The questions raised by Karajan’s music-making in America persisted, even among those who admired his gifts. Howard Taubman of the New York Times acknowledged it was reasonable to argue that music should stand above politics, while he admitted the arts-politics relationship was complicated. Those who embraced the idea that art should transcend politics articulated an ideal that was alluring in theory but elusive in practice, he said. Art could not stand above political battles, Taubman insisted, for artists were human and their work was, at times, directed toward a “specific purpose.” In the case of the Berlin Philharmonic, the politics of the visit were clear: The United States wished to “cultivate friendship” with West Germany due to the international situation, which had transformed the nature of America’s relationship with its erstwhile enemy. That former adversary was now a bulwark against communism.232
Pondering Karajan’s visit, Taubman gave voice to the debate between nationalists and universalists. Many had not “forgotten the ghastly evils and crimes that Germany let loose on the world,” and for people who found it difficult to forgive those “they suspect of nazism, they have more than a little right on their side.” But those who embraced the idea that it was imperative to bring an “end to hatred” also had a point. Taubman considered the listeners who believed in music’s power to serve as an “agent for healing scars and bringing nations into better understanding,” writing that such people pay the “art a tribute it deserves.”233 For many, Karajan’s visit illustrated this conundrum.
Some were less evenhanded in rendering judgment on Karajan and others like him, and were certain they did not belong on American soil. Writing to the Times a few weeks after Taubman’s piece appeared, New Yorker Irma Jaffe spoke of the “reverence” people had for the artist because he affirms “the dignity and beauty of humankind.” Turning to Karajan’s relationship with Nazism, Jaffe insisted it did not represent one’s “political choice.” Nazism was different. It was not a “system of government,” nor a “theory of the organization of society.” In Jaffe’s words, “We are not dealing with politics when we speak of nazism, but with morality—obscene morality—and a Nazi is one who chose an obscene morality to live by.” There was no room here for “political tolerance.”234
• • •
By mid-decade, some key figures had passed from the scene, their departures offering an opportunity to reflect on their actions as creative individuals whose lives were enmeshed in world affairs. Over a two-year period, Furtwängler, Gieseking, and Toscanini died, with Furtwängler succumbing unexpectedly in November 1954. Upon Furtwängler’s demise, music writers had the opportunity to praise his interpretive gifts, which they sometimes did without pausing to reflect carefully upon his decision to remain in Nazi Germany.
Noting the “profound shock” they felt upon learning that Furtwängler had died, Musical America’s editorial staff remarked that his conducting style created “the aura of a high priest at some sacred rite.” The editors were grateful that Furtwängler’s “personal and political controversies” had “never touched his art,” believing—quite stunningly—that the musician, in practicing his craft in Nazi Germany, had successfully managed to divorce his creative life from the political sphere. He was praised for insisting, more fiercely than anyone else, they said, that music ought not be “the plaything of politicians,” and lauded for his belief that art would be debased if it became “the servant of dictators.”235 One might have rejected the assertion that Furtwängler had effectively separated art from politics, and contended, instead, that, during the Nazi era, his goal of preserving the cultural traditions of pre-Hitlerite Germany was indeed political. But this notion eluded the editors.
Nor was Musical America alone in arguing that Furtwängler had stood above the fray in Hitler’s Germany. In Chicago, the Tribune’s Claudia Cassidy observed that Furtwängler’s death meant music had “lost a giant.” Lamenting Chicago’s loss (and America’s), since he had been unable to return in 1949, she noted that his conducting was “light to banish darkness and truth to shame the lie.” With scant reflection, Cassidy suggested that Furtwängler’s wartime decision to remain in Germany was “the case of a man who felt that his place was with his people.” To bolster the point, she cited the conductor’s words: “It would have been much easier to emigrate,” he had told her in 1949. “I felt that a really great work of music was a stronger and more essential contradiction of the spirit of Buchenwald and Auschwitz than words could be.” He had also told Cassidy that “all the good and real Germans” who had remained needed “a spiritual center of integrity,” which he seemed to believe he had provided.236
In New York, readers of the Times could contemplate Furtwängler’s death and his contribution to cultural life in the twentieth century. He belonged, wrote Henry Pleasants, not simply to the German-speaking world, but to the “Western World.” To this distinguished music writer, Furtwängler’s “spiritual world was closed to anything not exclusively German.” His people “worshipped” him, “not just as a man or as a conductor, but as a symbol of the continuity of their musical culture.” Readers of Pleasants’s piece would have searched in vain for serious consideration of Furtwängler’s problematic past, for the critic barely touched upon the conductor’s activities under Hitler.237
Less than two years later, in October 1956, Walter Gieseking died in London. The pianist was remembered in the New York World-Telegram as a brilliant artist, though the paper did point out that he had been known in the United States and overseas as “Hitler’s favorite pianist.” According to the World-Telegram, the concert halls were filled with enthusiastic listeners wherever he played, during a career that included 196 concerts in Nazi Germany, one of which was a private performance in 1937 for Hitler.238 New Yorkers who read the Times learned of Gieseking’s enormous gifts and about the blowup that had occurred in New York, where he was stopped from launching his 1949 tour. The article recalled the response of the crowd that had demonstrated outside Carnegie Hall on that fateful evening: “ORDERS TAKEN FOR LAMPSHADES. SEE WALTER UPSTAIRS” read one protester’s placard, a reference, the story explained, to “the lampshades alleged to have been made of human skin at the Buchenwald concentration camp.”239
A few months later, in January 1957, the world’s most celebrated conductor died, an event marked by a torrent of praise in the United States. Before Toscanini’s body was returned to Italy for burial, a solemn mass, led by Cardinal Spellman, was said before more than three thousand mourners in New York’s Saint Patrick’s Cathedral, where a multitude of musicians came to pay final tribute to the beloved maestro.240 Lauded in the press for his brilliance on the podium and his devotion to freedom and democracy, observers remembered Toscanini for his interpretive gifts and his bold stance against fascism. Musical America spoke of the maestro’s unwillingness to compromise, noting there were “no half-measures in his music or in his life.” The man who would “rage at an orchestra” was every bit as impassioned in expressing “contempt for dictators like Mussolini and Hitler.”241 President Eisenhower recalled the admiration Toscanini had garnered across the world, observing that the conductor “spoke in the universal language of music, [while] . . . he also spoke in the language of free men everywhere.” According to the president, the music Toscanini “created and the hatred of tyranny that was his are part of the legacy of our time.”242 Newspaper readers across the country were reminded of his fight against fascism during the 1930s and in wartime, and that he had “protested vigorously at Nazi depredations against Jewish artists.”243 His “idealism,” the New York Times declared, “reached . . . into every corner of life.”244
That certain artists used their status as cultural figures to combat the evils that permeated international life during the 1930s and in wartime while others had temporized or collaborated with toxic regimes lay at the heart of America’s postwar musical feuds. While fascism no longer threatened the United States, some believed the behavior of musicians like Furtwängler, Gieseking, Ka
rajan, and even Flagstad made them unfit to display their artistic wares in America, although the motives for their alleged complicity differed. For Karajan, perhaps it was careerism that explains his actions in the Hitler years; for Gieseking, it is possible that support for the Nazi program was the driving force; and Furtwängler appeared genuinely to believe that by remaining in his homeland, he could help preserve the cultural achievements and nobility of an older Germany, which he hoped would flourish once the Nazi nightmare ended. (Of the four, the Flagstad episode seems most unjust; the singer’s ties to the Hitler regime were imagined, not real.)
While one cannot be certain what motivated such figures to act as they did, for some Americans, the taint of Nazism, once an artist was associated with it, was difficult to remove. Powerful emotions and enduring memories made reconciliation impossible. But others, hoping to heal the wounds of war, were prepared to separate an artist’s gifts from his or her relationship with Nazi Germany, and even to forgive the Karajans, Giesekings, Furtwänglers, and Flagstads their transgressions.
Such issues would become less pressing as the postwar years unfolded, but not just because the memories of Nazism began to fade. More significantly, the concerns of the American people had shifted, and policy makers and ordinary people came to believe the danger now emanated from Moscow, not Berlin. That conviction would transform the character of American political culture, and the country’s growing obsession with the Soviet Union would influence the classical music community in ways large and small. Without question, the music would continue to occupy a central place in the nation’s political life, but developments in the Soviet Union now grabbed America’s attention, and the East-West competition came to shape the way millions experienced and thought about classical music.
PART III
Confronting Communism
CHAPTER SEVEN
“The Obedient Instrument of the State”
Shostakovich and Copland in the Age of McCarthy
IN LATE MARCH 1949, newspapers across the country tracked the New York arrival of a group of foreign delegates, who had journeyed to the United States for the ostensible purpose of advancing the cause of world peace. Czechs, Poles, a Briton, an African, and, most notably, seven Russians reached New York, where a horde of reporters and photographers met each foreign contingent as it landed at the city’s airports. Upon touching down at LaGuardia, a Polish representative shared his thoughts: “We are happy to land on the soil of Jefferson and Lincoln as guests of American friends of peace,” he said. “We hope the conference will have some effect on diminishing international tension.”1 When the Czechs arrived, one delegate said they wanted to “prove that what is called the Iron Curtain does not divide the world.” Instead, the world was divided by those trying to “foment” war and the millions who were seeking peace. Asked when democracy would return to his country, the Czech delegate snapped, “We have democratic government.”2
The greatest excitement was reserved for the arriving Soviet delegation. Surrounded by New York policemen and plainclothes officers, the Russians were quickly escorted to customs and immigration officials, but not before hearing the photographers’ cries: “Hey, Shosty, look this way! Wave your hat!” As readers learned, the celebrated Russian composer, visiting America for the first time, looked “dazed,” though he managed a nervous smile. But “Shosty” waved his hat for the cameras, as did his compatriots, and before disappearing into the cars that would whisk them away, the Russians were greeted by two talented Americans affiliated with the upcoming Cultural and Scientific Conference for World Peace: a young novelist named Norman Mailer and the composer Aaron Copland.3
Despite these benign airport encounters, considerable opposition would attend the arrival of the conference delegates, as several groups expressed distress about the impending gathering. Representatives from the Catholic War Veterans, the Jewish War Veterans, and the People’s Committee for the Freedom of Religion prepared to join the growing effort to oppose the meeting, as did groups of exiles from Eastern and Central Europe.4 The spokesman for the People’s Committee for the Freedom of Religion, Joseph Calderon, expressed his hostility about the influence of Stalin and the Soviet state: The time has come to take “the initiative away from Stalin and his Communists.” The strategy was clear: “to strike back with prayer and protest—a prayer that liberation will come soon for the Russian-enslaved millions.” The goal, Calderon explained, was to arrange large-scale demonstrations around the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, the main site for the gathering. The group would flood the sidewalks, he said, to “show Stalin what we think.” To that end, the placards of the People’s Committee would proclaim a variety of messages: “COMMUNISTS ARE NOT WELCOME HERE. WE DON’T WANT YOU. GET OUT.” “STALIN MUST FREE THE 15,000,000 SLAVE WORKERS IN RUSSIA.” The Catholic War Veterans even singled out Russia’s most famous delegate: “SHOSTAKOVICH, WE UNDERSTAND.”5
If the questionable histories of Furtwängler, Gieseking, Flagstad, and Karajan had caused distress in the postwar music community, the country’s gaze now shifted to a more palpable threat, which many believed emanated from the Soviet Union. The growing American obsession with communism, driven by developments that saw the Soviets expand their power and influence into the heart of Eastern and Central Europe, would quickly sweep across the American landscape and transform the United States in a variety of ways. Perhaps most significant was the construction of the national security state, which would vastly expand the size and scope of the federal government. Equally important, the competition between Washington and Moscow would touch the lives of virtually every American by transforming the economy, reconfiguring housing patterns, influencing religious beliefs, and affecting the lives of women, gays and lesbians, and African Americans. Film, literature, and television would all be touched by the Cold War. Even transportation would be transformed, as the government devoted billions to improving the interstate highway system to move troops around the country quickly in the event of a “national emergency” (a phrase everyone understood meant a Soviet attack on the United States).6
That the world of classical music in the United States would be drawn into the global struggle was not surprising, and not even the solitary existence of the composer could be insulated from the conflict. The highlight of the 1949 peace gathering at the Waldorf, which was organized by left-wing elements in America and overseas, was a lengthy speech by Shostakovich in which he reflected upon the relationship between music and Cold War politics, and excoriated the United States for its alleged belligerence. A few years earlier, the Russian had been lionized when his Seventh Symphony received its American wartime premiere; but with the Cold War’s intensification, he became the focal point of a polarizing conference that exposed tensions between Washington and Moscow, and between those Americans who backed the Soviet Union and those who believed Moscow threatened freedom around the world.
At the same time, Stalin’s crackdown on musical expression inside the Soviet Union was covered extensively in the American press, which helped illuminate the character of the Soviet regime. Such discussion of Soviet repression highlighted the profound differences between the two countries, an idea kept under wraps during the war when a common enemy made it essential to emphasize their purported similarities. Indeed, throughout the war, press coverage of Russian musical developments had been generous, as befitted the cooperative spirit that marked the wartime partnership.7
Even after the war, for a short time, US reports on Soviet musical life continued to paint a bright picture. Such accounts depicted an environment that fostered creative activity in which leading composers were ensconced in a state-supported setting that would have made them the envy of their American counterparts. In November 1945, the US premiere of Sergei Prokofiev’s Fifth Symphony, given by the Boston Symphony under Koussevitzky, was reported in Time and Newsweek. Both publications highlighted the composer’s apparently untroubled life in his native land. Time’s subscribers encountered a bespectacled Prokofiev on the
magazine’s cover and learned that he was blessed with a plentiful income.8 In Newsweek, one read that the esteemed musician spent his days in Moscow juggling his passion for chess with a commitment to his art, as he resided in a seemingly problem-free society.9
That same month, Americans learned about a government-sponsored home for Soviet composers, which provided a tranquil environment in which they could do their work. This creative space, “in the midst of woodland,” allowed some thirty composers and scholars to live like a “large, happy family.”10 Reinforcing this inspiring tale were the reflections of writer John Hersey, whose piece in New York’s Herald Tribune sketched a similarly appealing portrait of Soviet cultural life, describing how the country’s composers labored together, supporting and encouraging one another. The picture was one of gifted artists, plying their craft in a society that valued their contribution. Shostakovich was accorded the same degree of respect as the most distinguished political and military figures in the country, a circumstance, the headline suggested, that would have been unimaginable in America.11
American readers would also have learned of Yehudi Menuhin’s travels in late 1945, a musical odyssey that seemed to reveal how well artists lived in the Soviet Union. Menuhin spoke of the “hospitality” of his Russian hosts and advised Americans to jettison their fear of the Soviet Union. The two lands had much in common, the violinist observed.12
New Yorkers had heard similar reflections at a conference on American-Soviet Cultural cooperation. Focusing on music, theater, and literature, the 1945 gathering was organized by the National Council of American-Soviet Friendship, a left-wing group. Among the musicians attending were Serge Koussevitzky; composers Aaron Copland and Marc Blitzstein; and an already well-known young conductor named Leonard Bernstein. Koussevitzky spoke about the need to overcome mistrust, declaring, “Let art help forge peace and unity” between both countries.13
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