Dangerous Melodies

by Jonathan Rosenberg

  Less than a week after his initial appearance, on December 17, 1946, Furtwängler was called again for a second day of questioning, this time buttressed by witnesses who testified on his behalf. By the end of the day, the panel had cleared the conductor and would forward its recommendation to the Allied commission for formal approval. According to the New York Times, Furtwängler was “acquitted of nazism,” while the Herald Tribune said he was cleared of charges of serving the Third Reich’s interests. The tribunal also decided there was “no case” against the conductor for having “Nazi sympathies.” Upon hearing the decision, the musician bowed to the tribunal and to his German supporters in the cramped room. As the Times noted, the evidence indicated Furtwängler had helped keep Jewish artists out of concentration camps and aided them in other ways. With the tribunal’s conclusion, Furtwängler was allowed to resume his career, a decision American newspapers conveyed to millions of readers.36

  The following spring, that is what happened. In April 1947, the German received the imprimatur of the Denazification Committee of the inter-Allied board, which led, one month later, to a performance with the Berlin Philharmonic. It was Furtwängler’s first time standing before the august ensemble since the war. In considering the April decision, the New York Times pointed out that the conductor had been the most controversial figure involved in the denazification program. The article also claimed that protests had been spearheaded by “friends of music” in the United States, who feared the German might soon be engaged to perform in America.37

  But in late May, such an eventuality was not on the minds of the two thousand listeners who packed Berlin’s Titania Palast, a former cinema, to hear the denazified German conduct the city’s orchestra in an all-Beethoven concert that was ecstatically received.38 Within eighteen months after his name had been cleared, he would conduct the orchestras of Vienna and Berlin, not just in their home cities, but across Europe and in Britain. And in early 1948, Furtwängler led the London Philharmonic in eleven concerts, and crossed the Atlantic to appear in South America, directing the Teatro Colón Orchestra in Buenos Aires.39

  Despite his international music-making, Furtwängler had not stood before an orchestra in the United States for some twenty years. In the summer of 1948, the Chicago Symphony reached out to him, inviting Furtwängler to become its conductor for the 1949–1950 season. The belief that Furtwängler’s actions were inseparable from those of the Nazi regime would generate an impassioned response, even if Chicago’s administrators were remarkably uncomprehending of this possibility.40

  From the start, Furtwängler was uncertain about moving to America, partly because of his European commitments, but also, he noted candidly, because of the continuing “calumnies and difficulties of political nature [sic] which have kept me away from the States.” But he wanted to know more about the terms of the offer. What would be expected of him? How much would he be paid?41

  Eric Oldberg, the orchestra’s vice president, penned a tone-deaf reply, which betrayed a profound ignorance about the way many in the music community perceived Furtwängler. He addressed the German’s concern as to how American audiences would receive him, saying the orchestra had looked into that. “There is no ground for apprehension.” All would be fine. The setting would be especially conducive to a man of Furtwängler’s gifts, Oldberg explained, for the city was America’s second largest and the orchestra was positioned to “occupy a pre-eminent” place in the country’s musical establishment. “The opportunities for great . . . success” were better in Chicago than in any other city in America.42

  The first stumbling block, from Furtwängler’s perspective, concerned the time commitment the orchestra expected. He had no desire to spend twenty weeks or more in Chicago. Though reluctant to abandon his European musical life, Furtwängler realized American orchestras were excellent and that Chicago’s was superb. The conductor acknowledged that musical life in America was improving and he wanted to believe that the political opposition that had kept him from coming to America was waning. Growing more reflective, he wrote to Oldberg, had the invitation reached “me in my 40th rather than my 60th year, it would have been an easy decision.” But now, Chicago’s orchestra seemed to demand a “complete and final . . . parting from Europe.”43

  Furtwängler described his life as an artist on the Continent, which, while not equal in a material sense to Chicago’s offer, was still artistically rewarding. To be sure, a “prostrate Germany” was problematic, he wrote, but there were many fine opportunities in Europe. And lest one forget, the “Vienna Philharmonic—at present still the best orchestra of Europe—comes under my leadership.” Accepting the Chicago offer, which would necessitate a break from his European activities, would be difficult.44

  The back and forth with Oldberg continued.45 But the conductor remained unconvinced. “I have . . . certain moral obligations to prostrate Germany and Austria . . . which I cannot and should not like to shun.” The musician pointed to his need to continue his work as a composer, and “since I am only a man, I also need a few weeks of holidays.” For now, Furtwängler wrote, “I cannot accept your offer.”46

  Undeterred, Oldberg noted how quickly one could now travel from the United States to Europe. “I can fly directly from Chicago to Geneva, each Saturday, in 24 hours,” while New York to London took a mere 19 hours. With the board’s flexibility, they would now expect him in Chicago for only eighteen weeks. Nor was it necessary to dive into the position permanently. “[W]e are conservative and responsible people,” who understand that “acquaintanceship takes time,” which made a year-to-year arrangement possible.47 In November, the orchestra’s president wrote the maestro saying an affirmative reply would be received with great excitement by the board and by the city’s “music lovers.”48 Soon enough, the orchestra’s Furtwänglerian fantasy would be realized.

  In November and early December, reports began to trickle out in the Chicago press about the possibility of Furtwängler’s appointment. Claudia Cassidy, the city’s leading music critic, raised the subject in her column, reporting that the conductor, when asked by a journalist in London about the prospect, had replied, “Nein, nein, nein, it is the first I’ve heard of it.”49 Interestingly, as these reports surfaced, an official from the orchestra, George Kuyper, who had discussed the job with Furtwängler in Hamburg, wrote to the conductor, observing that the press had begun reporting the possibility of his coming to America. As Kuyper reassuringly noted, and he enclosed a clipping from the Chicago Tribune, the report had caused “no repercussions, so I am more than ever certain that the political campaign—about which you expressed some fears—will never develop.”50

  On December 2, the news broke that the Chicago Symphony had indeed been negotiating with the German conductor. When asked whether there were any concerns about his past activities, Edward Ryerson, the orchestra’s president, replied that they had looked into it. He had been “completely cleared.”51 The local press reported on the enthusiasm among players in the orchestra, while noting the emerging opposition in the Chicago community. It would be “inspiring to work under him,” remarked Adolph Herseth, the orchestra’s principal trumpeter who had recently joined the ensemble and was destined to become one of the most celebrated orchestral musicians of the twentieth century. “I believe he and Bruno Walter are the best to be had.” Expressing his support rather differently, an orchestra representative said, “I doubt if he’ll turn us into Nazis.” Less hopeful was Samuel Laderman, a former sustaining member of the orchestra and now president of the local chemical workers union, who said that any “artist who has worked with the Nazis has not only degraded himself as a man but also degraded the art which he professes.”52

  In early December the offer was made, and it seemed likely the famed conductor would start the next fall.53 There were some problems to be ironed out, however, which involved not just politics but the terms of his contract. How many weeks would the maestro be required to conduct in Chicago and how much would he be paid? Migh
t he and the orchestra agree on a reduced commitment?54 Even the new locale, with its notorious weather, was not without its worries. “I’m afraid the wind w[ill] make me very nervous,” Furtwängler wrote. And lingering doubts remained about his reception. According to a friend of the maestro’s wife, even though his name had been cleared in Berlin, the conductor continued to worry about public opinion and feared he would be unwelcome because Hitler had appointed him “first musician of the reich.”55

  On December 17, 1948, it was announced that Furtwängler would come to America as the Chicago Symphony’s guest conductor rather than its chief conductor. He would be in residence for two months, which meant the orchestra would need to enlist the services of other guest leaders, while the board continued to search for a permanent conductor. (The necessity for that would be tied to Furtwängler’s future commitment to the ensemble.)56 Claiming no worries about the orchestra, Furtwängler recalled what the legendary conductor Hans von Bülow had said. “There are no bad orchestras, only bad conductors.” About the Chicago ensemble, he observed, “I have never heard [it], not even on records, but I know its reputation is one of the best.” Commenting on his famously imprecise stick technique, he said his new orchestra would quickly become accustomed to his beat, which he admitted was unusual. But he was not concerned. “Orchestras always understand my beat, which is aimed at producing a softness.” As the Chicago reporter helpfully pointed out, the German was referring to his unique approach, in which “he quivers as he waves the baton.” As for his travel plans, after completing his European obligations, he would leave for Chicago in October. About his salary, his answer was terse: “What I asked for, I got.”57 So it seemed America would become reacquainted with a man regarded as one of the world’s preeminent conductors.

  But now the public, particularly Jewish leaders and organizations, began to weigh in, and the bright picture the ensemble’s administrators had painted quickly darkened. A December 20 cable sent to the orchestra’s chairman by Mrs. Joseph Perlman of the Anshe Emet Synagogue, who represented 1,250 Chicago families, declared that they “vigorously” objected to the appointment. Even as Perlman noted that Furtwängler was not thought to have been a collaborator, the cable asserted that he had “prostituted his art to the brutal Nazi while other, more principled artists fled Germany, or . . . refused to serve the Nazi masters.”58 In mid-January, the Chicago Council of the Pioneer Women, part of the Women’s Labor Zionist Organization of America, contacted the orchestra. They informed the board that their two thousand members also opposed the appointment, claiming it was “unfitting” to honor a man who had played a key role in “carrying out in actual deed the horrible concepts of Hitlerism; concepts . . . in direct opposition to all righteous democratic principles as practiced by the citizens of our great country.” If Furtwängler came to Chicago, the Pioneer Women stated, they would no longer attend Chicago Symphony concerts.59

  That same month, Rabbi Morton M. Berman, president of the Chicago branch of the American Jewish Congress, spoke out against Furtwängler’s appointment, albeit somewhat inaccurately. “Furtwaengler preferred to swear fealty to Hitler,” Berman said, and “accepted at Hitler’s hands his reappointment as director of the Berlin Philharmonic.” Moreover, Berman contended, the conductor enthusiastically served Goebbels’s ministry of culture and propaganda. As for Furtwängler’s contention that he had helped Jews, Berman said that while in Germany he had repeatedly heard war criminals who were on trial make this claim. But this mattered little. Saving a small number of Jews did not excuse him from “official, active participation in a regime which murdered 6 million Jews and millions of non-Jews.” According to Berman, the conductor represented those odious things for which the youth of Chicago and of the entire country had fought. And though he could have done otherwise, Berman pointed out, Furtwängler allowed the “Nazi murderers” to use him as their “symbol of responsibility and culture.”60

  Assuming a more activist stance, the Young Progressives of Illinois, a left-wing political organization, opposed the appointment by protesting and passing out leaflets to concertgoers in front of Orchestra Hall, the Chicago Symphony’s home. The leaflets included Toscanini’s assertion that Furtwängler, because he had conducted under fascism in Germany, had no right to conduct Beethoven. Moreover, the handout claimed, the German had removed a Mendelssohn symphony from a 1936 Vienna Philharmonic program, the music having been proscribed by the Nazis.61

  But not everyone took to the streets to register their disapproval. A poignant letter written to the orchestra by Bronx resident Murray Lobel noted that he was an American citizen and a veteran who had served in the army for three years. “I want to . . . protest against your allowing this Nazi follower of Hitler to conduct” in the United States. According to this ex-soldier, the help of figures like Furtwängler had allowed Hitler to kill millions, including hundreds of thousands of American soldiers. “[M]en like Furtwaengler hate democracy” and everything America represents, Lobel declared. “We must not let him come here.”62

  After the appointment was announced, considerable hostility roiled the music community. Among those who said they would not perform with the Chicago Symphony if it engaged Furtwängler were pianists Vladimir Horowitz, Arthur Rubinstein, and Alexander Brailowsky; violinists Jascha Heifetz, Isaac Stern, and Nathan Milstein (he later claimed his inclusion was erroneous); cellist Gregor Piatigorsky; and soprano Lily Pons and her husband, conductor Andre Kostelanetz. The conductor of the Philadelphia Orchestra, Eugene Ormandy, also said he would not return to Chicago as a guest with Furtwängler on the roster, and other guest conductors scheduled to appear in the 1949–1950 season indicated they might also stay away.63

  Rubinstein and Horowitz were particularly scathing in their indictment of Furtwängler’s activities during the Nazi years. Horowitz said his decision not to perform in Chicago was made out of respect for the thousands of Americans who had died fighting Nazism. Moreover, he declared, given Furtwängler’s international standing, he could have left Germany and had a career outside the country. Horowitz said he was willing to forgive the “small fry” who had little choice but to remain in Germany, but this did not apply to Furtwängler.64 Rubinstein was equally unsparing, claiming in a telegram to the New York Times that he would not work with anyone who had collaborated with Hitler, Göring, and Goebbels. Like Horowitz, Rubinstein pilloried Furtwängler for remaining in Germany, contending, had he been “firm in his democratic convictions,” he would have left. Concerning the claim that Furtwängler had protected Jews from the Nazi regime, Rubinstein called this unconfirmed.65 The pianist was brutally direct: “My feeling against the Nazis is deep seated. They burned my entire family alive.”66

  Along with the public uproar, behind the scenes the matter was becoming problematic for symphony officials who began to doubt the wisdom of their decision. In late December, George Kuyper cabled Furtwängler to inform him that the orchestra had received word that three conductors and six soloists scheduled to perform the following year had told the organization they would not appear if the German arrived in Chicago. Kuyper wrote of his astonishment at this, which led him to wonder whether it made sense to continue their plans for the coming season.67

  Over the next few days, communication with Furtwängler intensified as he expressed his desire to come to Chicago, and his concern that, by backing out, his position in the United States would be severely weakened, precluding his chance to appear there in the future. Symphony officials disagreed, believing his arrival would harm conductor and orchestra, though they were surely more concerned about the latter. The board made clear their wish to end the relationship, at least for next season, and urged Furtwängler to step aside. The orchestra’s president, Edward Ryerson, had suggested that by staying away, the maestro would help his future position in the United States and “public sentiment” would move in his favor.68

  On December 31, Ryerson wrote the conductor, recounting what had happened over the preceding few weeks, in an
effort to convince Furtwängler that his relationship with the Chicago Symphony had to end—at least for the time being. Public demonstrations had begun, hostile letters appeared in the local papers, and some conductors and soloists were “warned” to stay away from Chicago.69 The board now believed a “public underground outside of musical circles” had developed, which would stage “mass protests” and “disturbances of the peace.” They feared a catastrophic result if the German arrived and believed he would be forced to lead the orchestra under “police protection.” Deeply regretful over this turn of events, the board felt responsible for having urged the maestro to come to Chicago. They hoped he would do what was “best” for everyone.70

  In early January 1949, stories started to appear in the press indicating that the reaction among the public and in the music community had led the board to consider pulling the Furtwängler offer.71 Some of the articles quoted Furtwängler, who explained his position and sought to legitimize his right to perform in the United States. In a telephone interview, he pointed out that he had been cleared by denazification courts in Berlin and Vienna, and by a tribunal of German musicians. Moreover, he said, the “interallied court in Berlin acquitted me of all charges,” and he had a letter from the “United States military government” exonerating him.72