The Rest Is Noise: Listening to the Twentieth Century

by Alex Ross

  “fascistic bent”: Mann to Schoenberg, Jan. 9, 1939, ASC.

  “about which one can have”: Theodor W. Adorno, Alban Berg: Briefwechsel, 1925–1935, ed. Henri Lonitz (Suhrkamp, 1997), p. 286.

  “This is Germany today!”: HMAW, p. 527.

  Strauss’s reform ideas: BGFI, p. 577; Kurt Wilhelm, Richard Strauss: An Intimate Portrait, trans. Mary Whittall (Rizzoli, 1989), p. 220; and Michael Kennedy, Richard Strauss: Man, Musician, Enigma (Cambridge UP, 1999), p. 284.

  home of Walther Funk: RSC, p. 546.

  gave Hitler a copy: Ibid., p. 544.

  Bruno Walter affair: See Kater, Composers of the Nazi Era, pp. 220–25; and Erik Ryding and Rebecca Pechefsky, Bruno Walter: A World Elsewhere (Yale UP, 2001), pp. 220–23.

  avoided signing papers: Steinweis, Art, Ideology, and Economics, p. 52.

  Mahler should be performed: Wilhelm, Richard Strauss: An Intimate Portrait, p. 219.

  “Aryan French”: Ihr aufrichtig Ergebener, vol. 2 of Richard Strauss im Briefwechsel mit zeitgenössischen Komponisten und Dirigenten, ed. Gabriele Strauss and Monika Reger (Henschel, 1998), p. 286.

  “total lack of interest”: Ibid., p. 285.

  “terrible, ersatz”: Kater, Composers of the Nazi Era, p. 127.

  “Do you believe”: Strauss to Zweig, June 17, 1935, BDC. See also Albrecht Riethmüller, “Stefan Zweig and the Fall of the Reich Music Chamber President, Richard Strauss,” trans. Sherri Jones, in Kater and Riethmüller, Music and Nazism, pp. 277–78.

  “Concentration camp!”: Gerhard Splitt, Richard Strauss, 1933–1935: Ästhetik und Musikpolitik zu Beginn der nationalsozialistischen Herrschaft (Centaurus, 1987), pp. 110–11.

  Der Stürmer: Donald A. Prater, European of Yesterday: A Biography of Stefan Zweig (Clarendon, 1972), p. 231.

  “opponent of the regime”: Joachim Fest, Albert Speer: Conversations with Hitler’s Architect, trans. Patrick Camiller (Polity, 2007), pp. 45–46.

  “I consider…Jew baiting”: A Confidential Matter: The Letters of Richard Strauss and Stefan Zweig, 1931–1935, trans. Max Knight (University of California Press, 1977), p. 119.

  “the great designer”: Josef Wulf, Musik im Dritten Reich: Eine Dokumentation (Mohn, 1963), p. 184.

  whose manuscript he presented to Hitler: Albrecht Dümling, “Zwischen Autonomie und Fremdbestimmug: Die Olympische Hymne von Robert Lubahn und Richard Strauss,” Richard Strauss-Blätter 38 (Dec. 1997), p. 80; and RSC, p. 559. For accounts of the performance, see Richard D. Mandell, The Nazi Olympics (University of Illinois Press, 1987), p. 152; and Frederick T. Burchall, “100,000 Hail Hitler; U.S. Athletes Avoid Nazi Salute to Him,” New York Times, Aug. 2, 1936.

  Richard and Christian: Kater, Composers of the Nazi Era, p. 253.

  Franz and Alice interrogated: Ibid., p. 256.

  Franz defends Nazis: Feb. 21, 1944, report, Franz Strauss file, BDC. 326 arguments in the house: Kater’s communication to author.

  Friedenstag: Gerhard Splitt, “Oper als Politikum: ‘Friedenstag’ (1938) von Richard Strauss,” Archiv für Musikwissenschaft 55:3(1998), pp. 220–51, paints Friedenstag as a political opera, but Gilliam gives a different picture in BGFI, p. 587, noting that Strauss described one political interpretation of the opera as an example of a “kindergarten” mentality.

  “Whoever lights”: AHRP I:2, p. 514. The playing of the Fanfare can be heard on the Koch Schwann recording Edition Wiener Staatsoper Live, vol. 15 (3-1465-2), containing the entire performance of Friedenstag on June 10, 1939.

  Strauss and Goebbels: RSC, p. 597.

  “He is unpolitical”: JGT I:6, p.375.

  Strauss received assurances: BGRS, p. 160.

  “I say a few sweet nothings”: JGT I:9, p. 165.

  “Lehár has the masses”: Werner Egk, Die Zeit wartet nicht (R. S. Schulz, 1973), pp. 342–43.

  “Posterity must cherish”: JGT I:6, pp. 244–45.

  “Very often in my life”: AHRP II:1, p. 1058.

  “The Jews in Germany”: AHRP II:2, p. 1920.

  “I have always been scorned”: Ibid., p. 1937.

  “The laughter of Kundry”: Otto Weininger, Über die letzten Dinge (Braumüller, 1918), p. 91.

  “The record player was pulled out”: Frank, Im Angesicht des Galgens, p. 213.

  “design a timeless”: Hamann, Winifred Wagner, pp. 440–41.

  “an orgy from hell”: Ibid., pp. 284–85.

  Joachim Köhler: See his Wagner’s Hitler, pp. 230–31.

  Paula Neumann: Wilhelm, Richard Strauss: An Intimate Portrait, p. 264; Hamann, Winifred Wagner, p. 454.

  “The last words”: Kennedy, Richard Strauss, p. 333.

  August 3, 1941,…October 28, 1942: www.holocaustchronicle.org/StaticPages/254.html and www.holocaustchronicle.org/StaticPages/381.html (accessed Nov. 11,2006).

  Schulhoff’s Eighth: Josef Bek, Erwin Schulhoff: Leben und Werk (Bockel, 1994), p. 152.

  Karel Ancčerl: Viktor Ullmann, 26 Kritiken über musikalische Veranstaltungen in Theresienstadt, ed. Ingo Schultz (Bockel, 1993), pp. 66–67. For the “Ode to Joy” being sung by the children’s chorus of the Theresienstadt family camp at Auschwitz, see Jozča Karas, Music in Terezín, 1941–1945 (Beaufort, 1985), pp. 158–59. For the deportations, see Lubomír Peduzzi, Pavel Haas: zčivot a dílo skladatele (Muzejní a vlastivečdná spolenost v Brneč, 1993), p. 165.

  biography of Rosé: See Richard Newman and Karen Kirtley, Alma Rosé: Vienna to Auschwitz (Amadeus, 2000).

  Rosé’s repertory: Ibid., pp. 249–55 and 262–66.

  “She lived in another world”: Reminiscence of Manca Svalbova, in Hermann Langbein, People in Auschwitz, trans. Harry Zohn (University of North Carolina Press, 2004), p. 127.

  other recollections: Ibid., p. 128.

  Rosé’s death: Newman and Kirtley, Alma Rosé, pp. 305–6.

  Neumann’s death: Hamann, Winifred Wagner, p. 454, says that Neumann was deported east in 1943.

  “sympathy for death”: Thomas Mann, The Magic Mountain, trans. John E. Woods (Knopf, 1995), p. 643.334 “changed the discs”: Simon Sebag Montefiore, Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar (Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2003), p. 73.

  Berghof playlist: Junge, Until the Final Hour, pp. 80–81.335 catalog of the Berghof: Schallplatten-Verzeichnis, Third Reich Collection, Rare Book and Special Collections, Library of Congress.

  “Bruckner was the greatest”: Hitler, Monologe im Führer-Hauptquartier, p. 198 (Bruckner and Mozart) and p. 224 (Wesendonck).

  “‘I would scrape’”: Heinrich Hoffman, Hitler Was My Friend, trans. R. H. Stevens (Burke, 1955), pp. 189–90.

  “I had the impression”: G. M. Gilbert, Nuremberg Diary (Da Capo, 1995), p. 71.

  Bruckner Orchestra: JGT II:7, p. 619.

  Furtwängler’s bunker: Prieberg, Trial of Strength, pp. 307–9.

  “No soldier needs to fall”: Wilhelm, Richard Strauss: An Intimate Portrait, p. 256.

  “My achievements”: Strauss to Hitler, Jan. 15, 1944, BDC.

  Furtwängler advised: Prieberg, Musik im NS Staat, p. 214.

  gifts from Hitler and Goebbels: John Deathridge, “Richard Strauss and the Broken Dream of Modernity,” in Richard Strauss und die Moderne, ed. Bernd Edelmann, Birgit Lodes, and Reinhold Schlötterer (Henschel, 2001), pp. 84–85.

  “a complete bystander”: Heinz Ihlert to Hans Hinkel, May 22, 1935, BDC.

  “miserable”: JGT II:12, p. 527.

  “completely second-rate”: Fest, Albert Speer, p. 45.

  Jackson has suggested: See Timothy Jackson, “The Metamorphosis of the Metamorphosen: New Analytical and Source-Critical Discoveries,” in Richard Strauss: New Perspectives on the Composer and His Works, ed. Bryan Gilliam (Duke UP, 1992), pp. 199–201.

  cyanide capsules: Joachim Fest, Speer: TheFinal Verdict, trans. Ewald Osers and Alexandra Dring (Harcourt, 2001), p. 261.

  Tristan: Christa Schroeder, Er war mein Chef, ed. Anton Joachimsthaler (Langen Müller, 1985), p. 189.

  “Everything had to go down”: Goldensohn,
Nuremberg Interviews, p. 99.

  “experience its own annihilation”: Walter Benjamin, Selected Writings, Volume 4, 1938–1940, ed. Howard Eiland and Michael W. Jennings, trans. Edmund Jephcott et al. (Harvard UP, 2003), p. 270.

  Hitler’s death: H. R. Trevor-Roper, The Last Days of Hitler (Macmillan, 1947).

  10. Zero Hour

  “We live in a time”: Interview with Charles Amirkhanian, Jan. 14, 1992, quoted in Writings Through John Cage’s Music, Poetry, and Art, ed. David W. Bernstein and Christopher Hatch (University of Chicago Press, 2001), p. 1.343 bombing of Garmisch: See Ian Sayer and Douglas Botting, Nazi Gold (Grove, 1984), p. 77.

  Strauss’s meetings with Americans: See Peter Bloom, “History, Memory, and the Oboe Concerto of Richard Strauss,” Pendragon Review 2 (2001), p. 4; author’s interview with Milton Weiss, Aug. 7, 1997; Meyer Levin, “We Liberated Who’s Who,” Saturday Evening Post, July 21, 1945 (on Kramers); Michael H. Kater, “Jupiter in Hell,” New York Times, Jan. 6, 2002; and Walter Panofsky, Richard Strauss: Partitur eines Lebens (Piper, 1965), p. 331.

  “Hitler’s father”: Kurt Wilhelm, Richard Strauss persönlich: Eine Bildbiographie(Kindler, 1984), p. 363.

  several future leaders: See Stockhausen on Music, ed. Robin Maconie (Marion Boyars, 1989), pp. 15–23; Michael Kurtz, Stockhausen: Eine Biographie (Bärenreiter, 1988), p. 37; Hans Werner Henze, Bohemian Fifths: An Autobiography, trans. Stewart Spencer (Princeton UP, 1999), pp. 43–45; David Osmond-Smith, Berio (Oxford UP, 1991), p. 3; and Nouritza Matossian, Xenakis (Taplinger, 1986), p. 26.

  Britten at Bergen-Belsen: See DMBB2, pp. 1272–74. For the dates of Holy Sonnets, see Benjamin Britten: A Catalogue of the Published Works, ed. Paul Banks et al. (Britten-Pears Library, 1999), pp. 75–76. For Oppenheimer, see Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin, American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer (Knopf, 2005), p. 304.

  “The people starve”: Bernstein to Helen Coates, May 5, 1948, Leonard Bernstein Collection, Library of Congress. For a good description of Germany’s “year zero,” see Patricia Meehan, A Strange Enemy People: Germans Under the British, 1945–1950 (Peter Owen, 2001), pp. 31–43.

  “inclined to be bolshevistic”: Jean Edward Smith, Lucius D. Clay: An American Life (Holt, 1990), p. 42.

  “We are trying”: Proceedings of the Berchtesgaden Conference, Oct. 8–12, 1948, Education and Cultural Relations (hereafter E&CR), OMGUS.

  “He’s hep”: Nicolas Nabokov, Old Friends and New Music (Little, Brown, 1951), p. 258.

  Music Branches: For more on OMGUS’s music officers, see David Monod, Settling Scores: German Music, Denazification, and the Americans, 1945–1953 (University of North Carolina Press, 2005).

  Moseley at Tanglewood: Humphrey Burton, Leonard Bernstein (Doubleday, 1994), p. 94. For Moseley’s report on Bernstein’s visit, see Monthly Summary, May 24, 1948, E&CR, OMG Bavaria, OMGUS.

  “It means so much”: Bernstein to Helen Coates, May 11, 1948, Leonard Bernstein Collection, Library of Congress.

  Moseley’s visit to Bayreuth: Author’s interview with Carlos Moseley, Aug. 30, 2002.

  four exclamation points: Walter Schertz-Parey, Winifred Wagner: Ein Leben für Bayreuth (Stocker, 1999), p. 181.

  “It is above all”: “Music Control Instruction No. 1,” June 19, 1945, Supreme Headquarters of the Allied Expeditionary Force, Psychological Warfare Division, OMGUS.

  “The rule of having”: Edward Kilenyi, Report to Chief, Theater and Music, Aug. 10, 1945, E&CR, OMG Bavaria, OMGUS. For Kilenyi’s background, see Monod, Settling Scores, pp. 21–22.

  “I hear such nice”: Oct. 31, 1948, Civil Censorship Division, USFET (GERMAN), OMGUS.

  Newell Jenkins and Orff: See Monod, Settling Scores, p. 65; and Michael H. Kater, Composers of the Nazi Era, pp. 133–40. Jenkins had the added distinction of being the grandson of Richard Wagner’s dentist.

  “a man of the utmost”: Arthur C. Vogler, “Daily Report,” June 15, 1945, E&CR, OMG Bavaria, OMGUS.

  “They are extremely shy”: Participation of Music Section in Reorientation Activities, May 9, 1947, E&CR, OMG Bavaria, OMGUS.

  Moseley’s patronage: Semi-annual Report, July 1–Dec. 31, 1948, E&CR, OMG Bavaria, OMGUS.

  piano on jeep: Amy C. Beal, New Music, New Allies: American Experimental Music in Germany from Zero Hour to Reunification (University of California Press, 2006), pp. 40 and 38.

  “contemporary music only”: Everett Helm, “Letter from Germany,” undated manuscript (apparently 1948), Theater and Music, E&CR, OMGUS.

  “It would be both”: Evarts to Harrison Kerr, April 23, 1949, Theater and Music, Education, Records of the Cultural Affairs Branch, E&CR, OMGUS.

  “In my former army service”: Schoenberg to John Evarts, April 23, 1949, ASC.

  “acquired a reputation”: Ralph A. Burns, “Review of Activities for the Month of June 1949,” Theater and Music, Education, Records of the Cultural Affairs Branch, E&CR, OMGUS.

  excitement over Leibowitz: Henze, Bohemian Fifths, p. 74.

  “The Darmstadt Holiday Courses”: Burns, “Review of Activities for the Month of July 1949.”

  “segregation of the modern”: Monod, Settling Scores, p. 198.

  “the prophet of a new”: Hans Moldenhauer, The Death of Anton Webern: A Drama in Documents (Philosophical Library, 1961), p. 5. Moldenhauer notes that the cook died of alcoholism in 1955 in Mount Olive, North Carolina, adding that the Mount of Olives was “the scene of the agony and betrayal of Jesus Christ” (p. 98).

  “happens to be about”: See Klaus Mann, Briefe und Antworten, Band II: 1937–1949, ed. Martin Gregor-Dellin (Edition Span-genberg, 1975), p. 226. See also Klaus Mann, Der Wendepunkt: Ein Lebensbericht (Nymphenburger, 1969), p. 488; and Gertrud Maria Rösch, “‘I thought it wiser not to disclose my identity’: Die Begegnung zwischen Klaus Mann und Richard Strauss im Mai 1945,” Thomas Mann Jahrbuch 14(2001), pp. 233–48. For the unsent letter to Mann, see Walter Thomas, Richard Strauss und seine Zeitgenossen (Langen Müller, 1964), p. 283; Richard Strauss, Briefwechsel mit Willi Schuh (Atlantis, 1969), p. 81; and Hans Rudolf Vaget, “The Spell of Salome: Thomas Mann and Richard Strauss,” in German Literature and Music: An Aesthetic Fusion, 1890–1989, ed. Claus Reschke and Howard Pollack (Fink, 1992), p. 46.

  “Oh, yes”: Russell Campitelli to author, June 10, 2003.

  photograph of Strauss: Included in John de Lancie’s letter to the author, Dec. 23, 1999.

  “Masters of the very first”: David Farrell Krell and Donald L. Bates, The Good European: Nietzsche’s Work Sites in Word and Image (University of Chicago Press, 1997), p. 217. Originally in The Gay Science, sec. 281.

  11. Brave New World

  “Everything begins”: Charles Péguy, Notre jeunesse (Gallimard, 1933), p. 30.

  “for most people”: Morton Feldman, “An Interview with Robert Ashley, August 1964,” in Contemporary Composers on Contemporary Music, ed. Elliott Schwartz and Barney Childs (Da Capo, 1998), pp. 363 and 365.

  “it was like the defection”: Leonard Bernstein, The Unanswered Question: Six Talks at Harvard (Harvard UP, 1976), p. 419.

  “Before the end”: Allen Edwards, Flawed Words and Stubborn Sounds: A Conversation with Elliott Carter (Norton, 1971), p. 61.

  Adorno on Copland: Theodor W. Adorno, Minima Moralia: Reflections from Damaged Life, trans. E.F.N. Jephcott (Verso, 1978), p. 207.

  “has taken upon itself”: Theodor W. Adorno, Philosophie der neuen Musik (Suhrkamp, 1976), p. 126.

  “My adoption”: Ernst Krenek, “A Composer’s Influences,” Perspectives of New Music 3:1 (Fall–Winter 1964), p. 38.

  “uncompromising”: René Leibowitz, Schoenberg and His School: The Contemporary Stage of the Language of Music, trans. Dika Newlin (Da Capo, 1975), p. xvi.

  “I do not compose principles”: ASL, pp. 236–37. On Adorno, see JASR, p. 335.

  “Schbrg clique”: Robert Craft, Stravinsky: Glimpses of a Life (St. Martin’s, 1993), p. 40.

  “The second half”: JASR, p. 333
. For the original utterance, see ibid., p. 66.

  “I cannot deny”: ASSI, p. 286.

  “Abyss of the Birds”: Nigel Simeone, Olivier Messiaen: A Bibliographical Catalogue of Messiaen’s Works (Schneider, 1998), p. 72; and Rebecca Rischin, For the End of Time: The Story of the Messiaen Quartet (Cornell UP, 2003), pp. 9–12.

  Rebecca Rischin reveals: Rischin, For the End of Time, pp. 27–31 and 72–73. For other details, see Antoine Goléa, Rencontres avec Olivier Messiaen ( Juilliard, 1960), p. 62.

  steady beat: Claude Samuel, Olivier Messiaen: Music and Color, trans. E. Thomas Glasow (Amadeus, 1986), p. 68.

  rhythmic cells: Olivier Messiaen, The Technique of My Musical Language, trans. John Satterfield (Leduc, 1956), p. 14.

  “implacable destiny”: Olivier Messiaen, “Le rythme chez Igor Strawinsky,” La Revue musicale 191 (1939), pp. 91–92.

  “M. Boulez”: Nigel Simeone’s communication to author. See also NSPHM, p. 138.

  “like a young cat”: Jean-Louis Barrault, “Travailler avec Boulez,” Résonance 8(1995), reprinted at mediatheque.ircam.fr/articles/textes/Barrault 95a (accessed Dec. 17, 2006).

  Peyser on Tézenas: Joan Peyser, Boulez: Composer, Conductor, Enigma (Schirmer Books, 1976), pp. 54 and 246.

  “The Germans virtually”: Ibid., p. 25.

  “When he first entered”: Ibid., p. 31.

  “like a lion”: “Entretien avec Claude Samuel,” booklet included with the 1988 Erato box-set recording of Messiaen’s works (ECD 75505), p. 27.

  booing, shouting: See Antoine Goléa, “La Musique,” Esprit, May 1945; Guy Bernard-Delapierre, “Musique d’un autre monde,” Confluences, April 1945; Guy Bernard-Delapierre, “Post-scriptum: Le Cas Strawinsky,” Confluences, May 1945, p. 439; Antoine Goléa, Rencontres avec Pierre Boulez (Julliard, 1958), pp. 9–10; Peyser, Boulez, p. 33; Peter Heyworth, “Taking Leave of Predecessors,” pt. 1, New Yorker, March 24, 1973, p. 45; and, for the most thorough account, SWS2, pp. 175–77.

  “pseudo-youths”: Francis Poulenc, “Vive Strawinsky,” Le Figaro, April 7, 1945. For “fanatic sect,” see Francis Poulenc, Correspondance, 1910–1963, ed. Myriam Chimènes (Fayard, 1994), p. 585.

  “dry and inhuman”: NSPHM, p. 153.