchestra. But the climate in Holland after the war was poisoned by the yearning for revenge and the witchhunt for alleged nazi-sympathisants.
Karajan on the other hand was an active member of the nazi party since 1933. He was an unscrupulous opportunist who at some point tried to usurp Georg Ludwig Jochum's position as director of the Reichs Orchestra (an elite ensemble founded by Hitler himself) by complotting to send him to the eastern front. This was only prevented by Furtwängler, who stepped in and kept Jochum at his post.
And still Karajan survived the war with his reputation pretty much unscratched and was soon able to continue his quest for power, culminating in his coupe-d'etat in Berlin, where he managed to succeed Furtwängler as chief of the Berlin Philharmonic, a post that was indended for Keilberth.
I don't have a problem with listening to the music of composers who were a**holes in real life - like Wagner - but listening to a performance with a conductor who's the most despicable person imaginable at the helm comes too close for comfort to me.
Talking about the Reichs Orchestra and G-L Jochum, a splendid recording of Bruckner's 6th from 1944 is available as a free download here:
http://www.abruckner.com/downloads/downloadofthemonth/February13/
It's an amazing performance, intense and almost Furtwänglerian. The orchestra is audibly first-rate (first movement's coda!) and the wonderful adagio has an unsurpassed depth. If the recording was a bit better (it's not bad for 1944 mono though) I'd call this my favorite Bruckner 6.
Tue, Mar 12 2013, 4:36AM
#5
RE: The Vienna Philharmonic & their trumpeter
There's your Karajan story again - it there a reputable source for it?
...Harold Bloom wrote in The Western Canon (1994) about whether contact with the arts makes us morally 'better' people. He's talking here specifically about (Western) literature, but I think it applies too to music: 'The study of literature, however it is conducted, will not save any individual, any more than it will improve any society. Shakespeare will not make us better, and he will not make us worse, but he may teach us how to overhear ourselves when we talk to ourselves.'
Hmm. Literature, dealing most directly with emotions and relationships, would be the most morally influential art, if art did have moral influence. Music on the other hand is largely abstract in its appeal, so perhaps the lapses of its practitioners are ... more understandable? That's one argument.
But the ability to 'overhear' ourselves is perhaps the main thing - a person who likes the Ode to Joy but also works happily in a death camp has probably not paid as much consideration to Beethoven as they would profess.
Tue, Mar 12 2013, 5:16AM
#6
RE: The Vienna Philharmonic & their trumpeter
I'm in full agreement with Brumas: "great art transcends its creators". I would add that this Great Art redeems its creators as well. That's why almost nobody care about all the negative aspects that may loom over the existing reputation of established artists.
Music is such a great gift to people. Those who may refuse it, because of the features of the "donor" (composer) or the "messenger" (the performer), they may never get the benefits of this bliss.
Finally, Wagner was so much what his uniquely great Music heralds and hails, that there is little left for us to deal with what can be identified as "his real life". I trust for those who have been influenced by his Art, His Music is more valid than anything else. Likewise, great performers lead us beyond their dubious lives to the bliss of superb, sublime and unique performances.
Parla
Tue, Mar 12 2013, 1:34PM
#7
RE: The Vienna Philharmonic & their trumpeter
So the "great art" of the VPO redeems them from expelling Jewish members and seeing them sent to the gas chambers and we shoudn't care?
Does it also exonerate them and redeem them from the following behaviour, and I quote from the autobiography of John Drummond who made the BBC film on Solti's Ring?
"Yet the orchestra was riddled with anti semitism and Solti's relations with it were frequently troubled. When he later received the gold medal of the Gesellshaft der Musikfreunde for the Ring and other opera recordings practically no one from from the professors of the orchestra committee turned up. They all had their excuses - teaching, travel or prior engagements. On the morning of the presentation Solti was telephoned in his room at the Imperial Hotel and a woman's voice said "they are not coming because you are a dirty Hungarian Jew". After receiving the award, Solti walked along the corridor, the door of the office of Vobisch the orchestra's chairman was open and all the missing committee members were sitting there having coffee. Vienna doesn't change."
Solti himself wrote in his autobiography of his difficulties with the VPO and said "For many years my favourite street in Vienna was the road to the airport. I was always glad to leave!".
But we can forgive all this because they are a good orchestra (which also manages to avoid EU law relating to the employment of women & non-white ethnic minorities, but that's OK too!).
Tue, Mar 12 2013, 2:06PM
#8
RE: The Vienna Philharmonic & their trumpeter
Surely they are the 'authentic' orchestra for attitudes pre 1945.
Tue, Mar 12 2013, 3:18PM
#9
RE: The Vienna Philharmonic & their trumpeter
Yes, and they carried it on for a long time after 1945 too, and still do in several respects as I have outlined.
Tue, Mar 12 2013, 4:01PM
#10
RE: The Vienna Philharmonic & their trumpeter
Brumas, Karajan's behavour in the war was FAR worse than Mengelberg's. Mengelberg died in exile in Switzerland in 1951 while all he did was continuing conducting during the war (like Furtwängler). He never was politically active and he even saved some Jewish members of the Concertgebouw orchestra. But the climate in Holland after the war was poisoned by the yearning for revenge and the witchhunt for alleged nazi-sympathisants.
Even though Mengelberg might have been on too-friendly terms with the nazi occupiers and have not done all he could to save the jewish members of the orchestra, the postwar-response to his wartime conduct was indeed too vehement. I just used him as an example of the fact that a conductor has moral flaws does not impede me from enjoying their work - I can listen to von Karajan just the same.
I don't have a problem with listening to the music of composers who were a**holes in real life - like Wagner - but listening to a performance with a conductor who's the most despicable person imaginable at the helm comes too close for comfort to me.
That's interesting. What is it makes the difference between the moral failings of the writer of a piece and the performer to you?
So you wonder - hopefully not in an immediate rush to condemn - why close association with Mozart and Schubert and Bruckner and Brahms (and yes, even Wagner) failed to make half the Vienna Philharmonic not think twice about joining the Nazi party. Maybe they thought it was an irrelevance? But then, when players started disappearing from their own ranks...?
George Steiner has written extensively about the failure of the humanities in humanising mankind. His famous quote is that "We know that a man can read Goethe or Rilke in the evening, that he can play Bach and Schubert, and go to his day's work at Auschwitz in the morning." Alas, that seems all too true.
So the "great art" of the VPO redeems them from expelling Jewish members and seeing them sent to the gas chambers and we shoudn't care?
No, it does not. If this is the case they should be prosecuted. That's hardly contested, I think. However, why should we refute their artisic output as well?
We know that Louis-Ferdinand Céline was an antisemite, but should that stop us from reading voyage a la bout de la nuit? Gesualdo was a double murderer, should we therefore stop listening to his madrigals? Should Wanger's problematic (to put it mildly) relationship with jews and women mean we have to ditch the Ring? To me, the answer to all these is NO. If the works in question bear a racist message, it would be different. It's the art that matters, not the artist.
Tue, Mar 12 2013, 4:26PM
#11
RE: The Vienna Philharmonic & their trumpeter
I must admit to being a little surprised at the thrust of this thread.
After all, most of this information has been around for years. The new thing is that the Vienna Philharmonic have, however belatedly, brought it out into the open.
Ultimately though it is not just about the Vienna Philharmonic. As John Culshaw wrote "Vienna doesn't change". It seems that change, if it comes, comes very slowly!
Chris
Tue, Mar 12 2013, 6:30PM
#12
RE: The Vienna Philharmonic & their trumpeter
Once more Brumas covered me almost completely with a very sensible post.
My personal reply to your question 33lp: Great Art redeems the artist(s) -the VPO in this case- for their artistry; their personal life is an issue to be judged separately and cannot possibly denigrate their artistic achievements. As for the case of Solti, he has to be judged as well, since he accepted to work repeatedly with the (infamous) orchestra...for the sake of his Art.
Parla
Tue, Mar 12 2013, 7:32PM
#13
RE: The Vienna Philharmonic & their trumpeter
I don't have a problem with listening to the music of composers who were a**holes in real life - like Wagner - but listening to a performance with a conductor who's the most despicable person imaginable at the helm comes too close for comfort to me.
That's interesting. What is it makes the difference between the moral failings of the writer of a piece and the performer to you?
Quite simple. Even if you realize that, say Wagner was an unsympathetic egomaniac, the quality of his music and above all the uniqueness of it leaves you with no other choice than to accept his personal faults. While in the case of a performer, there are plenty of other choices, and if one gives you too many unpleasant associations (Karajan in my case), you can replace him with a dozen others who were as good or better.
But there's also the question whether a composer's or performer's moral failings are somehow excusable because they were a sign of the times. Wagner had some right to be an egomaniac since if he'd have a kinder, more modest personality (like Bruckner's), none of his grand projects would ever have come off the ground. And his infamous antisemitism was far from rare in the late 19th century. It gets a bit more complicated when we get closer to home in the case of composers like Carl Orff. I find it hard to listen to the Carmina Burana without the constant realisation that he was a fervent nazi, since I somehow keep hearing goose-stepping boots in his music. Same with soviet-propaganda by people like Shostakovich. Whenever I listen to his symphonies, I skip the 2nd, 3rd, 11th and 12th, and I think for good reasons. I can't stand the 5th and 7th either, but for other people these are masterpieces.
Karajan's conduct in the war was pretty much inexcusable - but what makes me avoid his recordings is that I somehow can hear the nazi conductor even in his postwar performances. The ruthless methods he used to boost his career and his dictatorial style, which made his own orchestra hate him, not to forget the kitchy varnish he lacquered his recordings with (and not only his later stuff, like people tend to think) and which gives me unwelcome associations with the soulless realism of official nazi art.
But then again, it would only be a problem if he was the only conductor to make successful recordings of my favorite music. He isn't, so problem solved.
Tue, Mar 12 2013, 7:32PM
#14
RE: The Vienna Philharmonic & their trumpeter
Chris Johnson's point is well taken. Furthermore, it makes no sense treating the VPO as a monolith, overlooking the fact that those Nazi musicians are long gone, along with their political allegiance. Thus, boycotting the orchestra today because of the evil deeds of some old musicians over forty years ago makes as much sense as refusing to go to Germany now because of the Third Reich, or, say, just as a theoretical example, shunning Manchester United games because some of its players may have raped a teenager in a wild party during the 70's.
Tue, Mar 12 2013, 8:34PM
#15
RE: The Vienna Philharmonic & their trumpeter
I find it hard to listen to the Carmina Burana without the constant realisation that [Carl Orff] was a fervent nazi...
Fervent? Just because he stayed in Germany?
I'd say you can - great art trancends its creators. It's different if the work in question has some unsavoury political message. But otherwise, for me it has no relevance. I can enjoy Mengelberg recordings, the fact that his conduct during the war was highly problematic notwhitstanding.
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