The bonds of peace between nations

'How many people are aware the modern torch relay was introduced by Carl Diem, president of the organisation committee for the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, as part of an effort to turn the games into a glorification of the Third Reich. "Sporting chivalrous contest helps knit the bonds of peace between nations. Therefore may the Olympic flame never expire," - Adolf Hitler' - writes Patricia van den Brink from Herne, Germany in today's Guardian.

And how many people are aware that Hitler's court composer was a Harvard alumni?
Photo of demonstration in London on April 6, 2008 from Students for a Free Tibet UK. Report broken links, missing images and errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

The Bauhaus lives on

Important article about the Bauhaus design school in yesterday's Guardian . The Bauhaus in Dessau was closed by the Nazis in 1932. Four years earlier the architect Walter Gropius had resigned, choosing to work outside Germany. In 1935 Gropius designed the building in East Anglia seen in my header photo. It is Impington Village College in Cambridgeshire, which was a design collabaration between Gropius and Maxwell Fry. It was Gropius' only major UK commission, and the Village College is still in use today. Gropius married Alma Mahler, widow of Gustav Mahler, in 1915. Their daughter Manon died of polio aged eighteen, and composer Alban Berg wrote his Violin Concerto in memory of her. Gropius and Alma Mahler were divorced in 1920.

The Bauhaus zeitgeist also found refuge in Dartington in Devon. Here the headmaster's house for the progrssive Dartington Hall School, seen in the lower photo, was designed by William Lescaze in the Bauhaus style, and the Ballets Joos from Essen performed in Dartington after they were banished from Germany in 1934. The Bauhaus vision of a creative community working for the greater good lived on in Dartington after the Second World War. The music summer school at Dartington was run by William Glock in the 1950s and attracted great creative spirits ranging from Igor Stravinsky, through Bruno Maderna to Elisabeth Lutyens. The header photo in my recent article Walking with Stravinky, shows Lutyens and Stravinsky together at Dartington.

First performances in the UK, and sometimes in the world, given at Dartington included Elliott Carter's First and Second String Quartets, Boulez's Le Marteau sans maître, Sonatina for flute and piano, and Improvisation on 'Une dentelle s'abolit', Peter Maxwell Davies' Sextet, Luigi Nono's Polifonica-monodia-ritmica, Stefan Wolfe's Quartet for oboe, cello, percussion and piano, and Stockhausen's Zeitmasse and Kontapunkte. And those last works remind us that Dartington ran parallel to that other great music summer school, Darmstadt.

Wliiliam Glock's policy of embracing, rather than fearing, the new continued when he became Controller of Music at the BBC in 1959. His work with Pierre Boulez and others proved that new music has as much to say to audiences as the music of Beethoven et al. This thinking was continued at the BBC by Sir Robert Ponsonby. But, alas, in the years after Ponsonby reactionary forces came to the fore in musical Britain, just as they did in Dessau in 1932.


More unlikely cultural migration here.
The exhibition Bauhaus 1919-1933 is at Mima, Middlesborough to Feb 17 2007. Header photo credit Cambridge2000, but the non-Bauhaus rubbish bin was removed by me. Lower photo from HughPearman.com. Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Report broken links, missing images and errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

Venezuelan youth orchestrates political protest

Tens of thousands of students are expected to march through Caracas and other cities today in protest at Hugo Chávez's move to amend Venezuela's constitution, despite violence which has injured at least eight students.

Masked gunmen opened fire on a university campus in clashes between pro- and anti-Chávez groups in Caracas on Wednesday. The university said the government used thugs to intimidate protesters but Mr Chávez blamed the marchers. "They generally take the path of fascist violence and confront the laws and the people, and they are always looking to the Pentagon, high-ranking generals," he told a summit in Chile yesterday.

Campuses are the focus of opposition to Mr Chávez's referendum on December 2 to permit him to run indefinitely and accelerate what he terms a socialist revolution. Raul Isaias Baduel, a retired army commander and long-time Chávez ally, has joined the opposition to the draft constitution, saying it amounts to a coup.

Today's Guardian reports it. I wonder how many music blogs will even mention it?

Now playing - Deutsche Grammophon's great recording of Beethoven's Fifth Symphony. This is what the Gramophone Good CD Guide said - It has become utterly impossible to keep track of all recordings of Beethoven's music ... So who would predict that anything new could possibly be added to what has so often been done, and done well? Thus we might have reasoned in the mid-1970s, but then the seemingly impossible came to pass. When Carlos Kleiber's recording of Beethoven's Fifth was issued in 1975 ... the great clock of Beethovenian interpretation struck the hour.

Carlos Kleiber's father, Erich, resigned his post as director of Berlin's Staatsoper in December 1934 in protest against the policies of the Nazis. He continued to work in Europe outside Germany, but the spread of Fascism forced him to leave the continent in 1939. Ironically it was to South America that Kleiber fled. He spent the years between 1939 and 1946 conducting less than world class orchestras in Argentina, Peru and Chile, and willingly accepted this as the price of his political beliefs.

In 1951 Erich Kleiber returned to Berlin and to the Staatsoper which was now in the communist sector of the city. The opera house itself had been destroyed in the last months of the war, and performances took place in the Admiralspalast, a former dance hall. Kleiber found post-war East Berlin politically brittle, and the working conditions in the still ruined city were extremely difficult. He resigned in March 1955 on principle after a dispute with the authorities over the removal of an inscription to Frederick the Great on the newly renovated Staatsoper building.

Carlos Kleiber was born in 1930 in pre-Nazi Berlin. In that year the highlights at the Staatsoper included its director, Erich Kleiber, conducting Darius Milhaud's new opera Christophe Colomb, Hans Pfitzner conducting his own Palestrina, and Richard Strauss conducting Intermezzo. So when Beethoven's Fifth finished on the CD player I switched to another DG disc, Christian Thielemann conducting the Orchester Der Deutsche Oper Berlin in three of the preludes from Palestrina and the prelude to Capriccio. Sadly the CD seems to be deleted, but recommended if you can find a copy.

Now read how the East Germans rewrote music history.
Do find a copy of Erich Kleiber, A Memoir by John Russell (Andé Deutsch 1957) if you can. Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Report broken links, missing images and other errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

Whosoever rescues a single soul ...

Refugee Week is a UK-wide programme of arts, cultural and educational events that celebrate the contribution of refugees to the UK, and encourages a better understanding between communities; it starts on 18th June. The Kindertransport sculpture is by Flor Kent, and stands in front of Liverpool Street Station. This is the London station that the Jewish children arrived at after the ferry crossing from mainland Europe in 1938 and 1939. Now read more about Kindertransport.
Photographs by Pliable. Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Report broken links, missing images and other errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

Berlin Philharmonic investigates its Nazi past

One of the world’s most renowned orchestras, the Berlin Philharmonic, said Tuesday it plans an investigation into its role during the Nazi era. "We’ve never really come to terms with the history of the Philharmonic Orchestra under National Socialism," general manager Pamela Rosenberg said.

A book is to be published this year by Mischa Aster with the cooperation of the 125-year-old orchestra on the period between 1933 and 1945 and above all on the complex relationship that legendary conductor Wilhelm Furtwaengler (photo above) had with top Nazis. An exhibition and a film for public television are also planned.

Furtwaengler was the chief conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic from 1922 until 1945 and again from 1952 until his death in 1954. During the Nazi years, he was able to retain his position with an often deferential attitude toward the regime, which used him as a propaganda tool, while still working to protect his Jewish musicians.

Hungarian director Istvan Szabo adapted the play "Taking Sides" about Fuertwaengler’s denazification trial into a film in 2002 starring Harvey Keitel as a US military officer who interrogates him about his relationship with Adolf Hitler’s Nazi party. The conductor was cleared on all charges but his reputation remained tainted by his proximity to the regime.

From today's European Jewish Press. Now read about the Berlin Philharmonic's darkest hour, the story of Furtwangler and the forgotten new music, and the mystery of the orchestra's first black conductor.
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For I propose to tell you of Buchenwald …

Much coverage elsewhere of Tim O'Reilly's proposed blogging code of conduct, although thankfully it is not needed here as the readers On An Overgrown Path are a very civilised bunch. But the dire quality of much of today's 'user generated' content was brought home to me recently when I read Norman Finkelstein’s life of the pioneer of broadcaster journalism, Edward Murrow. Where today can you find the equivalent of this economic but powerful prose describing London in 1939 weeks before the outbreak of war, when the city’s children had been evacuated to the safety of the country?

‘It’s dull in London now that the children are gone. For six days I’ve not heard a child’s voice. And that’s a strange feeling. No youngsters shouting their way home from school. And that’s the way it is in most of Europe’s big cities now. One needs the eloquence of the ancients to convey the full meaning of it. There just aren’t any more children.’

Everyone in the media, from newscasters to bloggers, should study Edward R. Murrow’s style. His mentor was Ida Lou Anderson, at Washington State University, and she taught him to use pauses and intonations to best advantage, and to use as few words as possible to make a point. “She demanded not excellence so much as integrity,” Murrow later said, and he told his staff, “You are supposed to describe things in terms that make sense to the truck driver without insulting the intelligence of the professor.” Broadcast historian Erik Barnouw described Murrow’s prose as having “a quiet dignity. It avoided stuffiness and also the condescension of folkiness. It abhorred the frenzied – it favored short, concise statements.”

On April 15 1945 Ed Murrow described the Nazi concentration camp at Buchenwald outside Weimar for CBS listeners. When the dedication ceremony of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC took place in April 1993 it included a reading from Murrow’s account. I wonder how many blog posts, newscasts and YouTube videos will receive similar treatment in fifty years from now? Here is what they will be measured against:

Permit me to tell you what you would have seen, and heard, had you been with me on Thursday. It will not be pleasant listening. If you are at lunch, or if you have no appetite to hear what Germans have done, now is a good time to switch off the radio, for I propose to tell you of Buchenwald …. There surged around me an evil-smelling horde. Men and boys reached out to touch me; they were in rags and the remnants of uniform. Death had already marked many of them, but they were smiling with their eyes … When I entered, men crowded around, tried to lift me to their shoulders. They were too weak. Many of them could not get out of bed. I was told that this building once stabled eighty horses. There were twelve hundred men in it, five to a bunk. The stink was beyond all description …

In another part they showed me the children, hundreds of them. Some were only six. One rolled up his sleeve. D-6030, it was. The others showed me their numbers; they will carry them till they die … There were two rows of bodies stacked up like cordwood. They were thin and very white. Some of the bodies were terribly bruised, though there seems to be little flesh to bruise … Murder had been done at Buchenwald … I pray you to believe what I have said about Buchenwald. I have reported what I saw and heard, but only part of it. For most of it I have no words … If I’ve offended you by this rather mild account of Buchenwald, I’m not in the least sorry.

With Heroic Truth, the Life of Edward R. Murrow by Norman H. Finkelstein is printed on demand by Authors Guild Backinprint.com ISBN0595348068. Now read how few words can tell a huge story in Childhood Luggage.

With thanks to the US 2nd Air Division Memorial Library in Norwich for their invaluable collection of American titles, which includes With Heroic Truth. Any copyrighted material on these pages is included for "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Report broken links, missing images and other errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

Berlin March 28th 1933

Berlin was thrown into great excitement last night by two fires - the one at the Reichstag building (the German Parliament) and the other at the former Imperial Palace. Fire broke out at the Reichstag shortly after 9 p.m., and burned so fiercely that within an hour the main hall in which representatives of the German people meet when Parliament is in session was completely destroyed. Flames leaping from the great glass dome surmounting the building could be seen for miles around, and attracted huge crowds to the scene.

Police in full force on horseback and on foot kept the crowd back, while all the fire brigades in Berlin poured water on to the flames. The building was surrounded by the fire-fighting appliances, and high ladders were run up the walls and illuminated by searchlights. Firemen directed streams of water into the burning building, and hoses were run in through the numerous entrances to the seat of the fire, in the main session hall. It is believed (says an Exchange Berlin telegram) that the fire was due to arson, as it commenced at five or six different points simultaneously. A man was arrested in the building . He was found clad only in his trousers.

A Reuter telegram says that the fire was started by heaps of documents which were set alight in six different places. The police assert that Communists are responsible, and apart from the man who was arrested there were several other people in the building, although the Reichstag is not in session. The wildest rumours were circulating in Berlin last night, adds Reuter. One was to the effect that secret orders had been issued to the Nazi Storm Troopers to create a Bartholomew night on Saturday, when all political opponents of renown were to be "disposed of." Although the police asserted the Communists are responsible, some people think that the fire might have bee started by irresponsible Nazis with the object of provoking trouble.

The fires were extinguished at 10.45 p.m. The session hall presents a scene of desolation with all the deputies' seats, diplomats', public, and press galleries destroyed, and all the iron pillars supporting the dome twisted out of shape. The fire brigade state that the fire must have started at several points. It developed with extraordinary rapidity and began to find its way downstairs to the rooms below.

The police, "suspecting the conflagration to be the first of a series of Communist acts of terrorism," have arrested a number of Communist leaders "in order to forestall any attempt to cover up tracks." The man who was discovered in the Reichstag building and arrested is stated to be a Dutchman named Van der Luebbe, aged 24 (photo left). He is said to have confessed that he started the fire, but denied that he was acting as anyone's agent. It is added that he said he used his shirt as firing material. The police found a rag steeped in petrol as they entered the building, and the arrested man's cap was found close to other firing material. He has been conducted to police headquarters, where he is being subjected to a thorough examination. His manner had been extremely calm and self-possessed throughout.

Herr Hitler, Herr Göring, Herr von Papen, and other prominent persons including Prince August Wilhelm, entered the building whilst it was still burning, and Herr Goring, President of the Reichstag and "Commissarial" Minister for the Interior in Prussia, took command of the police and issued orders to keep the crowds at a distance. If the new Reichstag is summoned after next Sunday's elections it is unlikely to be able to meet in the Reichstag building owing to the extensive damage done by the fire. The fire at the former Imperial Palace broke out earlier in the day in an attic, and was quickly subdued by the fire brigade before any damage had been done. The police suspect arson, as burnt matches were found in the attic.

Report from the Guardian. Now visit the rebuilt Reichstag.
Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Report broken links, missing images and other errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

Music that knows who the real enemy is

'Vote for Enoch Powell,' came the counsel from a stage in the West Midlands. 'Stop Britain from becoming a black colony ... Get the foreigners out ... I used to be into dope, now I'm into racism. It's much heavier, man.' Not some ranting nutcase from the National Front, but an inebriated Eric Clapton (now CBE), formerly of Cream and latterly of Hello! magazine. Yes, Clapton - who played the blues, but whose outburst in August 1976 came hot on the heels of another from David Bowie, proclaiming Adolf Hitler to be 'the first rock star' and urging that what Britain needed was a 'right-wing dictatorship'.

People may feel grateful to Bowie and Clapton for their own reasons, but perhaps the most gratifying contribution this duo made to music was to detonate the revulsion at their sentiments and clear the stage for Rock Against Racism, the first edition of whose fanzine, Temporary Hoarding, appeared on May Day 30 years ago. 'We want rebel music,' it proclaimed. 'Crisis Music. Now Music. Music that knows who the real enemy is. Rock Against Racism.'

Essential reading from today's Observer. Which does prompt the question, is classical music really a multicultural community?

Header photo is the Clash performing at the 1978 Rock Against Racism event, when 100,000 people marched the six miles from Trafalgar Square through London's East End - the heart of National Front territory - to a Rock Against Racism concert in Victoria Park, Hackney. Photo credit the Combative Clash Page. Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Report broken links, missing images and other errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

All this ….. and what for?

The terrible raids on Dresden by British and American bombers took place on the nights of 13th and 14th February 1945. But the photographs here are not of Dresden, they show the damage inflicted by the German bombing of Norwich, where I live. 1432 people were killed or injured in Norwich by air raids between 1940 and 1943, and 85% of the housing stock was damaged. During April 1942 Norwich was one of the English cathedral cities heavily bombed in the "Baedeker raids" which targeted cultural centres selected from the eponymous German guide book. The photographs accompanying this article are taken from the official account of the air raids on Norwich published in 1944. This remarkable document, and remember it was written while World War 2 still raged, ends with the words below written by the novelist and war poet R H Mottram:


So the long tale of violence and attempted intimidation drags to its close, and as these words are written the seemingly endless vigil is being relaxed. Whatever we may suffer from “Revenge” weapons, we no longer anticipate organised attack. We have laid aside the steel helmet that so often oppressed our brow, and the respirator that we tested and tried on, hangs on its peg accumulating dust. We no longer look with trepidation for children who linger on their way home from school, nor do we stagger sleepily through the black shadows or the ghoulish light of flares to take up our posts of duty.

We hope soon to be replanning Norwich, and only the broken-hearted can fail to hope that a better and finer city may arise on these ashes. Perhaps a new Germany will help to patch our gaping places and re-site our streets. But no skill will bring back those who lie under the long row of crosses that line the cemetery rail. These, who bore no malice, are a sacrifice to the evil forces still at work in the world. One may be tempted to recall the last lines of the play, appropriately entitled Strife, by John Galsworthy: “All this …. and what for?”

It is for a new generation to provide the answer.


Now playing - Arvo Pärt’s I am the true vine, (Paul Hillier directing the Theatre of Voices, Harmonia Mundi 90407). The photograph above shows the destruction in the Cathedral Close in Norwich, with the cloisters of the Benedictine Abbey in the foreground. The photo was taken from a vantage point on the magnificent Norman cathedral. Unlike the Frauenkirche and Thomaskirche in Dresden, Norwich Cathedral survived the terrible bombing despite two direct hits from incendiary bombs, and in 1996 Arvo Pärt was commissioned to write I am the true vine to celebrate the Cathedral's 900th anniversary. The work is an English setting of St. John 15:1-14, in which Jesus likens himself to "the true vine" and commands his followers to love each other.

Arvo Pärt now lives in Berlin, another city that suffered terrible war damage, and the CD I am listening to also contains his moving Berliner Messe. Writing in 1944 R.H. Mottram expressed the hope that: “a new Germany will help to patch our gaping places and re-site our streets”, and this is precisely what happened, although the writer could not have anticipated the four decades of agonizing delay caused by the Cold War. In 1989 the collapse of Communism was triggered by events in Leipzig, just a few miles from Dresden. This allowed the creation of a new Europe which now includes many countries that were part of the USSR.

Arvo Pärt was born in Estonia, one of several countries that threw off the Soviet shackles in the early 1990s, and became part of the new Europe. Today the region around Norwich is home to a large community of migrants from these Baltic countries. On Saturday we celebrated their culture with our first Baltic States Festival, thankfully confirming that a new generation of Europeans is starting to provide the answer to the question "All this .... and what for?"

Suffering knows no side in time of war, now read about the Dresden Requiem for eleven young victims
My thanks go to Helen Yates for her grandmother’s copy of Assault Upon Norwich (published by Norwich Corporation 1944). The location of the photographs in descending order are Rampant Horse Street, Westwick Street, and Cathedral Close. Any copyrighted material on these pages is included for "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Report broken links, missing images and other errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk

Furtwangler and the forgotten new music

When, in November 1943, Furtwängler returned to Berlin from a concert tour abroad, he was informed that the Philharmonie Hall had been bombed during an attack on the night of November 22-23. The facade had been badly damaged, and so had the front rooms in which the irreplaceable music library had been kept. Important letters, files, documents, orginal scores - everything had been destroyed.

The concert hall itself remained intact, but the windows had been blown out, and glass, at the time, was not available. Besides, concerts could no longer be given there because high piles of rubble cut off the hall from the outside world. And before it could be cleared away, more bombs fell on the Philharmonie Hall on January 30, 1944, when the Anhalter Station, near the hall, was the target. This time the Philharmonie was completely wrecked.
From Wilhelm Furtwängler a biography by Curt Riess, 1955

Following the destruction of the Philharmonie Wilhelm Furtwängler conducted the Berlin Philharmonic in nine more concerts before the Nazi forces surrendered. Six were in the Staatsoper, and when this was damaged by bombing the last three were held in the Admiralpalast. The last concerts under Nazi rule were held on 22nd and 23rd January with a programme of Mozart’s ‘Die Zauberflote' overture, Mozart Symphony no 40 (first two movements only for reasons not given), and Brahms First Symphony.

Those final two concerts took place just four months before the collapse of Berlin. Allied forces were closing in on the stricken city, and air raids continued night and day. Remember that Hitler was not a democratically elected leader, and many of those, musicians and others, trapped in the beleagured city were not rabid Nazis. Like those in the Twin Towers, New Orleans and the London Underground history dictated that many were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. The predicament faced by the performing arts in the 21st century palls into insignificance compared with the conditions that the inhabitants, and musicians, of Berlin faced in the final months of the war.

Yet not only did the music continue, but quite remarkably the final nine concerts in those last torrid months included the first performance of one new work (by Gerhart von Westerman, and played in two successive concerts), and one Berlin Philharmonic first performance (Kurt Hessenberg’s Second Symphony).

Today Wilhelm Furtwängler's name is irrevocably linked to the Nazis. It is not the purpose of this article to cover that ground again, too many apologies have already been written. The fact is he remained in Germany as Director of the Berlin Philharmonic through the darkest hours of the Nazis. But a lot of great music was performed in the years between 1922 and 1954 when Furtwangler led the orchestra. Although his political compromises were deplorable, they should not prevent study of the music that was an integral part of the culture during those turbulent years.

Furtwängler is remembered today as an important interpreter of the Austro-Germanic repertoire, from Mozart through Beethoven to Bruckner. He is also known as a composer; the very last work he conducted with the Berlin Philharmonic in concert was his own Second Symphony on 20th September 1954. He died just three months later in December 1954.

During his thirty-two years as Director of the Berlin Philharmonic a surprising amount of 20th century music was performed under his baton. (Don’t forget his tenure at the orchestra only covered the first half of the century). Some the new music has endured. There was much Schoenberg (including the first performance of the Variations for Orchestra, op. 31 2nd version in 1928), much Pfitzner and Hindemith (the Nazi banning of his opera Mathis del Maler provoked Furtwangler’s resignation from the Berlin Opera in 1934), plus Bartok, Prokofiev and more.

But he also performed a large amount of 20th century music that has not stood the test of time. For research purposes I have taken a subjective definition of a ‘forgotten composer’ as one whose work is not performed with any regularity today. Using this definition, I researched every one of the four hundred and seventy-three concerts Furtwängler conducted with the Berlin Philharmonic. This identified forty-five 20th century works, from thirty composers who have subsequently slipped into varying degrees of obscurity.

The results of my research are given below (more details of the research are given as a footnote). The history of these composers varies. Many remained in Germany through the Nazi period and beyond. Some such as Ernst Toch (right) fled to the US when the Nazis came to power. There are very few non-Germans, but these include the Italian Alfredo Casella, who was a known Fascist sympathiser. Interestingly one fellow conductor-composer is included, the Polish-born Paul Kletzki. Some works remain in print, if not in performance. These include the two works performed in 1944 after the destruction of the Philharmonie; Gerhart von Westerman's Divertimento and Kurt Hessenberg's Second Symphony, op. 29.

Looking at frequency of performance, the name that jumps out is Max Trapp. Six of his compositions were given over a twenty-eight year period, three of these in first performances. His works were performed both during the Nazi period (1935 and 1939), and after the war in 1951. Trapp lived from 1887 to 1971, and taught in various positions in Berlin throughout his life. His works included seven symphonies, and chamber music. The only one known at all today is his Piano Concerto, and he is largely forgotten. Why?

There is no suggestion that a body of forty-five neglected masterpieces awaits discovery in Berlin archives. (But how many perished in the fall of Berlin?) But what was this music like? Furtwängler was a brilliant conductor and accomplished composer – does his programming of these composers bestow some merit on them? Or were many of them politically convenient commissions? (This argument falls on the fact that many of the performances were pre-1933). Is the comparative obscurity (I can find no information at all on two) of these composers simply typical of the casualty rate among new works? Have I misrepresented these artists who lived through such difficult times? Do any readers know more about these thirty forgotten composers?

More questions than answers, but an overgrown path that is well worth exploring. Please add further information and views using the comments (or email) feature at the foot of the article.

And here is my analysis of Furtwängler's forgotten modern music:

Max Trapp: Symphonie Nr. 11 in h-moll op. 15 (BPO first performance)
28/29 January 1923.
Symphonie Nr.IV in b-moll op. 24 (BPO first performance)
14/15 December 1930.
Sinfonische Suite op. 30 (BPO first performance)
3 & 4 December 1933.
Orchesterkonzert op. 32 (First performance)
29/30 September 1935.
Konzert Nr. II f. Orchester op. 36 (First performance)
3/5 December 1939.
Symphonie Nr. Vl op. 45 (First performance)
25/26 February 1951.
Walter Braunfels:
“Don Juan”, eine klassich-romantische Phantasmagorie op. 34 (BPO first performance)
16/17 Novembber 1924.
Vorspiel u. Prolog aus “Die Vogel.”
20/21 December 1925.
Georg Schumann: (photo right) Variationen und Gigue uber ein Thema von G. F. Handel op. 72 (BPO first performance)
22/23 February 1925.
Variationen uber “Gerstern abend war Vetter Michel “ da op. 74 (First performance)
2/3 February 1930.
Philipp Jarnach:
Morgenklangspiel op. 19 (First performance)
7/8 November 1926.
Musik mit Mozart. Symphonische Variaten f. Orch op. 25 (BPO first performance)
15/17 February 1942.
Ernst Toch:
Komodie f. Orchester op. 42 (BPO first performance)
13/14 November 1927.
Kleine Theatersuite op. 54 (BPO first performance)
8/9 February 1931.
Karl Marx:
Konzert f. 2 Violinen u. Orch. Op. 5 (BPO first performance)
30 Nov/1 December 1930.
Passacaglia ((First performance)
18/19 December 1932.
Heinrich Kaminsky:
Dorische Musik
25/26 November 1934.
Konzert f. Klavier u. Orch (BPO first performance, the composer conducted this work, Furtwangler conducted the balance of the programme )
28/29 November 1937.
Gottfried Muller:
Variationen u. Fugue uber ein deutsches Volkslied (“Morgenrot Morgenrot”) op. 2 (BPO first performance)
5/6 Feb 1933.
Konzert f. gr. Orchester op. 5 (BPO first performance)
17/19 December 1939.
Theodor Berger: (photo right)
Rondino giocoso (BPO first performance)
15/17 December 1940.
Ballade f. Orchester op. 10 (First performance)
2/4 November 1941.
Karl Holler:
Konzert f. Violincello u. Orch. Op. 26
16/18 October 1949.
Konzert f. Violincello u. Orchester op. 26 (First performance)
19/21 October 1941.
Heinz Schubert:
Praludium u. Toccata f. Streichorch (BPO first performance)
5/7 February 1939.
Hymnisces Konzert f. Orgel, Orch. Mit Sopran- und Tenor-solo (BPO first performance)
6/8 December 1942.
Bernhard Sekles: Gesichte. Fantastiche Miniaturen f. kl. Orch. Op. 29 (BPO first performance)
11/12 November 1923.
Alfredo Casella: Partita f. Klavier u. Orchester (BPO first performance)
19/20 December 1926.
Karol Rathaus: Ouverture fur grosses Orchester op. 22 (First performance)
4/5 March 1928.
Gunther Raphael: Thema, Variationen u. Rondo f. Orch. Op. 19 (BPO first performance)
24/25 March 1929.
Paul Kletzki: Orchestervariationen (BPO first performance)
19/20 January 1930.
Botho Sigwart: Melodram “Hektors Bestattung” op. 15
2/3 February 1930.
Wladimir Vogel: 2 Etuden f. Orchester (BPO first performance)
25/26 October 1931.
Paul Graener: Die Flote von Sanssouci. Suite f. Kammerorch. Op. 88 (BPO first performance)
20/21 December 1931.
Max Ettinger: Altenglische Suite op. 30 (BPO first performance)
3 & 4 April 1932.
Hugo Reichenberger: Zwei Mariensbilder
18/19 December 1932.
Max v. Schillings: Symphonischer Prolog zu “Konig Odipus” f. gr. Orch. Op. 11
15/16 October 1933.
Sigfrid Walther Muller: Heitere Musik op, 43 (BPO first performance)
14/15 January 1934.
Hans Brehme: Triptychon (BPO first performance)
26/28 November 1938.
Heinrich Zilcher (should this be Hermann Zilcher, a composer who lived from 1881 - 1948?) : Konzert f. Violine u Orch. In A-dur op. 92 (First performance)
2/4 February 1941.
Paul Hoffer: Symphonische Variatonen uber einen Bass von Bach op. 47 (BPO First performance)
1/3 March 1942.
Gerhard Frommel: Symphonie in E-dur op. 13 (First performance)
8/10 November 1942
Ernst Pepping: Symphonie Nr. II f. Orch. In f-moll (BPO first performance)
31 October/3 November 1943.
Gerhart v. Westerman: Divertimento f. gr. Orch. Op. 16 (First performance)
22/23 October 1944.
Kurt Hessenberg: (photo above) Symphonie Nr. Ll in A-dur op. 29 (BPO first performance) 11 December 1944.

Notes on the research:
1.The analysis was carried out specifically for this article using Wilhelm Furtwängler Die Programme Der Konzert Mit Dem Berliner Philharmonischen Orchester 1922-1954 published in 1965 by F.A. Brockhaus Wiesbaden.
2. I have not translated the composition titles from their original German. This is because many have never been translated, and I would prefer a more skilled linguist to undertke this important work.
3. I have added hyperlinks to web resources where available. Not surpisingly some of these are in German. Details of further resources will be gratefully received. I will be glad to share the contents of this fascinating inventory of every work Furtwangler performed with the Berlin Philharmonic with any interested researchers.
4. First performance means world premiere. BPO first performance is hopefully self-explanatory.
5. The Classical Composers Database is a very useful tool for researching the more obscure composers; but, like all of us, it is by no means infallible.

Any copyrighted material on these pages is included as "fair use", for the purpose of study, review or critical analysis only, and will be removed at the request of copyright owner(s). Report broken links, missing images and other errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk
Now take an overgrown path to Musicians against nuclear weapons

* This article was originally published on October 5 18, 2005, and is reblogged here as part of On An Overgrown Path's second anniversary celebration of Music beyond borders. Follow this link to read the comments posted to the original article.

The Berlin Philharmonic's darkest hour

Wilhelm Furtwängler was born on 25th January 1886. He was Music Director of the Berlin Philharmonic from 1923 to his death in 1954, and held this position for the twelve years that Hitler was in power. In January 1945 he was conducting in Vienna, and fled from there to Switzerland where he remained until the Battle of Berlin ended in the defeat of the Nazis. The musicians of his orchestra remained in Berlin during its darkest hour. Here is their story:


On 28th March 1945 the Russian forces commanded by Marshal Georgy Zhukov were just twenty miles to the east of Berlin. A month previously Albert Speer had been replaced as Nazi armaments minister after trying to persuade Hitler that defeat was inevitable. Speer now turned his energies to preventing the musicians of his adored Berlin Philharmonic from perishing in the inevitable final battle. Reich Commisioner Dr Joseph Goebells, who was in charge of the defence of Berlin, had ordered the entire orchestra to be drafted into the Volkssturm, the Home Guard responsible for the final desperate defence of the doomed city. To delay their drafting Speer sent his liaison officer to remove and destroy the musician's papers while he put in place a plan to save the orchestra. (The photograph above shows a Berlin street in May 1945).

During the day on 28th March a convoy of lorries left the besieged city to take many of the orchestra's scores, pianos, harps, Wagner tubas, and the musician's dress suits south to the relative safety of Plassenburg, near Bayreuth. In the evening the orchestra was to give a concert, conducted by Robert Heger, in the Beethoven Salle, which was miraculously still standing surrounded by ruins. The scheduled programme was Beethoven's Egmont Overture, the Brahms Double Concerto, and Strauss' Tod und Verklarung. But it had previously been agreed that a change to another programme would be the signal that this was the final concert, and that the musicians were to leave the city after the final work. They were then to travel by coach to the Bayreuth area which was about to be taken by American forces, leaving them at a safe distance from the dreaded Soviet Army. The new programme was appropriately the final scene from Die Götterdämmerung, the Beethoven Violin Concerto played by Gerhard Taschner, and to conclude Bruckner's Fourth Symphony, 'the Romantic'.

The concert hall was packed for the 5.00 pm start, despite the danger from air-raids and the absence of any heating. The electricity in Berlin was normally cut off in the evenings, but Speer had arranged for it to remain connected. The hall was in darkness and illumination came only from the lights on the music stands. There was only one unexpected event in this final evening of music making. As the rapturous applause for the Bruckner symphony died away the orchestra did not leave for southern Germany as arranged. They had voted to remain in the city to face the dreadful final days with the other Berliners. Only Gerhard Taschner left in a car driven by Speer's chauffeur, taking with him his wife, two children, and the daughter of another musician.

The other brave musicians stayed to face their own Twilight of the Gods. As the audience left they were offered cyanide capsules (suicide pills) from baskets held by children wearing Hitler Youth uniforms. Of the 125,000 Berliners who died in the final battle for their city 6400 committed suicide. Many of the suicides were women and girls who had been raped by Soviet troops. Over 90,000 women visited doctors and clinics as a result of being raped.

Albert Speer was sentenced to twenty years in prison at the Nuremberg Trials. He had controversially avoided the death sentence passed down to many of his co-defendants. The prison sentence was said to be recognition of his remorse, and his deliberate disobedience of Hitler's orders in the last days of the war. At his trial the prosecution showed a photograph of Speer visiting the Mauthausen concentration camp, where he is clearly shown surrounded by emaciated prisoners. The prosecution claimed this proved Speer was well aware of the Holocaust. However, Speer held that he was only given a "V.I.P." tour of the concentration camp, meaning he never knew the camp's real purpose. Albert Speer was released from prison in 1966, and died in London in 1981. (The photo above shows Albert Speer with Hitler.)

Gerhard Taschner was only twenty-three in 1945. He had travelled to America before the war, and was said to have been encouraged to stay in Berlin by Furtwängler. After the war his career continued as soloist, teacher and chamber musician, although it was hampered by the absence of a major recording contract. He is particularly linked with

Wolfgang Fortner's Violin Concerto which he premiered in 1947, and went on to champion. Taschner died aged only fifty-four in 1976.

Robert Heger continued his career both as conductor and composer after the war. He died in Munich in 1978.

* Article prepared with acknowledgements to The Fall of Berlin by Anthony Read and David Fisher (Pimlico ISBN 0712657975) and Albert Speer, His Battle with the Truth by Gitta Sereny (Macmillan ISBN 0333645197). Additional material from Wikipedia article on Albert Speer.
* Image credits - Berlin 1945 - Globalsecurity.org
- Gerhard Taschner's recording of Wolfgang Fortner's Violin Concerto, with the Berlin Philharmonic under Wilhelm Furtwangler from Amazon.
- Albert Speer with Hitler from Museum of European Art, New York
* Report broken links, missing images and other errors to - overgrownpath at hotmail dot co dot uk
Now take An Overgrown Path to Furtwängler and the forgotten new music

Furtwangler and the forgotten new music

When, in November 1943, Furtwängler returned to Berlin from a concert tour abroad, he was informed that the Philharmonie Hall had been bombed during an attack on the night of November 22-23. The facade had been badly damaged, and so had the front rooms in which the irreplaceable music library had been kept. Important letters, files, documents, orginal scores - everything had been destroyed.

The concert hall itself remained intact, but the windows had been blown out, and glass, at the time, was not available. Besides, concerts could no longer be given there because high piles of rubble cut off the hall from the outside world. And before it could be cleared away, more bombs fell on the Philharmonie Hall on January 30, 1944, when the Anhalter Station, near the hall, was the target. This time the Philharmonie was completely wrecked.
From Wilhelm Furtwängler a biography by Curt Riess, 1955

Following the destruction of the Philharmonie Wilhelm Furtwängler conducted the Berlin Philharmonic in nine more concerts before the Nazi forces surrendered. Six were in the Staatsoper, and when this was damaged by bombing the last three were held in the Admiralpalast. The last concerts under Nazi rule were held on 22nd and 23rd January with a programme of Mozart’s ‘Die Zauberflote' overture, Mozart Symphony no 40 (first two movements only for reasons not given), and Brahms First Symphony.

Those final two concerts took place just four months before the collapse of Berlin. Allied forces were closing in on the stricken city, and air raids continued night and day. Remember that Hitler was not a democratically elected leader, and many of those, musicians and others, trapped in the beleagured city were not rabid Nazis. Like those in the Twin Towers, New Orleans and the London Underground history dictated that many were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. The predicament faced by the performing arts in the 21st century palls into insignificance compared with the conditions that the inhabitants, and musicians, of Berlin faced in the final months of the war.

Yet not only did the music continue, but quite remarkably the final nine concerts in those last torrid months included the first performance of one new work (by Gerhart von Westerman, and played in two successive concerts), and one Berlin Philharmonic first performance (Kurt Hessenberg’s Second Symphony).

Today Wilhelm Furtwängler's name is irrevocably linked to the Nazis. It is not the purpose of this article to cover that ground again, too many apologies have already been written. The fact is he remained in Germany as Director of the Berlin Philharmonic through the darkest hours of the Nazis. But a lot of great music was performed in the years between 1922 and 1954 when Furtwangler led the orchestra. Although his political compromises were deplorable, they should not prevent study of the music that was an integral part of the culture during those turbulent years.

Furtwängler is remembered today as an important interpreter of the Austro-Germanic repertoire, from Mozart through Beethoven to Bruckner. He is also known as a composer; the very last work he conducted with the Berlin Philharmonic in concert was his own Second Symphony on 20th September 1954. He died just three months later in December 1954.

During his thirty-two years as Director of the Berlin Philharmonic a surprising amount of 20th century music was performed under his baton. (Don’t forget his tenure at the orchestra only covered the first half of the century). Some the new music has endured. There was much Schoenberg (including the first performance of the Variations for Orchestra, op. 31 2nd version in 1928), much Pfitzner and Hindemith (the Nazi banning of his opera Mathis del Maler provoked Furtwangler’s resignation from the Berlin Opera in 1934), plus Bartok, Prokofiev and more.

But he also performed a large amount of 20th century music that has not stood the test of time. For research purposes I have taken a subjective definition of a ‘forgotten composer’ as one whose work is not performed with any regularity today. Using this definition, I researched every one of the four hundred and seventy-three concerts Furtwängler conducted with the Berlin Philharmonic. This identified forty-five 20th century works, from thirty composers who have subsequently slipped into varying degrees of obscurity.

The results of my research are given below (more details of the research are given as a footnote). The history of these composers varies. Many remained in Germany through the Nazi period and beyond. Some such as Ernst Toch (right) fled to the US when the Nazis came to power. There are very few non-Germans, but these include the Italian Alfredo Casella, who was a known Fascist sympathiser. Interestingly one fellow conductor-composer is included, the Polish-born Paul Kletzki. Some works remain in print, if not in performance. These include the two works performed in 1944 after the destruction of the Philharmonie; Gerhart von Westerman's Divertimento and Kurt Hessenberg's Second Symphony, op. 29.

Looking at frequency of performance, the name that jumps out is Max Trapp. Six of his compositions were given over a twenty-eight year period, three of these in first performances. His works were performed both during the Nazi period (1935 and 1939), and after the war in 1951. Trapp lived from 1887 to 1971, and taught in various positions in Berlin throughout his life. His works included seven symphonies, and chamber music. The only one known at all today is his Piano Concerto, and he is largely forgotten. Why?

There is no suggestion that a body of forty-five neglected masterpieces awaits discovery in Berlin archives. (But how many perished in the fall of Berlin?) But what was this music like? Furtwängler was a brilliant conductor and accomplished composer – does his programming of these composers bestow some merit on them? Or were many of them politically convenient commissions? (This argument falls on the fact that many of the performances were pre-1933). Is the comparative obscurity (I can find no information at all on two) of these composers simply typical of the casualty rate among new works? Have I misrepresented these artists who lived through such difficult times? Do any readers know more about these thirty forgotten composers?

More questions than answers, but an overgrown path that is well worth exploring. Please add further information and views using the comments (or email) feature at the foot of the article.

And here is my analysis of Furtwängler's forgotten modern music:

Max Trapp: Symphonie Nr. 11 in h-moll op. 15 (BPO first performance)
28/29 January 1923.
Symphonie Nr.IV in b-moll op. 24 (BPO first performance)
14/15 December 1930.
Sinfonische Suite op. 30 (BPO first performance)
3 & 4 December 1933.
Orchesterkonzert op. 32 (First performance)
29/30 September 1935.
Konzert Nr. II f. Orchester op. 36 (First performance)
3/5 December 1939.
Symphonie Nr. Vl op. 45 (First performance)
25/26 February 1951.
Walter Braunfels:
“Don Juan”, eine klassich-romantische Phantasmagorie op. 34 (BPO first performance)
16/17 Novembber 1924.
Vorspiel u. Prolog aus “Die Vogel.”
20/21 December 1925.
Georg Schumann: (photo right) Variationen und Gigue uber ein Thema von G. F. Handel op. 72 (BPO first performance)
22/23 February 1925.
Variationen uber “Gerstern abend war Vetter Michel “ da op. 74 (First performance)
2/3 February 1930.
Philipp Jarnach:
Morgenklangspiel op. 19 (First performance)
7/8 November 1926.
Musik mit Mozart. Symphonische Variaten f. Orch op. 25 (BPO first performance)
15/17 February 1942.
Ernst Toch:
Komodie f. Orchester op. 42 (BPO first performance)
13/14 November 1927.
Kleine Theatersuite op. 54 (BPO first performance)
8/9 February 1931.
Karl Marx:
Konzert f. 2 Violinen u. Orch. Op. 5 (BPO first performance)
30 Nov/1 December 1930.
Passacaglia ((First performance)
18/19 December 1932.
Heinrich Kaminsky:
Dorische Musik
25/26 November 1934.
Konzert f. Klavier u. Orch (BPO first performance, the composer conducted this work, Furtwangler conducted the balance of the programme )
28/29 November 1937.
Gottfried Muller:
Variationen u. Fugue uber ein deutsches Volkslied (“Morgenrot Morgenrot”) op. 2 (BPO first performance)
5/6 Feb 1933.
Konzert f. gr. Orchester op. 5 (BPO first performance)
17/19 December 1939.
Theodor Berger: (photo right)
Rondino giocoso (BPO first performance)
15/17 December 1940.
Ballade f. Orchester op. 10 (First performance)
2/4 November 1941.
Karl Holler:
Konzert f. Violincello u. Orch. Op. 26
16/18 October 1949.
Konzert f. Violincello u. Orchester op. 26 (First performance)
19/21 October 1941.
Heinz Schubert:
Praludium u. Toccata f. Streic