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Music and Society in Austria: History Reflected

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  10 February 2009

John Haag
John Haag
Affiliation:
Professor of History at the University of Georgia, Athens, GA 30602
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Type
Review Articles
Information
Austrian History Yearbook , Volume 26 , January 1995 , pp. 189 - 206
Copyright
Copyright © Center for Austrian Studies, University of Minnesota 1995

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References

1 An excellent introduction to this vast subject is Perris, Arnold, Music as Propaganda: Art to Persuade, Art to Control (Westport, Conn., 1985)Google Scholar.

2 The great Austrian musicologist Guido Adler noted that for many generations the Habsburg emperors, many of whom were performers and composers as well as patrons, were active in creating a musical environment “which has not its equal in the history of culture and art” (Somerset, H. V. F., “The Habsburg Emperors as Musicians,” Music and Letters 30, no. 3 [07 1949]: 204–15)CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The interaction of music and society in Renaissance Austria is investigated in Cuyler, Louise, The Emperor Maximilian I and Music (New York, 1973)Google Scholar.

3 Thomson, Katharine, “Mozart and Freemasonry,” Music and Letters 57, no. 1 (01 1976): 25–46CrossRefGoogle Scholar, and The Masonic Thread in Mozart (London, 1977). On Beethoven, see Knight, Frida, Beethoven and the Age of Revolution (London, 1973)Google Scholar, and Haag, John, “Beethoven, the Revolution in Music and the French Revolution: Music and Politics in Austria, 1790–1815,” in Austria in the Age of the French Revolution, ed. Brauer, Kinley and Wright, William E. (Minneapolis, 1990), 107–23Google Scholar. A fascinating brief survey of the changing political interpretations of Beethoven's Choral Symphony as a paean to freedom can be found in Cook, Nicholas, Beethoven: Symphony No. 9 (Cambridge, England, 1993)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

4 Recent scholarship illuminating the suffocating intellectual climate of Metternichean Vienna (and the varieties of artistic resistance to it) includes Reed, John, Schubert (London, 1987)Google Scholar; Fröhlich, Hans J., Schubert (Munich, 1978)Google Scholar; and Reininghaus, Frieder, Schubert und das Wirtshaus. Musik unter Metternich (Berlin, [1979])Google Scholar.

5 Rose, Paul Lawrence, Revolutionary Antisemitism in Germany from Kant to Wagner (Princeton, N.J., 1990)Google Scholar, and Wagner: Race and Revolution (New Haven, Conn., 1992); and Windell, George G., “Hitler, National Socialism and Richard Wagner,” Journal of Central European Affairs 22, no. 4 (01 1963): 479–97Google Scholar. The links between the anti-Semitism of the Bayreuth circle and racist activists in Viennese musical circles are investigated in Field, Geoffrey G., Evangelist of Race: The Germanic Vision of Houston Stewart Chamberlain (New York, 1981)Google Scholar.

6 Wolf, Hugo, The Music Criticism of Hugo Wolf, ed. and trans. Pleasants, Henry (New York, 1978)Google Scholar; and Werba, Erik, Hugo Wolf Oder der zornige Romantiker (Vienna, 1971)Google Scholar.

7 McGrath, William J., Dionysian Art and Populist Politics in Austria (New Haven, Conn., 1974)Google Scholar, and “Student Radicalism in Vienna,” Journal of Contemporary History 2, no. 3 (07 1967): 183–201CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

8 Millenkovich, Max von [Max Morold, pseud.], Josef Reiter. Eine Studie, published under the auspices of the Reiter-Verein, Josef (Vienna, 1904)Google Scholar, and Vom Abend zum Morgen. Aus dem alten Österreich ins neue Deutschland (Leipzig, 1940). The only biography of Reiter to date is Etzmannsdorfer, Ludwig, Josef Reiter. Lebensbild des Tondichters (Braunau am Inn, 1923)Google Scholar.

9 Prieberg, Fred K., Musik im NS-Staat (Frankfurt am Main, 1982)Google Scholar. See also the pioneering collection of documents assembled in Musik, Joseph Wulfim Dritten Reich. Eine Dokumentation (1963Google Scholar; reprint, Berlin, 1983). A major study published while this article was in press is Levi, Erik, Music in the Third Reich (New York, 1994)CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

10 These trenchant essays can be found in Heister, Hanns-Werner and Klein, Hans-Günter, eds., Musik und Musikpolitik im faschistischen Deutschland (Frankfurt am Main, 1984)Google Scholar.

11 Lichtfuss, Martin, Operette im Ausverkauf. Studien zum Libretto des musikalischen Unterhaltungs-theaters im Österreich der Zwischenkriegszeit (Vienna, 1989)Google Scholar. A superb exhibition catalog that complements the work of Lichtfuss is Sag beim Abschied… Wiener Publikumslieblinge in Bild und Ton (Vienna, 1992). See also Traubner, Richard, Operetta: A Theatrical History (New York, 1989)Google Scholar; Grun, Bernard, Gold and Silver: The Life and Times of Franz Lehar (London, 1970)Google Scholar. Little more than an anecdotal and uncritical scrapbook is Bakshian, Aram Jr, comp., Robert and Einzi Stolz/The Barbed Wire Waltz: The Memoirs of the Last Waltz King (Melbourne, Australia, 1983)Google Scholar. Of considerably more value is an exhibition catalog, Fie Zi Wi Csa & Co.: Die Wiener Operette (Vienna, 1984).

12 Steinberg, Michael P., The Meaning of the Salzburg Festival: Austria as Theater and Ideology, 1890–1938 (Ithaca, N.Y., 1990), 166–67Google Scholar. The standard histories of the festival are Gallup, Stephen, A History of the Salzburg Festival (Topsfield, Mass., 1987)Google Scholar, and Kaut, Josef, Festspiele in Salzburg (Salzburg, 1969)Google Scholar.

13 Zenck, Claudia Maurer, “The Ship Loaded with Faith and Hope: Krenek's Karl V and the Viennese Politics of the Thirties,” Musical Quarterly 71, no. 2 (1985): 116–34CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Renger, Rudolf, “Musikpolitik im ‘Ständestaat’. Am Beispiel der publizistischen Rezeption und Repression von Ernst Kreneks Bühnenwerk mit Musik ‘Karl V,’” Mitteilungen des Instituts für Wissenschaft und Kunst 43, no. 2 (1988): 42–46Google Scholar. The best Krenek biography to date is Stewart, John L., Ernst Krenek: The Man and His Music (Berkeley, Calif., 1991)Google Scholar; for perceptive comments by a fellow composer, see Perle, George, “Krenek,” Musical Quarterly 77, no. 1 (Spring 1993): 145–53CrossRefGoogle Scholar. The virulently antimodernist and anti-Semitic mood of musical Vienna in the mid-1930s is tellingly sketched in Brunswick, Mark, “Suicide in Vienna,” Modem Music 14, no. 1 (05–06 1937): 193–97Google Scholar.

14 Shirakawa, Sam H., The Devil's Music Master: The Controversial life and Career of Wilhelm Furtwängler (New York, 1992)Google Scholar.

15 Prieberg, Fred K., Trial of Strength: Wilhlem Furtwängler and the Third Reich (London, 1991)Google Scholar. For studies of the Nazification of music in Germany and post-Anschluβ Austria by the Reichsmusikkammer, Reichsmusikprüfstelle, and other state organs, see Meyer, Michael, The Politics of Music in the Third Reich (New York, 1991)Google Scholar, and Steinweis, Alan E., Art, Ideology, and Economics in Nazi Germany: The Reich Chambers of Music, Theater, and the Visual Arts (Chapel Hill, N.C., 1993)Google Scholar.

16 An excellent brief biography of Furtwängler that includes a useful chronology of his career is Schönzeler, Hans-Hubert, Furtwängler (London, 1990)Google Scholar. The great conductor's artistic growth and personal turmoil both before and during the Nazi era have been documented in Furtwängler on Music: Essays and Addresses, ed. and trans. Taylor, Ronald (Brookfield, Vt., 1991)Google Scholar, and Furtwängler, Wilhelm, Notebooks 1924–1954, ed. Tanner, Michael and trans. Whiteside, Shaun (London, 1989)Google Scholar.

17 Potter, Tully, “Arnold Rosé: The Last Flowering of Old Vienna,” The Strad 105, no. 1246 (01 1994): 232–33, 235–36Google Scholar.

18 Hellsberg, Clemens, “Gedenken und Besinnung,” Musikblätter der Wiener Philharmoniker 42, no. 7 (03 1988): 199–204Google Scholar. Arnold Rosé's daughter, the violinist Alma Rosé, did not escape the clutches of the Nazis; she died in the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp in 1944; see Fenelon, Fania, Playing for Time, trans. Landry, Judith (New York, 1977)Google Scholar. Arthur Miller has adapted this book for both a television film and a stage play. Karas, Joza explores music and the Holocaust in Music in Terezin, 1941–1945 (New York, 1985)Google Scholar.

19 Tagliabue, John, “Germans Explore Ties of Musicians to Nazis,” New York Times, 03 17, 1983, sec. C, p. 17Google Scholar; and “Elisabeth Schwarzkopf and the Nazi Party,” New York Times, 04 3, 1983, sec. 4, p. 14Google Scholar.

20 Rathkolb, Oliver, Führertreu und gottbegnadet. Künstlereliten im Dritten Reich (Vienna, 1991)Google Scholar.

21 A number of excellent articles on the impact of National Socialism on Austrian musical life, including one of particular merit by Hartmut Krones on the musico-political twists and turns of Vienna's venerable Gesellschaft der Musikfreunde from 1938 through 1945, are to be found in Kolleritsch, Otto, ed., Die Wiener Schule und das Hakenkreuz. Das Schicksal der Moderne im gesellschaftspolitischen Kontext des 20. Jahrhunderts (Vienna, 1990)Google Scholar. A typical Austrian Nazi tirade of the immediate post-Anschluβ period is Damisch, Heinrich, “Die Verjudung des österreichischen Musiklebens,” Weltkampf 15 (06 1938): 255–61Google Scholar. The notorious Nazi blacklist of German and Austrian musicians appeared in print as Stengel, Theophil and Gerigk, Herbert, Lexikon der Juden in der Musik. Mit einem Titelverzeichnis jüdischer Werke (Berlin, 1941)Google Scholar.

22 Krasner, Louis, “The [Alban Berg] Violin Concerto in Vienna,” International Alban Berg Society Newsletter 12 (Fall/Winter 1982): 3–4Google Scholar.

23 Rathkolb, Oliver, “‘… für die Kunst gelebt’. Anmerkungen zur Metaphorik österreichischer Kulturschaffender im Musik- und Sprechtheater nach dem Nationalsozialismus,” in Das Grosse Tabu. Österreichs Umgang mit seiner Vergangenheit, ed. Pelinka, Anton and Weinzierl, ErikaVienna, 1987), 60–84Google Scholar. Also stimulating is Rathkolb's, “Bürokratie und Musikalltag am Beispiel der Wiener Staatsoper. Thesen zur musikalischen Zeitgeschichte zwischen den Kriegen,” Mitteilungen des Instituts für Wissenschaft und Kunst 43, no. 2 (1988): 26–29Google Scholar.

24 Wamlek-Junk, Elisabeth, ed., Hans Pfitzner und Wien. Sein Briefwechsel mit Victor Junk und andere Dokumente (Tutzing, 1986)Google Scholar.

25 Williamson, John, The Music of Hans Pfitzner (Oxford, 1992)Google Scholar.

26 Tschulik, Norbert, Franz Schmidt: A Critical Biography (London, 1980)Google Scholar; Franklin, Peter, “The Case of Franz Schmidt,” Musical Times 130, no. 1752 (02 1989): 64–66CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Corfield, Tom, “‘A Door Was Opened in Heaven’: Reflections on Franz Schmidt's Apocalyptic Oratorio,” Musical Times 130, no. 1752 (02 1989): 67–69CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

27 Der Prinzipal. Clemens Krauss—Fakten, Vergleiche, Rückschlüsse, published under the auspices of the Krauss-Archiv, Clemens (Tutzing, 1988)Google Scholar.

28 Böhm, Karl, A Life Remembered: Memoirs, trans. Kehoe, John, introduction by Weigel, Hans (London, 1992)Google Scholar; Karajan, Herbert von, with Endler, Franz, My Autobiography (London, 1989)Google Scholar; and Karajan, Herbert von, Conversations with Von Karajan, ed. Osborne, Richard (New York, 1989)Google Scholar. These conductorial memoirs are often exasperatingly uninformative as well as egocentric, voicing conventional protestations of having lived only for their artistic endeavors during the Third Reich.

29 Brenner, Helmut, Musik als Waffe? Theorie und Praxis der politischen Musikverwendung, dargestellt am Beispiel der Steiermark 1938–1945 (Graz, 1992)Google Scholar.

30 Herta, and Blaukopf, Kurt, Die Wiener Philharmoniker. Welt des Orchesters-Orchester der Welt (Vienna, 1992)Google Scholar.

31 Hellsberg, Clemens, Demokratie der Könige. Die Geschichte der Wiener Philharmoniker (Vienna, Zurich, and Mainz, 1992)Google Scholar.

32 Kobau, Ernst, Die Wiener Symphoniker. Eine sozialgeschichtliche Studie (Vienna, 1991)Google Scholar.

33 Kater, Michael, Different Drummers: Jazz in the Culture of Nazi Germany (New York, 1992)Google Scholar. Less scholarly but more entertaining is Zwerin, Mike, La Tristesse de Saint Louis: Jazz under the Nazis (New York, 1985)Google Scholar. A tantalizingly brief but nevertheless valuable introduction to the history of jazz in interwar Austria is provided by Glanz, Christian, “‘Jazz’ in Österreich 1918–1938. Personalstudie Charly Kaufmann,” Mitteilungen des Instituts für Wissenschaft und Kunst 43, no. 2 (1988): 46–48Google Scholar.

34 Kannonier, Reinhard, Zwischen Beethoven und Eisler. Zur Arbeitermusikbewegung in Österreich (Vienna, 1981)Google Scholar, and “‘Wo man singt…’ Überlebt das politische Lied?” in Die ersten 100 Jahre. Österreichische Sozialdemokratie 1888–1988, ed. Maimann, Helene (Vienna, 1988), 106–8Google Scholar.

35 Kotlan-Werner, Henriette, Kunst und Volt David Josef Bach 1874–1947 (Vienna, 1977)Google Scholar.

36 Zenck, Claudia Maurer, Ernst Krenek-Ein Komponist im Exil (Vienna, 1980)Google Scholar.

37 Heister, Hanns-Werner, Zenck, Claudia Maurer, and Petersen, Peter, eds., Musik im Exil. Folgen des Nazismus für die internationale Musikkultur (Frankfurt am Main, 1993)Google Scholar. See also Schwarz, Boris, “The Music World in Migration,” in The Muses Flee Hitler: Cultural Transfer and Adaptation, 1930–1945, ed. Jackman, Jarrell C. and Borden, Carla M. (Washington, D.C., 1983), 135–50Google Scholar. Excellent research and persuasive interpretations of Austrian émigré musical life in the United Kingdom can be found in Muchitsch, Wolfgang, Österreicher im Exil. Grossbritannien 1938–1945. Eine Dokumentation (Vienna, 1992)Google Scholar. The Viennese composer Rubin, Marcel has provided important information on his years of emigration in Dokumentationsarchiv des österreichischen Wider-standes, Jüdische Schicksale. Berichte von Verfolgten (Vienna, 1992), 83–86Google Scholar.

38 Cummins, Paul F., Dachau Song: The Twentieth-Century Odyssey of Herbert Zipper (New York, 1992)Google Scholar.

39 “Über die Entstehung des Dachau-Lieds. Mit Herbert Zipper sprach Wilhelm Zobl,” Österreichische Musikzeitschrift 43, no. 12 (12 1988): 666–76Google Scholar.

40 Shawe-Taylor, Desmond, “Lotte Lehmann and Elisabeth Schumann: A Centenary Tribute,” Musical Times 129, no. 1748 (10 1988): 521–23CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Recent years have seen a plethora of reissues of classic recordings of Austrian singers, including those of the immortal Richard Tauber; see Blackham, Richard, “Richard Tauber on CD,” Opus 3, no. 4 (Fall 1992): 30–33, 35–40Google Scholar.

41 Sachs, Harvey, “Salzburg, Hitler und Toscanini. Unbekanntes Briefmaterial aus den dreiβiger Jahren,” NZ/Neue Zeitschrift für Musik 148, no. 7/8 (07/08 1987): 17–22Google Scholar; and “Notes of the Day,” Monthly Musical Record 68, no. 796 (05 1938): 97–98Google Scholar.

42 Burghauser, Hugo, Philhamonische Begegnungen. Erinnerungen eines Wiener Philharmonikers (Zurich, 1979)Google Scholar. Other valuable memoirs by Austrian musical émigrés include those by the conductor Leinsdorf, Erich, Cadenza: A Musical Career (Boston, 1976)Google Scholar, and the composer Starer, Robert, Continuo: A Life in Music (New York, 1987)Google Scholar.

43 Maurer Zenck, Ernst Krenek.

44 Cole, Malcolm S. and Barclay, Barbara, Armseelchen: The Life and Music of Eric Zeisl (Westport, Conn., 1984)Google Scholar; and Jezic, Diane Peacock, The Musical Migration and Ernst Toch (Ames, Iowa, 1989)Google Scholar. Currently, an Eric Zeisl renaissance appears to be under way; see Cole, Malcolm S., “Eric Zeisl, An Unfinished Rezeptionsgeschichte,” Modern Austrian Literature 20, nos. 3 and 4 (1987): 145–54Google Scholar, and “Forbidden but Not Forgotten: Eric Zeisl,” MadAminA! 14, no. 2 (Fall 1993): 11Google Scholar.

45 Fry, Stephen M., ed., California's Musical Wealth: Sources for the Study of Music in California (Santa Barbara, Calif., 1988)Google Scholar; of particular importance in the context of this essay is Jerry McBride's article on émigré musicians in southern California. Other signs of a growing California interest in its illustrious musical émigrés of the 1930s and 1940s are exhibitions that have produced creditable catalogs including Banned by the Nazis: Entartete Musik (Los Angeles, [1991]), and Merrill-Mirsky, Carol, ed., Exiles in Paradise (Los Angeles, 1991)Google Scholar. The Hollywood motion picture composers, including ex-Viennese wunderkind Erich Wolfgang Korngold, are studied in Palmer, Christopher, The Composer in Hollywood (London, 1990)Google Scholar. Émigré musicologists have not yet been investigated as a group, but useful material can be found in Curt Steinzor, Efram, American Musicologists, c. 1890–1945: A Bio-Bibliographical Sourcebook to the Formative Period (New York, 1989)Google Scholar. For the careers of individual musicologists, see Deutsch, Gitta, Bócklinstrassenelegie. Erinnerungen (Vienna, 1993)Google Scholar on the Schubert scholar Otto Erich Deutsch, and the autobiography of Geiringer, Karl, This I Remember: Memoirs of a Life in Music (Santa Barbara, Calif., 1993)Google Scholar.

46 Österreichische Musikzeitschrift 43, no. 4 (04 1988)Google Scholar, entire issue: “50 Jahre danach 1938–1988.”

47 Stadler, Friedrich, ed., Vertriebene Vernunft II Emigration und Exil österreichischer Wissenschaft. Internationales Symposion 19. bis 23. Oktober 1987 in Wien (Vienna, 1988)Google Scholar.

48 Beiträge '90, Österreichische Gesellschaft für Musik, Österreichische Musiker im Exil–Kolloquium 1988 (Kassel, 1990). Hartenstein, Elfi, Heimat wider Willen. Emigranten in New York-Begegnungen (Berg am See, 1991)Google Scholar, provides in-depth interviews with Austrian musical émigrés, including violinist Felix Galimir, pianist Erna Jonas, composer Fritz (Fred) Spielman, and opera manager John S. White (formerly Hans Schwarzkopf). An exotic aspect of Austrian musical life in exile is impressively reconstructed by Suchy, Irene, “Versunken und Vergessen—Zwei österreichische Musiker in Japan vor 1945,” in Mehr als Maschinen für Musik. Beiträge zu Geschichte und Gegenwart der österreichisch-japanischen Beziehungen, ed. Linart, Sepp and Schmidt, Kurt (Vienna, 1990), 89–121Google Scholar. Easily overlooked are sections of books (in this case the autobiography of a noted dancer) that digress to touch on an Austrian musical theme; for example, Koner, Pauline, Solitary Song (Durham, N.C., 1989)Google Scholar, in which the widow of Austrian émigré conductor Fritz Mahler writes sensitively of his life, personality, and career.

49 The notorious Nazi “Entartete Musik” exhibit of 1938–39 was reconstructed in 1988, and an informative catalogue was issued: Dümling, Albrecht and Girth, Peter, eds., Entartete Musik. Eine kommentierte Rekonstruktion—Zur Düsseldorfer Ausstellung von 1938 (Düsseldorf and Berlin, [1988])Google Scholar.

50 The contemporary interplay of music and politics in Austria promises to be a fascinating field for future historians of mass culture to probe. Two excellent studies to date are Larkey, Edward, “Austropop: Popular Music and National Identity in Austria,” Popular Music 11, no. 2 (05 1992): 151–85CrossRefGoogle Scholar; and Wagnleitner, Reinhold, Coca-Colonisation und Kalter Krieg. Die Kultur-mission der USA in Österreich nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg (Vienna, 1991), 224–60Google Scholar.