“Let Us Conquer Darkness with the Burning Light of Art”
Shostakovich and Toscanini Confront the Dictators
ON THE MORNING OF DECEMBER 7, 1941, Japanese planes attacked the Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, sinking or damaging eighteen American ships and striking some three hundred American planes, which never got off the ground. The Japanese attack killed 2,403 Americans and wounded nearly 1,200 more. It was a shocking blow, both to the nation’s armed forces and to its psyche, for few Americans had believed that the Japanese, who were widely seen in the United States as an inferior race, were capable of accomplishing such a spectacularly bold and complex operation. The next day, Franklin Roosevelt delivered his war message to the US Congress and the American people, calling December 7 “a date which will live in infamy,” and declaring, “No matter how long it may take us to overcome this premeditated invasion, the American people in their righteous might will win through to absolute victory.” The United States was at war with Japan, and three days later, on December 11, Hitler and Mussolini declared war on the United States, with the German leader claiming the American president was a madman. For the second time in less than twenty-five years, the United States was involved in a world war, which, in the magnitude of its scope, carnage, and barbarism, would dwarf the horrors of the earlier conflict.1
On the night Roosevelt spoke to the nation, pianist Arthur Rubinstein was playing a recital at Mount Holyoke College in South Hadley, Massachusetts. The plan that evening was to broadcast the speech into the concert hall at the conclusion of Rubinstein’s performance, which had no intermission and no pauses for applause between pieces. According to the astute chair of Mount Holyoke’s music department, Rubinstein played the final piece by Chopin a bit faster than usual to make sure the recital concluded before the president began speaking. There would be no encores, Rubinstein said.2
Out west, fear of a Japanese attack led cities near the coast to initiate blackouts, which inevitably influenced concert life. Two days after the strike on Pearl Harbor, violinist Nathan Milstein began his performance in Seattle earlier than usual, taking only a brief intermission and moving quickly from piece to piece to allow the audience to get home before the start of the 11:00 P.M. blackout.3 In the early days after Pearl Harbor, San Franciscans also endured blackouts, which seemed to have little impact on musical events, including an orchestral concert featuring the singer Paul Robeson, conducted by Pierre Monteux, which drew more than six thousand concertgoers.4 Back east, one week after the attack, the managers of sixteen leading symphony orchestras gathered in New York for their annual conference where they agreed that though the war might cause a slowdown in ticket sales, the effect would likely be temporary. In fact, they anticipated an increase in attendance at orchestral concerts. “During wartime,” a spokesman observed, music would be essential for maintaining “civilian morale.”5
While the attack on Pearl Harbor brought America into the war, the conflict in Europe had begun two years earlier, in September 1939, when German forces invaded Poland, setting off a conflagration that would last six years and kill between fifty and sixty million people.6 Although it took more than two years for the United States to go to war, the American people had felt its impact well before that. As had been true during the First World War, this struggle would have a profound impact on the classical-music landscape. But if World War II would raise crucial questions about the relationship between art and politics, its effect on the music scene differed markedly from the way the earlier conflict shaped the country’s musical life. This was in part because American xenophobia toward Europeans was not nearly as intense in these years, and, more specifically, because America’s perception of Germany in the 1940s was different from what it had been during the Great War.
Once America entered the war in 1941, there was little appetite for revisiting the restrictive musical policies of an earlier time. While a paroxysm of anti-Japanese hatred exploded across the country, the anti-German sentiment that had contaminated America during the First World War did not reappear. German music engendered virtually no hostility during World War II, as those earlier policies were seen as an overreaction. The country harbored few anti-German feelings during the 1930s and 1940s, which meant symphony orchestras and opera companies could perform whatever they wished. Nevertheless, even as Americans heard an abundance of German compositions, the music pages of newspapers, magazines, and music journals were replete with stories about the relationship between Wagner’s music and Nazism. Indeed, those interested in music, as well as those unable to distinguish Mozart from Mahler, could not have missed the idea that a powerful connection linked the music of Wagner and the policies of Nazi Germany, a bond, it was said, that Adolf Hitler had forged. Despite this, Americans would hear Wagner throughout the war.
Just as one realizes that the idea of “enemy music” had disappeared, one also recognizes that many Americans embraced the notion that classical music, German compositions included, could help vanquish malevolent regimes. As will be seen, this idea—that classical music had inspirational value that could help win the war—came to the fore in these years, as did the related belief that the music was interwoven with the democratic aspirations of the American people.
Even before the bombing of Pearl Harbor, observers around the country hoped the war would leave musical life unscathed. In the fall of 1939, a letter writer to the Chicago Tribune applauded the paper’s editorial position, which had declared that because the war was in Europe, it should not affect how Americans interacted with one another. Recalling World War I, when Germans were treated abysmally in the United States, the writer asserted that no one wanted to revisit those shameful days. This enlightened correspondent reminded Tribune readers about the tolerant perspective Walter Damrosch had advocated during the Great War. As did Damrosch, he believed music knew “no country” and was “above hate.”7
Beyond a single Chicagoan’s reflections, it was reported that the city’s operatic and symphonic life was expected to unfold without incident, as no important changes were anticipated in the key personnel of local musical institutions. Large audiences turned out for the season’s opening concerts in October 1939, which included a recital by the celebrated Austrian violinist Fritz Kreisler, whose American performances had caused an uproar a generation before. Frederick Stock began the season conducting the city’s orchestra in performances of Beethoven’s Eroica, which led a local critic to assert that the classic works of German composers must continue to be heard even in wartime, unlike in 1917 and 1918 when such music was often banned. This time around, “our rational temper is quite different.”8
In San Francisco, the 1939–1940 opera season began with notable performances of Wagner’s Die Walküre.9 In Philadelphia, Boston, and New York, there was widespread confidence that the war would not undermine the plans of those cities’ distinguished ensembles. The words of Eugene Ormandy, who led Philadelphia’s celebrated orchestra, resembled those of a diplomat, when he declared his programs would reflect a “strict neutrality.” To demonstrate that music stood above “national prejudices,” this transplanted Hungarian would conduct a number of all-German and all-Russian programs during the 1939–1940 season.10 While Boston experienced a touch of concern over the whereabouts of five French-born string players who were still somewhere in Europe, symphony officials believed the season would be largely untouched by the war. Nor was Maestro Serge Koussevitzky inclined to alter the orchestra’s special focus, which would showcase the works of a German and an Austrian: Bach and Mozart.11
Similar feelings were expressed in New York, where observers of the Philharmonic and the Metropolitan Opera Company indicated that, despite events in Europe, the 1939–1940 season would be filled with a wide variety of offerings. Philharmonic audiences could look forward to a twenty-eight-week season under the direction of John Barbirolli, an Englishman who intended to become an American citizen.12 In the operatic realm, the general manager of the Metropolitan, Edward Johnson, said he expected things to proceed as planned. If any of the singers could not fulfill their contracts, capable Americans would be available. Moreover, Johnson pointed out, the company had few performers with German passports, so there was little chance of a problem.13
The most interesting aspect of Johnson’s preview of the coming season, which was surely shaped by the policies of twenty years before, concerned the company’s thoughts on offering Wagner in English. He noted that the current struggle was not “against the German people, German art or German culture.” This was a battle against “an ideology, not a race. Wagner is . . . not particularly racial.” Articulating idealistic notions that had been heard for years, Johnson said Wagner’s music represented an “international language.” He insisted there was no resentment for the “German language,” and observed that no one opposed German music. The Met would move forward with no ill effects.14
Suggesting the war would not dampen New York’s musical spirit, just days after the fighting began in 1939, the city was the site of the International Congress of the American Musicological Society. The conference attracted leading American and international academics to consider everything from Babylonian musical notation; to the music of ancient Greece, medieval Europe, and contemporary Latin America; to American folk music. In addition to choosing from a menu of scholarly talks, participants could hear music around the city: from medieval works at the Cloisters at Manhattan’s northern tip, to Puritan psalms at Fraunces Tavern in southern Manhattan, to twentieth-century music at the New-York Historical Society on the West Side, to eighteenth-century chamber music at the Metropolitan Museum on the East Side. There was even a recital of cowboy ballads sung by Alan Lomax, the celebrated folklorist, and an appearance by a Hopi Indian from Arizona who sang ceremonial songs.15
While the war might have seemed distant to scholars listening to traditional Hopi melodies, it could not have been far from their consciousness, especially for those who had crossed the Atlantic to participate in the event. The French writer Romain Rolland, unable to come to New York because of poor health, sent a message brimming with universalist sentiment, which was read to the participants: “In the field of art . . . there should not be any rivalry among nations. The only combat worthy of us is that which is waged . . . between culture and ignorance, between light and chaos.” Music, proclaimed Rolland, was “the sun of the inner universe.”16
If Rolland’s words captured the place art could occupy in a world spinning out of control, equally powerful was the sentiment expressed by musicologist Alfred Einstein, who considered the significance of America at a perilous moment. Asking where else such a gathering could have taken place, this German who had fled Hitler’s regime for America, asserted, “Nowhere in Europe.” Quoting Thomas Mann, Einstein observed that Europe was entering a “dark age” and “the centre of Western culture” would shortly move to America.17
In these years, as I have noted, the American people were determined not to return to the anti-German policies of the past. Nor was there much inclination to lash out at German Americans, who were far more integrated into the larger population than before. A Chicago Tribune columnist spoke of the country’s “increased cultural maturity.” There was no desire to censor music, and the best reason for keeping politics and music separate, he wrote, was because “they haven’t anything to do with each other.”18
In early 1940, opera lovers in the East thrilled to performances of Wagner and Strauss, as the Metropolitan Opera not only offered the works in New York, but also took German opera on the road, with many performances under the baton of the young Erich Leinsdorf, who had left Vienna for the United States in 1937.19 A thirst for Wagner was clear in the nation’s capital, where one particularly distinguished listener asked the National Symphony to play the German’s music at the orchestral concert he planned to attend. If President Franklin Roosevelt wished to hear Wagner, it is safe to assume a hankering for such music would not be thought unpatriotic.20
The music could also be enjoyed at home. Chicago Tribune readers learned of an exciting opportunity to purchase a set of three 12-inch records containing two orchestral excerpts by Wagner. According to the ad, many critics believed the German’s creations represented “some of the most sublime music ever penned by mortal hand,” and for a mere $1.69, music lovers could decide for themselves.21
Even if some pondered the unsavory connection between Wagner and Nazism, the music was central to wartime cultural life. As several hundred Cleveland women learned in a September 1939 lecture delivered by music critic Carleton Smith, Wagner’s music had had an enormous impact on the plans and policies of Adolf Hitler. Smith was known for his compelling style as a speaker and writer and he possessed considerable knowledge of the link between Wagner and Nazism; his listeners learned that he had encountered the German leader more than once and had heard him expostulate about the composer’s gifts.22 On that same visit to Cleveland, Smith gave an evening talk to seventy-five committeemen of the orchestra, suggesting, with a touch of irony, that they ought to listen to whatever pleased them, noting they should sleep through Wagner if they found the music a “nice accompaniment for sleep.”23 However soporific, Wagner’s music, along with that of Richard Strauss, was performed by the city’s young symphonic ensemble on its opening program in October 1939, just a few weeks after the start of the European war.24
Several months later, in March 1940, the death in Germany of Karl Muck received widespread newspaper coverage. The reports assessed Muck’s career mainly on musical grounds, as the alleged sins for which he had been pilloried in more febrile times were now seen as an expression of the anti-German excesses that had poisoned the landscape.25 Upon learning of Muck’s passing, Serge Koussevitzky, the head of the Boston Symphony, halted his rehearsal at Symphony Hall and asked his musicians to rise in silent tribute to their former leader.26
Recalling Muck’s accomplishments and the tribulations he had faced, Olin Downes considered the maestro’s prowess as an interpreter of Wagner and his close association with Bayreuth, which became a “refuge” after his return to Germany in the wake of his American persecution. He was “one of the greatest . . . conductors of his epoch,” though Downes noted that this had counted for little in the face of the wartime hysteria, which led to his incarceration for transgressions he had not committed.27
While Muck’s death occasioned mention of his relationship with Hitler, the reporting on his passing was mainly benign.28 Writing to the New York Times soon after his death, Geraldine Farrar castigated those who had persecuted Muck for his alleged failure to play “The Star-Spangled Banner” in Providence. Reflecting upon events from twenty years before, Farrar said she was the soloist that night, and Muck had done nothing wrong.29
In December 1941, in the wake of the attack on Pearl Harbor, the United States would begin to reorient its engagement with the world. As the country assumed a leading role in international politics, the decorous world of American classical music would be replete with highly charged developments, as performers and musical institutions were drawn into the whirlwind.
Even with America at war, classical-music devotees would not be stopped from hearing the works they had long cherished, whether composed by Italians or Germans. According to the Met’s Edward Johnson, the repertoire would not change. The war was one of ideas, not nationalities, he said, and the company would show no “sign of weakness regarding the works to be presented . . . Verdi, Wagner, and Puccini are universal figures,” he asserted.30 In Chicago, one day after Italy declared war on the United States, operagoers heard Verdi’s Il Trovatore, which, one critic hoped, indicated a tolerance for performing works from enemy lands.31
While this wish was largely realized, after the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, not every composition would escape such intolerance, as one beloved creation, Madame Butterfly, was swept from the stage. Because of its plot, which, according to one critic, showed the “Japanese behaving more or less properly,” and an American naval officer behaving rather “improperly,” the Puccini favorite would not be heard in New York or Chicago during the war.32
By banning the opera in New York and Chicago, those who made such decisions were guilty of bigotry and hypocrisy, especially as many in the classical-music establishment had proclaimed repeatedly that they would not embrace the unsavory policies of an earlier time. Whatever their declarations, an intense fear and hatred of Japan, which led the US government to incarcerate 120,000 innocent Japanese Americans in the western part of the United States, could not be disentangled from the country’s musical life.33 Thus, in Chicago, Butterfly, which was performed on December 3, 1941, would not return until October 1946, while in New York, the Met offered the opera in November 1941, and not again until January 1946. And out west, San Franciscans would not hear Puccini’s masterpiece during the war years.34 Clearly, America’s self-proclaimed tolerance had its limits.
If proscribing Madame Butterfly was taken in stride, some wondered whether Americans should be allowed to hear compositions by living Germans who might collect wartime royalties from American performances. But with the repudiation of the policies of an earlier time, that question had been settled. A decline in the anti-immigrant sentiment of a generation before had tamped down anti-Germanism, a point suggested by a 1942 poll in which 62 percent of Americans claimed they did not hate the German people.35
Another factor that explains America’s unwillingness to proscribe German music was the military policy of the US government. Unlike in World War I, current policy suggested the United States was waging war against particular regimes and systems, which meant America was fighting to vanquish the Hitler regime and the Nazi system, an alien ideology that threatened the United States. As an internal government document on the “nature of the enemy” made clear, America was battling Germans not because they were German or because they came from a certain part of the world, but because the German government, controlled by Nazis, sought “to impose” on the United States and the world “a form of domination and a manner of life which are abhorrent.” America’s “real enemies,” the document claimed, were the “men and parties in Germany” (and in Italy and Japan), who imperiled “peace and freedom.”36 This idea, which reflected the government’s inclination to distinguish between the German people and the Nazi regime, appeared to have concrete implications for the American population, 65 percent of whom believed, until the spring of 1944, that the “German people wanted to be free of their leaders.”37 The words of the director of the Common Council for American Unity, an organization advocating cultural pluralism, made the point: The languages and cultures of Germany, Italy, and Japan were not America’s enemy; nor were “the German, Italian, or Japanese peoples,” who were “victims” of their own governments. Instead, America was fighting a “system of tyranny” and waging “a war for . . . freedom.”38
Thus, as orchestral programs, operatic schedules, and the attitudes of performers made clear, the idea of dangerous melodies had largely disappeared. As pianist Ernest Hutcheson, the president of Juilliard, one of the country’s leading conservatories, claimed, maintaining tolerance in the nation’s musical life was essential: “I call on the music-loving public to refrain from musical hysteria. . . . Let there be no talk of banning or limiting the performance of German or Italian music.” As he reminded readers, “We are fighting for, not against, art.”39
Such sentiments were accepted across the country. Writing in the Washington Post, the conductor of the local ensemble, Hans Kindler, addressed the issue on the occasion of the group’s final program of the 1941–1942 season, which included the Prelude to Die Meistersinger, chosen, as was customary, by the orchestra’s subscribers. It was remarkable, he wrote, that even American soldiers felt no hostility toward so-called “enemy music.” Unlike in the last war, there was less “chauvinistic hysteria” in America.40
The music community enthusiastically embraced such inclusiveness. According to conductor Alfred Wallenstein, it would be “primitive if we in America refused to listen to German music.”41 Chicago’s Frederick Stock was equally clear: “We are not at war with axis [sic] musicians, poets, and authors,” many of whom currently lived in the United States.42 And even Bruno Walter, whose persecution by the Nazis had forced him to flee Germany, would not limit his repertoire. “I detest Strauss as a person and I abhor everything for which he stands,” he said about the man whose relationship with the German regime had caused considerable distress. “But Strauss is a genius and some of his works are masterpieces. I cannot . . . boycott masterpieces because I detest their composer.”43
Across the country there was widespread support for musical tolerance. America is “not fighting German music,” it is “fighting the Nazi idea of life,” asserted George Marek, the music editor at Good Housekeeping and (later) a record company executive. Nor did the works of the German masters have any connection to “political theories.”44 Chicagoans learned that German composers were no longer seen as “dangerous aliens.” And for those sensitive to hearing German pieces, the Tribune suggested they “put cotton plugs in their ears and retire to a cave.”45
In Pittsburgh, the subject assumed an equally lighthearted tone in a 1942 story in the Musical Forecast, a monthly chronicling the city’s musical life. Recalling the last war’s “queer pranks of musical patriotism,” when the city banned German music and German and Austrian musicians, the article said things were different this time. Secret service agents no longer eagerly investigated the activities of piano instructors, and the chief of police could attend to his job, since he would not have to approve the purity of local concert programs.46
Rejecting the mistakes of the past, the Metropolitan Opera offered a wartime repertoire replete with Wagner, both in New York and on tour. Audiences imbibed a rich selection of compositions, from the Ring cycle, to Parsifal, Tristan, Tannhäuser, and Lohengrin.47 According to Musical America, in an about-face from the Met’s World War I stance, performances of Wagner and Strauss demonstrated America’s faith in the “art of all mankind.” The country was “fighting the Nazis,” not the pieces by the “great German composers whose masterpieces are as much ours as they are those of the race that produced them.”48 And throughout the country, America’s symphony orchestras also offered generous portions of Wagner, which audiences consumed with gusto.49
Nevertheless, some discomfort occasionally crept into the music scene. In the case of Die Meistersinger, a lingering sensitivity about the relationship between German music and German politics suggests that distress over Wagner had not evaporated entirely. Consequently, the piece, an audience favorite, would be struck from the Metropolitan’s wartime repertoire, a decision that met with a mixed response.50 Writing to the New York Times, an informed operagoer expressed displeasure with the decision to exclude the work from the 1940–1941 season, asserting this was likely a result of the “Teutonic flag-waving which is implied in the opera.”51
But not everyone agreed. Musical America thought the Met’s position was wise, though if the war continued for several years, it might be necessary to reintroduce Die Meistersinger in English because performing it in German, with its “glorification of German art,” might prove embarrassing in a way that was unlike other Wagnerian works sung in German.52
Several months later, Herbert Peyser argued that banning Die Meistersinger was wrong. He reminded readers of the “hysteria of the last war,” when “nonsense and sophistries” were deployed to keep Wagner from the stage. Those years permitted “any nitwit” to cause trouble over the performance of a Beethoven sonata or a Schubert song, he said. But today’s Americans had demonstrated a capacity to learn from their mistakes and behave, by and large, with good sense. The Nürnberg celebrated by Wagner, Peyser wrote, was the “lovable picture-book town of Albrecht Dürer,” not the den of Nazi criminals it had become. And the warning by Hans Sachs, a key character in the opera, that Germans should obey their masters was no admonition to follow blindly the contemporary “warriors” who had stirred “the hell broth of politics.” That was to misread the opera and wed it to ideas Wagner never intended.53
Whatever Peyser thought, Die Meistersinger would not be heard at the Metropolitan for some five years, at which point the war in Europe was nearly over. This was so, even as the nation’s orchestras frequently performed the opera’s prelude. Indeed, in 1943 American symphony orchestras played the Meistersinger Prelude (along with Tchaikovsky’s Fifth Symphony) more than any other piece. And two years later, American troops chose the Prelude as one of three works to be played in an upcoming New York Philharmonic broadcast, which would be beamed to American forces around the world.54 Clearly, the purely instrumental character of the piece did not cause the concerns produced by the fully staged opera, with its evocation of German nationhood.
If performing Die Meistersinger was problematic, the composer’s other works were heard with enthusiasm, even though many were troubled by the notion that Wagner’s ideas and music were entangled in the Hitlerian vision and in developments in Nazi Germany. Commentary on the Wagner-Hitler link appeared frequently in newspapers, popular magazines, and in the pages of music publications both before and after America entered the war.55 In assessing the many wartime reflections on the link between the composer and the dictator, one hears echoes of the debate between the nationalists and the universalists, with the former perceiving a toxic connection between Wagner and Hitlerism, and the latter discerning nothing of the kind.
A genuinely thoughtful analysis of the Wagner-Hitler bond had appeared in late 1939 in two issues of Common Sense, the progressive monthly. Authored by Peter Viereck, who would achieve recognition as both a poet and a historian, the first article pointed out that Hitler had seen Die Meistersinger more than a hundred times and maintained close relations with the Wagner family. Calling Wagner a “warped genius,” Viereck asserted that a careful reading of the composer’s prose writings had convinced him that the musician was “perhaps the most important single fountainhead of Nazi ideology.” According to Viereck, Nazi appeals were based on “Wagner’s social thought,” a toxic stew that mixed “Pan-German nationalism; economic socialism; fanatic anti-Semitism . . . ; hate of free speech and parliamentary democracy . . . ; [and] . . . Nordic primitivism.”56
In January 1940, Common Sense published a lengthy commentary on Viereck’s ruminations by the writer Thomas Mann, who had left Germany in 1933 when Hitler came to power. Visiting the United States in the 1930s and deciding to settle there, Mann became an American citizen in 1944 and would spend more than a decade in Southern California among a community of European transplants.57 A great “admirer” of Wagner’s music, Mann said he had read Viereck with “nearly complete approval.” Indeed, this was the first time that one encountered in America an astute assessment of the “intricate and painful interrelationships” between Wagner and national socialism.58 Calling Nazism “filthy barbarism,” Mann probed the link between Wagner and the German ideology. While it was music he loved, Mann called Wagner’s work the “exact spiritual forerunner” of Nazism.59
Shortly after the Viereck and Mann pieces appeared, the Berlin-based journalist Otto Tolischus asserted in the pages of the New York Times Magazine that Wagner was dominating the current war. It was not the Wagner of magnificent melodies, however, but the Wagner who had revived the “forgotten world of German antiquity.” This was a world of “fighting gods and fighting heroes.” In fact, Tolischus wrote, Wagner was the “first totalitarian artist.” Quoting Hitler, Tolischus, who won a Pulitzer Prize for his overseas reporting, said the dictator told friends that to understand Nazi Germany, one “must know Wagner.” For Tolischus, too, the Nazi regime was unfathomable without Wagner.60 Moreover, he explained, the key elements of Nazism, which had originated with Wagner, were comprehensible only to Germans.61
Reflections on the link between Wagner and Nazism even entered the concert hall, as suggested by the remarks of Artur Rodzinski, the Cleveland Orchestra’s conductor, who spoke from the Severance Hall stage in 1942 before leading a performance of an early Wagner concert overture, “Rule Britannia,” based on the British patriotic air. It was well known, Rodzinski remarked, that many regarded Wagner as a “spiritual co-editor of Hitler’s Mein Kampf.” The conductor asserted that “Hitler’s queer conception of the superiority of the German race” rested mainly on the “mythology” in Wagner’s Ring. Nevertheless, Rodzinski insisted, the music in the four operas belonged to the entire “civilized world.”62
Offering readers an enlightened Wagner, critic Herbert Peyser argued if the Nazis actually understood the musician’s ideas, “they would shun him as the devil does holy water.” In Wagner’s words, Peyser contended, one heard “voices from our own age and our own side,” which suggested the composer would have embraced liberalism not Hitlerism. Had Wagner known how his works would be “misapplied” by those who aimed to justify horrific “abominations,” he might have preferred never to have been born.63
But such assessments were not widely held. More common was the notion, articulated by Arthur S. Garbett, editor of The Etude, that Wagner’s music had incited the Nazis, inspired Hitler, and “intoxicated the German people.”64 Writing in the Saturday Review, musicologist and critic Paul Henry Lang argued similarly. Painting a gloomy picture of the world the composer had created, Lang claimed the Ring had prepared the ground for Nazism, the victory of which promised not a “new era in human culture,” but culture’s “final destruction.”65
Even as some reflected on Wagner’s music and believed it offered a blueprint for advancing Nazi Germany’s malign wartime objectives, musicians and commentators were also convinced that classical music could help America realize its more virtuous international aims. In early 1943, Serge Koussevitzky articulated such sentiments, noting that of “all the arts, music is the most powerful medium against evil.” With its capacity to “heal, comfort and inspire,” the conductor observed, art’s task in perilous times is to “protect the fundamental values for which our armies are fighting.” Music had a special role to play in combating the evils America faced, for art and culture could serve as a “stronghold against the aggressors.”66 At the same time, Koussevitzky suggested, musicians could help by bringing the “consoling power of music” to bear in order to ease the pain of those who had lost loved ones overseas.67 If music was deployed in Germany for nefarious ends, in America, it could fortify an altruistic society in its hour of need.
In 1942, Americans witnessed a tangible expression of music’s power to strengthen the war effort, as the radio broadcast of a Russian composition became the most sensational classical music story of the war. That radio was central to one of the era’s most enduring cultural episodes suggests how important the medium had become for exposing Americans to classical music. While the public had first encountered classical broadcasts years earlier, not until the 1930s would millions tune in on a regular basis. In 1930, the New York Philharmonic, led by Toscanini, began weekly broadcasts; and the following year the Metropolitan Opera began its legendary Saturday afternoon offerings. With Toscanini’s move to the NBC Symphony Orchestra in 1937 (an ensemble created for him), Americans continued to thrill to his work, as the ensemble presented weekly broadcasts to millions of ardent listeners.68
In June 1942, the NBC Press Department announced that the Shostakovich Seventh Symphony would be played in the United States for the first time, in a July 19 broadcast performance by the NBC Symphony under Toscanini. The concert would be heard by millions on NBC stations across the country and broadcast by the corporation’s shortwave facilities around the world.69 Lending the premiere enormous appeal was the fact that the symphony had been composed by an artist from the Soviet Union, one of America’s key wartime allies. Not only did the piece help focus the nation’s attention on defeating fascism, but it also meshed with the US government’s desire to strengthen the bond between the Soviet Union and the United States.
Several months before the Seventh was heard in the United States, stories appeared about the first Soviet performances of the piece. And even before that, in the winter of 1942, Time described how the citizens of Leningrad knew Shostakovich as a “fire fighter, a trench digger, [and] an embattled citizen like themselves.” Dedicating the symphony to what he called the “ordinary” people of Leningrad, Shostakovich said, “I always try to make myself as widely understood as possible.”70 The composer told the New York Times that he had written the work to illustrate war’s effect on people. Considering his new symphony, the Russian said the last movement could be described by “one word—victory. But my idea of victory isn’t something brutal; it’s better explained as the victory of light over darkness, of humanity over barbarism, of reason over reaction.”71
As one reads the breathless NBC press release of June 19, 1942, announcing the Seventh Symphony’s American premiere, the drama of the moment is clear. The music for the piece, which had been composed “under the flame and fire of the Nazi attack on Leningrad,” had been converted into 35 mm prints of the score, and the individual instrumental parts were rushed to the United States across “enemy battlefields.” Traveling by plane from Kuibyshev to Teheran, the precious microfilm was “whisked by automobile” from Teheran to Cairo, and then flown via South America to the United States, where it was readied for the first American performance. According to the release, after negotiating with Shostakovich and VOKS (the All-Union Society for Cultural Ties Abroad), the network acquired the rights to the performance of the “sensational new work,” which was inspired by the Soviets’ repulsion of the “Nazi Hordes at Leningrad.” The release stated that the goal of the American radio performance was to “cement closer cultural ties” between the two countries by allowing the American people to hear the symphony, which NBC claimed was a musical representation of the “fight of freedom-loving peoples against Axis barbarism.” Described as an “eloquent sermon and a belligerent challenge” to the German threat, the piece was first performed in the Soviet Union on March 5, 1942.72
NBC’s overheated publicity material allowed Americans to hear still more from the Soviet composer, who was portrayed in heroic terms: “The bloody Hitlerite Hordes” marched toward the city, which was “bombarded from the air and shelled by enemy artillery.” The composer was determined to tell the valiant story of his people and he dedicated his symphony to Leningrad, to the anti-fascist struggle, and to victory. It was this composition, subtitled “The Symphony of Our Times,” which Arturo Toscanini would present to the American people. The network asked whether anyone was better suited to conduct such music than a man who was himself a “victim” of fascism. NBC’s answer was clear: The world would soon hear his performance of this “musical plea for freedom from tyranny.”73
Two days later but still a month before the Seventh’s American premiere, a lengthy article by Shostakovich appeared in the New York Times. “Stating the Case for Slavonic Culture” offered a powerful assessment of the accomplishments of Slavonic musical culture, while discussing the malevolence of the German enemy. The notion that Slavonic culture was unworthy, Shostakovich asserted, was a “dirty invention of a robber gang” that sought to conceal the crimes it had committed across Russia and throughout the Slavonic world. The gang propagating such ideas were the “fascist criminals,” who were desecrating numerous treasured historic sites. For those inclined to speak of “superior” and “inferior” members of the human race, Shostakovich contended, the German fascists were “the lowest, dirtiest, and vilest specimens.”74
Employing such vivid anti-German language in early 1942 served a twofold purpose. It advanced the idea that, in fighting Nazi Germany—“a moral monstrosity”—the United States was grappling with a malign force, a notion most Americans surely believed. Equally important, Shostakovich’s language sought to deepen the kinship between the American and Russian people in their joint effort to vanquish Germany. In explaining Slavic bravery, patriotism, and “readiness for self-sacrifice for noble ideals,” Shostakovich was not merely establishing a bond between allies against a common foe. He was also suggesting that little distinguished Slavs from Americans. With a tweak here and there, it would have been easy to imagine the same rhetoric flowing from the pen of an American patriot. “Our country” and all Slav peoples were battling the “most terrible enemy that ever stood in the way of human happiness,” the composer wrote. “In the present encounter between light and darkness,” the Slavonic nations would undertake the “great mission entrusted to them by history!”75 Could Franklin Roosevelt have expressed more powerfully America’s reasons for fighting Hitler?
With the Toscanini broadcast approaching, a bit of behind-the-scenes drama preceded the performance, as another celebrated master of the baton, Leopold Stokowski, sought to conduct the Seventh’s premiere. Writing to Toscanini in an effort to convince him to relinquish his hold on the first performance, Stokowski, who had replaced the Italian as director of the NBC Symphony for the 1941–1942 season, spoke of his relationship with Shostakovich and his passion for the Russian’s music. Indeed, he was the first to play Shostakovich’s compositions in America. With that in mind, Stokowski wrote, “I feel confident you will wish me to broadcast this symphony.”76
In response, Toscanini said he also admired the Russian’s music, though “I don’t feel such a frenzy love for it like you.” He spoke of receiving the score and infusing his language with the politics of the era. “I was deeply taken by its beauty—its antifascist meaning.” He yearned to conduct the piece, he said. The aging maestro then asked, “Don’t you think, dear Stokowski, it would be very interesting . . . to hear the old Italian conductor (one of the first artist [sic], who strenuously fought against fascism) to play this work of a young Russian antinazi composer?” To be sure, “I have not any drop of Slavonic blood into my veins—I am only a true and genuine Latin!—but I am sure I can conduct it simply with love and honesty.” Surely, after thinking it over, Stokowski would agree that he (Toscanini) should conduct the symphony.77
Completely misunderstanding Toscanini, Stokowski expressed his gratitude over the Italian’s decision to allow him to conduct the piece. In a second letter, Toscanini apologized for his poor English and reiterated his desire to conduct the Seventh, for which he “felt the strongest sympathy.” He asked Stokowski to understand how much the composition meant to him. There will be more Shostakovich symphonies, and Stokowski would have many opportunities to conduct them.78
On Sunday, July 19, 1942, the Shostakovich Seventh received its first American performance, a premiere heard across the country and, soon afterward, overseas.79 The previous day, the composer had cabled the conductor, expressing his enthusiasm for what he believed would be a superb effort.80 The concert was widely covered in the American press,81 and the Sunday afternoon radio broadcast was preceded by the announcer’s remarks beamed to the American people and beyond. If tinged with hyperbole, the language millions heard prior to the performance is a reminder that public events in wartime America were inevitably entwined in the world struggle.
Listeners learned that the symphony’s first three movements were written during the siege of Leningrad “amid the thunder of Nazi artillery and the lurid glare of the Luftwaffe’s incendiary bombs.” Contrasting German brutality with Russian heroism and American generosity, the announcer asserted that the broadcast was dedicated to Russian War Relief, Incorporated, which had sent food and medical supplies to the Soviet Union, an act of inestimable value to the “courageous Russian people.” The organization’s chairman, Edward Carter, also spoke to those tuned in, quoting Shostakovich, who had recently cabled him to express his hope that the premiere would aid the Russians. Carter discussed the good work his agency had done, providing medical equipment, condensed milk, and cigarettes to help meet Russia’s needs. Perhaps the aid had even provided bandages, which might have been used to “bind up the burned finger of a fire-watcher” named Dmitri Shostakovich “on the roof of the Leningrad Conservatory.” Concluding, Carter alerted listeners to the appreciation Americans owed the Russians for their role in the anti-Nazi struggle.82
Resuming his preconcert duties, the announcer thanked the composer and VOKS for the decision to allow NBC to present the symphony, which had been made to fortify US-Soviet relations. After explaining the elaborate process by which the score and the instrumental parts had been transported to the United States, he offered those tuned to NBC a highly politicized description of the composition’s meaning and the atmosphere in which it had been created. Shostakovich had provided “his own motto” for the piece, a response to the old proverb, “When guns speak, the muses keep silent.” To this the composer replied, “Here the muses speak together with the guns!” The artist had accomplished his task in trying circumstances, composing the first movement as the “Nazi hordes were pounding at the gates of Leningrad with all the terrors of modern warfare.” But the citizens of Leningrad had responded nobly. Even Shostakovich had done his part, inspired by the “heroism” he witnessed every day. Highlighting America’s war aims, the announcer said the work’s finale would “hail the ultimate victory of light over darkness, of humanity over barbarism, of reason over reaction.”83
The NBC Symphony and its conductor presented a powerful performance of the Seventh (the broadcast is available on CD), after which the radio audience was asked to make a contribution to help Russia fight “against barbarism. You know at what cost she beats back the Hitler hordes.” Listeners were told about the Russians’ “indomitable will” as they sought to crush the fascist “monster.” Asking Americans to join in the fight for freedom with the people of Russia, England, China, and the other United Nations, the announcer hoped America’s free citizens would pledge 10 percent of their income for war bonds. This was essential, if the “prophecy of the music you’ve just heard is to become a fact.” To encourage the audience, they were told that all the members of the NBC Symphony had made the 10 percent pledge. The announcer implored listeners to go out the next day and do the same.84
At the symphony’s conclusion, the invited audience in NBC’s Studio 8-H reacted with “shattering applause.” Millions from coast to coast had listened, experiencing, one account noted, an enormous sense of “gratitude” toward Russia, which was “defending in oceans of blood humanity’s cause.”85 Press coverage of the performance reflected the broadcast’s deeply political character, though one is also impressed by the extent to which critics offered well-considered musical evaluations of the piece. After all, the symphony had never been heard in the United States, and most critics were evaluating a work they had experienced, almost certainly for the first time, on the radio, rather than in the concert hall.86
Readers of Life shortly encountered a series of evocative photos documenting the composer’s youth and wartime heroism.87 And subscribers to Time pondered the magazine’s cover, which pictured a sideways portrait of the stern-faced composer in a wartime fire marshal’s helmet, staring resolutely into the distance. In the background stand the burned-out shells of buildings, while the foreground is dominated by the heroic language of war: “FIREMAN SHOSTAKOVICH: Amid bombs bursting in Leningrad he heard the chords of victory.” Inside, the Time essay, “Shostakovich and the Guns,” was a lengthy traversal of recent Russian history; it included details about Shostakovich’s background, along with a description of the Seventh’s journey to America. The composition was compared to a “great wounded snake, dragging its slow length,” which took some eighty minutes to uncoil. The composer had done little to develop its bold themes, nor made much effort to reduce its “loose, sometimes skeletal structures” as one might expect in a typical symphonic work. Nevertheless, the piece did not lack power, for its “musical amorphousness” reflected the “amorphous mass of Russia at war. Its themes are exultations, agonies. Death and suffering haunt it.” But Shostakovich also captured the sound of victory. The magazine’s critic heard echoes of Ravel’s Bolero in the piece, as well as hints of Beethoven, Berlioz, Rimsky-Korsakov, Mahler, and even Poulenc and Busoni. In all, the arresting cover image, along with the rich discussion of the composer, his work, and the plight of America’s Russian ally, surely captivated readers.88
Writing for the New York Herald Tribune, music critic Francis Perkins claimed the work was often “moving, sometimes on its own account” and sometimes because of the circumstances under which it had been composed.89 Louis Biancolli, the New York World-Telegram and Sun’s critic, was struck by the symphony’s martial character, which he described as a “literally battle-scarred score.” No city had ever been “enshrined in so stirring a tribute.”90
Americans encountered lengthy assessments of the performance in the New Republic and The Nation, both expressing severe reservations about the work, while recognizing the circumstances of its creation lent it emotional power. Writing in the New Republic, Nicolas Nabokov, the Russian-born composer and musical pedagogue who had come to the United States in 1933, observed that one was moved by the fact that the piece had been written “under the thunder of bombs.” Nevertheless, despite its “sincerity” and excellent “technical craftsmanship,” this was no great symphonic work. Calling it banal and tedious, Nabokov observed that in seeking to connect with the people, the composer had fallen short of the mark.91 In The Nation, B. H. Haggin skewered the piece, even as he pointed to its noble theme, which traced the “final victory of humanity over barbarism.” Still, it was notable for its “pretentious banalities.” Though capable of moving listeners, the Seventh was an “excessively long piece of bad music.”92
While few questioned the work’s emotional power or the brilliance of Toscanini’s performance, Olin Downes of the New York Times was also reluctant to laud the symphony, though he acknowledged America’s gratitude toward the Russian war effort. Downes was not convinced of the work’s merit, even as he observed that if calling it the “greatest symphony the modern age had produced would send the last Hun reeling from the last foot of Russian soil,” he would consider perjuring himself. But he refrained. While the piece had impressive moments, it lacked “inspiration.”93 Downes also took a political swipe at the composer, his music, and the Soviet regime, writing that Shostakovich believed “social ideology must be back of all music,” a stance the critic found lamentable. Far better to avoid “conscious ideologies” when composing; it would be still more preferable if Shostakovich was not told whether his scores had appropriately communicated “Soviet ideals.” In criticizing the Soviet system, Downes touched on issues that would become problematic in the postwar years, though such questions rarely arose during the war, as Americans were unwilling to consider the creative climate of a crucial ally.94
Reactions to the premiere were not limited to New York, since the broadcast afforded listeners and critics the chance to hear the symphony wherever they were.95 On the West Coast, readers were exposed to penetrating evaluations of the work, which highlighted its political significance. In Los Angeles, music critic Isabel Morse Jones praised NBC for calling attention to the cause of Russian war relief, and claimed the Seventh was “rhythmically clever.” Nevertheless, those who insisted on labeling Shostakovich the “Russian Beethoven” were engaging in “ill-considered nonsense.”96 Her readers also learned that Stokowski had been present in NBC’s Hollywood studio listening to the performance, and that there was talk of making a feature film based on the symphony, which would include him as the conductor.97 Music, not movies, was on the mind of the San Francisco Chronicle’s critic Alfred Frankenstein, who suggested the emotionally rich symphony was quintessentially Russian. The composer had created an enormous “musical fresco,” making it an “international gesture” of considerable significance.98
In the wake of the broadcast, Shostakovich remained in the news for the next few months as the nation’s orchestras seized the chance to play his symphony for local audiences. The first concert performance, given a month after the NBC broadcast, was led by Serge Koussevitzky at Tanglewood, the summer home of the Boston Symphony. However, on this occasion the ensemble was the estimable Berkshire Music Center Orchestra, which comprised some of the country’s best student musicians, many destined for positions in top orchestras. In the audience on the evening of August 14 was Soviet Ambassador Maxim Litvinov, along with Crown Princess Juliana of the Netherlands, and as before, the concert would benefit Russian war relief.99 Speaking to the audience about the importance of the Russian war effort and Russian heroism, journalist Dorothy Thompson called the symphony “a shout of triumph aimed straight at the heart of all mankind.” Shostakovich had captured the voice of the Russian people, who would not be “trampled into the ground.”100
In the student orchestra that evening was a young string player, Walter Trampler, a German refugee destined to become one of the great violists of his generation. He never forgot that August performance, he said later. “We heard Toscanini was going to do it first . . . , but we resolved to play the hell out of it.” Trampler also recalled that Koussevitzky had declared the Russian composition and Beethoven’s Ninth the two greatest symphonies.101 Whatever the merits of the piece, the reaction of the audience was extraordinary. In a breach of etiquette, the crowd applauded after every movement, though the most thunderous response was reserved for the symphony’s conclusion.102
Among the critics, the usual differences were heard, though none questioned the work’s emotional power or the quality of the performance. The Worcester Telegram’s critic was enamored of the music, calling it an “eloquent indictment of Axis tyranny” and the greatest orchestral work of the last one hundred years.103 In the pages of PM, music critic Henry Simon declared the piece, with its “direct appeal to humanity,” would extend long past the present moment because it had such a profound impact on those who encountered it.104 And not surprisingly, the Daily Worker, the Communist Party organ, also detected greatness in the symphony, its critic claiming that Shostakovich’s music captured powerful emotions at “this hour of human history.”105
Eight days after the Tanglewood performance, Chicagoans heard their orchestra perform the piece, under the direction of Frederick Stock, at Ravinia Park, the ensemble’s summer home. As before, the proceeds from the concert went to Russian war relief, with ticket prices ranging from $1.50 for general admission to $100 for a box. The day before the concert, the Chicago Tribune printed a large photo in which three small children and a parrot in a substantial cage were all said to be working for the cause. The photo was headed “Give Their Parrot a Lesson in Patriotism,” with the caption informing readers that the children, whose mothers were working to galvanize support for the benefit performance, were teaching the bird to say “Polly wants a victory.”106
Throughout the fall, American audiences heard the Seventh in performances by top orchestras led by important conductors. Concertgoers in Boston, Cleveland, Los Angeles, Philadelphia, Washington, DC, Minneapolis, and New York (again) had the opportunity to experience the musical phenomenon that was the Shostakovich Seventh. The first performance by the Boston Symphony under Koussevitzky was heard in October, and even if the Boston Herald’s critic thought the piece was disappointing, he acknowledged its “smashing emotional intensity” and political power.107
In Cleveland, Artur Rodzinski, a champion of Shostakovich’s music, offered an October performance. On the eve of the concert, Rodzinski alluded to the precarious military situation in Europe, where the Soviet Union, demanding more American and British assistance, was shouldering the burden of the struggle against Germany. “Let us open a second front, at least musically!” the conductor declared. He called the performance not just “one of the greatest musical events of years, but one of the greatest political events.”108
The Los Angeles Philharmonic played the work that same month. Two performances, one in the orchestra’s concert hall and the other for soldiers at a desert army base, were led by Stokowski, the man who had longed to conduct the premiere.109 Again, local journalists evoked the Russians’ fighting spirit. To music critic Isabel Morse Jones, the first performance, in the city, was the year’s “most important musical event,” though it was far more than a “purely musical” happening.110 On the second night, the audience comprised thousands of American soldiers, leading another writer for the Los Angeles Times, Ed Ainsworth, to observe, if the first performance was “a success,” the second was “an epic.” This being Southern California, opening remarks were supplied by the actor Edward G. Robinson, who, if press accounts can be believed, stepped to the microphone and declared, “Listen, youse mugs, pipe down for the big doings.” The Hollywood tough guy then told the story of Shostakovich’s heroism during the siege of Leningrad, after which Stokowski went to work. As the Times reported, once he raised his hands, “Shostakovich took over the California desert,” and the soldiers, enthralled, would never forget this night when the “musical spirit of war came to cactus land.”111
That autumn, the New York press agreed the new composition left much to be desired, even as they praised the Philharmonic’s October performance under Toscanini, who had earlier conducted the American premiere with the NBC Symphony.112 Whatever the critics thought, the extramusical power of the piece was highlighted in a cable to the composer from members of the Philharmonic, who spoke of the “common struggle against [the] . . . barbarism of Fascism,” and conveyed their belief that performing the symphony could fortify the bond between the United States and the Soviet Union.113
It was hardly an exaggeration when, more than a year after the Seventh’s premiere, Newsweek claimed the “whole world knows about Dmitri Shostakovich” and suggested that those who could not “spell his name [could] at least pronounce it.”114 For his part, Shostakovich expressed satisfaction that Americans had enjoyed his composition, though what mattered most, he said, was that they understood it. Both peoples had “feelings in common about war and peace.”115
The story of the Shostakovich Seventh was entwined in the effort to deepen America’s support for the Soviet Union, an ill-fitting Communist ally in the struggle against fascism. Both a government and a private initiative, the endeavor emphasized the bonds between the two peoples, highlighting their ostensible similarities, along with Russia’s selflessness and love of freedom.116 A key to this effort was Serge Koussevitzky, who, even before America went to war, had a national platform from which he expressed support for his native land and sought help from the American people.
In the fall of 1941, Koussevitzky became the honorary chairman of a new organization, the Massachusetts Committee for Russian War Relief, which would raise funds for nonmilitary supplies, including medical and surgical materials, foodstuffs, and clothing. The group, affiliated with the larger New York-based organization, Russian War Relief, Inc., would utilize transportation facilities provided by the Soviet government to move the essential supplies across the Atlantic. Speaking to the press about his desire to help the Soviet Union, the musician explained that it was necessary to ignore the recent Russian past; it was time to forget the “Bolsheviks. It’s the Russian people we must remember. [They] gave their blood to save everybody in the democracies.” According to the conductor, it was essential to help his former compatriots. They would never be defeated, even if, by nature, the Russian was not a soldier. “He likes his home, his forests, his village and his songs. But when he has to go fight . . . he will fight until he dies.”117
Serge Koussevitzky
Koussevitzky’s support for the Soviet Union was striking because only months before he had quite publicly become an American citizen. In a hymn to his new country on the day he and his wife passed their citizenship test, the conductor called America the only democratic nation in the world. The sixty-six-year-old musician recalled how he had lost everything, first to the Bolsheviks who took his home and his possessions, and later to the Germans who seized his French home and turned it into a Nazi headquarters.118
A month later, Koussevitzky participated in a Boston rally on “I Am an American Day,” an event that drew close to twelve thousand people to the banks of the Charles River for merriment, speeches, and music performed by the Boston Symphony. The nearby streets were filled with popcorn vendors, strolling couples, and picnickers. The vast audience was moved by the words of Koussevitzky, who, before raising his arms to lead his ensemble, spoke about what becoming an American citizen meant to him and about what art meant to America. America was unique, he told the assembled thousands, a place “where freedom of life . . . is preserved; where art—and especially musical art—is so deeply appreciated, and the importance of art, in relation to life, is so well understood.”119
After the United States entered the war, Boston’s newly minted citizen-conductor was no less energetic in his political activism. From the earliest days after Pearl Harbor, Koussevitzky articulated a patriotic vision meant to inspire his fellow citizens; this, along with his status as one of the country’s leading musicians, transformed him into a powerful advocate for the US-Soviet alliance. On December 7, 1941, Koussevitzky and his orchestra were in Rochester, New York, for a concert (the next day) when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. Boston’s conductor responded to the attack, saying the violent event would bring the country together. Shifting his gaze, he reflected upon the European war, highlighting the courage of the Russian people and how they would vanquish Hitler. The German dictator was learning that his opponent was not merely the Russian army, but “every peasant, every man, woman and child.” Their courage was clear. “They may die for defense of their soil,” Koussevitzky declared, “but they will kill twenty Germans for every Russian.”120
A few months later, the nation’s capital was the scene of a gala benefit concert offered by Koussevitzky and the Boston Symphony, all proceeds donated to Russian War Relief. In the audience of some four thousand on the night of March 31, 1942, were many of Washington’s most prominent figures from the world of politics and diplomacy, including Eleanor Roosevelt; Vice President Henry Wallace; the chairwoman of the event, Marjorie Davies, wife of Joseph Davies (former ambassador to the Soviet Union); Soviet Ambassador Litvinov; and members of the Supreme Court, the cabinet, and the Senate. The presence of Mrs. Woodrow Wilson added a touch of history.121
Blending martial and patriotic fervor, the affair was set in Constitution Hall. With Boston’s orchestra ready to perform an all-Russian program and the audience waiting expectantly, the event began with a corps of drummers and buglers from the US Marines marching down the center aisle while sounding a salute. A procession of color-bearers came next, carrying the twenty-six flags of those nations grappling with Hitlerism. As each was announced and presented to the audience, the Marine buglers blasted a fanfare.122 An announcer then intoned praise from General Douglas MacArthur on the gallant Russian army. The crowd roared.123
Covered by newspapers across the country, the concert was a feast from the Russian symphonic menu: Prokofiev’s Classical Symphony, the Shostakovich Sixth, and to close the program, Tchaikovsky’s Fifth.124 An especially exciting moment, in an evening organized to assist the Russian people and to cement the US-Soviet alliance, was the performance of the “Internationale,” the workers’ hymn the Soviet Union had embraced as its national anthem, which was followed by “The Star-Spangled Banner.” Hearing the “Internationale,” Madame Litvinov, her shoulders squared, said she was deeply moved.125 The audience responded enthusiastically to both patriotic airs, and columnist James A. Wechsler highlighted the fact that “hundreds of strange bedfellows in ermine and boiled shirts . . . militantly applauded the playing” of the left-wing tune while they “beamed lovingly” at the Soviet ambassador. As Wechsler tartly observed, in reflecting on the audience with its share of anti-labor politicians, Lenin might have “stirred perceptibly in his tomb.”126
Throughout these years, Koussevitzky spoke eloquently about classical music’s power to ameliorate suffering. In a 1943 address, “Music in Our Civilization,” the maestro claimed the current war was not merely a conflict of armies, but of people, which meant the artist was as important as the soldier.127 Classical music was a “powerful medium against evil,” he claimed, for it could “heal,” “comfort,” and “inspire.” Indeed, Boston’s maestro sounded less a proud son of Russia than an artist animated by America’s global mission: “Let us write hymns of freedom . . . ; compose marches to vanquish the foe; . . . ; let us sing the song for . . . faith in the ageless ideals of . . . democracy. Let music become the symbol of the undying beauty of the spirit of man. Let us conquer darkness with the burning light of art.”128
If Koussevitzky worked to fortify the US-Soviet relationship, Toscanini remained the country’s most politically significant figure in the classical-music community. Celebrated for his devotion to the American cause, the aged conductor was recognized for his commitment to the struggle against tyranny. Writing to Toscanini after a special concert with the NBC Symphony in March 1943, President Roosevelt praised the conductor’s generosity on behalf of a children’s charity, which had been the beneficiary of the event, and commended his devotion to the struggle for freedom: “Like all true artists you have recognized . . . that art can flourish only when men are free.” In response, the musician told the president, “I shall continue unabated on the same path that I have trod all my life for the cause of liberty,” which is “the only orthodoxy within the limits of which art may . . . flourish freely.”129
Throughout the war, Toscanini placed his music-making in the service of the American cause, his benefit concerts with the New York Philharmonic and the NBC Symphony (and even both together) helping to raise millions for the US government and for private organizations like the Red Cross. In 1943, he led an Easter Sunday concert with the NBC Symphony in which the pianist Vladimir Horowitz participated in an all-Tchaikovsky program, which, through the sale of war bonds, added more than $10 million to the government’s coffers. Another million came from auctioning off the original manuscript of Toscanini’s arrangement of the national anthem, for which retail magnate W. T. Grant submitted the winning bid. As a piece in Radio Age, the quarterly of the Radio Corporation of America, observed, this was one of the many times Toscanini had “lifted his baton to flay the dictators.” Thanking the conductor for his willingness to contribute, Treasury Secretary Henry Morgenthau wrote that the maestro and his orchestra had “expressed in music the . . . fierce resolve . . . to battle to victory.”130 Perhaps a New York Post headline writer, describing the 1943 concert, put it best: “Toscanini Slams a $10,000,000 Gate Right in the Fuehrer’s Face.”131
Toscanini’s courage—both moral and physical—was amply documented in these years, as journalists highlighted his passion for battling political oppression. Readers of the American Mercury were reminded of this in a piece by Arthur Bronson who described Toscanini as a “gallant fighter against tyranny” who had grappled with political injustice over many decades.132 In the New York Times, Olin Downes knitted together the conductor’s power as an artist and his political fearlessness, which propelled him to seek truth not merely in his interpretation of a Beethoven symphony, but also in his defiance of evil in the public sphere. The day was near when “artists” and other creative figures would be seen as essential to a progressive society, and Toscanini was perfectly equipped for the task.133
The maestro’s determination to help crush fascism was evident in his feelings for Italy, the plight of which caused him enormous anguish throughout the war. In the previous decade, the conductor had been outspoken in opposing Mussolini, a posture he maintained until the dictator was overthrown in 1943. Having exiled himself from his native land, Toscanini was seen as both musician and political symbol, as artist and antifascist.134
On September 8, 1943, Italy’s fascist state collapsed. The next day, Toscanini led the NBC Symphony in a special broadcast concert, “Victory, Act I,” which celebrated the event by marking the first of three victory concerts he planned to lead as the Allies defeated their fascist enemies.135 The concert, which lasted half an hour, included the first movement of Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, Rossini’s Overture to William Tell, the conductor’s arrangement of the Garibaldi “Hymn” and “The Star-Spangled Banner.” The choice of pieces mattered. The Beethoven included the famous “V for victory theme,” the opening four notes sounding the letter “V” in Morse code; the theme of the Rossini opera embodied the struggle against tyranny; the “Hymn” of Garibaldi memorialized a past fight for Italian democracy; and the American tune, of course, captured the spirit of American nationalism. As he walked to the podium to begin the studio performance, which was attended only by his wife, son, and two members of his household staff, tears streamed down his face. As the orchestra played “The Star-Spangled Banner,” he belted out the words with gusto.136
A few days later, Toscanini published a piece in Life in which he ruminated upon the fate of his country. According to biographer Harvey Sachs, the article, which appeared on the editorial page, was originally intended as a letter to President Roosevelt, but for reasons that remain unclear, the decision was made to publish it in one of the country’s leading magazines. Moreover, as Sachs notes, two Italian historians actually drafted the article, though the conductor revised it.137 Preceding Toscanini’s words, the editors established his status as a key figure in the world crisis, noting his confrontations with Italian fascists in the 1920s and 1930s.138
Toscanini’s text spoke of his “devotion to the ideals of justice and freedom for all.” Claiming to speak as an “interpreter of the soul of the Italian people,” Toscanini said they deserved the respect of all who could “discern between good and bad.” The Italian people had never been America’s enemy, he asserted, but had been led, against their will, by Mussolini, who had betrayed them. Now, the king and “his bootlicker,” Prime Minister Pietro Badoglio, joined by the alliance with Germany, controlled the country and would continue the war. They must not be permitted to remain in power, the conductor declared. As he reminded readers, his native land had been the “first to endure the oppression of a tyrannical gang of criminals,” though he claimed it had never submitted willingly. Professing equal love for Italy and the United States, Toscanini concluded by telling Life’s vast readership, “I love you sons of this great American Republic.” And soon, with the aid of the United Nations, you will help create a world marked by an “atmosphere of freedom and peace.”139
On May 25, 1944, Madison Square Garden was the scene of Toscanini’s grandest wartime benefit concert, a performance to support the Red Cross. More than nine hundred instrumentalists and singers offered their services before an audience of eighteen thousand, raising more than $100,000. The event was an extraordinary cultural and political moment in the life of the city. It brought together the New York Philharmonic and the NBC Symphony, and five distinguished vocalists, along with some six hundred singers from several New York City school choruses—all directed, one paper noted, by a musician who symbolized “all that is noble in the hearts of free men the world over.”140
Adding to the fund-raising excitement, during the intermission, Mayor La Guardia auctioned off Toscanini’s baton, which, for this oversized occasion, was thirty-six inches long—more than twice the length of the one he typically used. The auction raised $11,000 for the Red Cross and that was added to the $10,000 obtained from the sale of a limited number of souvenir programs, signed by the maestro, which well-heeled concertgoers purchased for $100.141
The concert was a triumph.The esteemed ensembles performed some of the New York audience’s favorite music; the pieces were memorably played—as one expected from a Toscanini-led performance. The evening’s program was substantial: selections from four Wagner operas, Act III from Verdi’s Rigoletto, and his “Hymn of the Nations.”142 According to Olin Downes, it was an event in which the “power of a supreme artist and an exalted purpose” created “a historic musical occasion.”143
The program, Downes wrote, reflected the concert’s purpose.144 Most notable was the final scheduled piece, “Hymn of the Nations,” a few words of which Toscanini had altered the previous year, changing the original language, “O Italia, o patria mia” (“O Italy, my country”), to “O Italia, o patria mia tradita” (“O Italy, my betrayed country”), an overt denunciation of the horrors fascism had visited on his native land.145 The conductor had also reworked the Verdi so that it concluded with “The Star-Spangled Banner,” which resonated powerfully with the audience. And before the musicians exited the stage, Toscanini directed a rousing rendition of Sousa’s “The Stars and Stripes Forever,” which led Downes to write that the maestro offered the final two pieces in order to serve both “art and mankind.”146
If the 1944 Madison Square Garden benefit was the most dramatic contribution Toscanini made to the war effort, his decision to participate in a government-sponsored propaganda film, released the same year, was another example of melding music to the antifascist struggle. The documentary featured the NBC Symphony, tenor Jan Peerce, and the Westminster Choir and was produced by the Bureau of Motion Pictures of the US Office of War Information’s overseas branch, which planned to present the film to audiences outside the United States. After a blazing performance of the overture to Verdi’s La forza del destino, the narrator described Toscanini’s commitment to vanquishing fascism and to seeing the return of democratic rule in Italy. Viewers then watched Toscanini lead chorus, soloist, and orchestra in Verdi’s “Hymn of the Nations,” which included stirring excerpts from the national anthems of France, Britain, the Soviet Union, and the United States (the last two added by the maestro).147 While the “Hymn” is surely not a memorable composition, the conductor’s reading, as presented in the documentary, captures the drama of the moment, as Allied forces grappled with totalitarianism. In watching the performance today, one is swept along by the virtuosity and precision of the orchestral playing, the commanding voice of Jan Peerce, the superb quality of the chorus, and the majesty of Toscanini’s interpretation, even as one recognizes that the piece is, at best, second-rate and melodramatic.148
What is most compelling about the government film, and more memorable than the performance offered by the conductor and his celebrated ensemble, is the “plot,” which depicts the decades-long battle against tyranny in which Toscanini and other leading Italians had been engaged. Narrated by the actor Burgess Meredith, the heroic tale, which casts a warm glow on the United States, begins immediately after the Verdi overture, as the maestro, securely ensconced in his New York home, places a recording on the turntable, with his grandson Walfredo watching from the sofa. Intruding upon this tranquil scene is the music he has chosen, which begins with an arresting brass fanfare as the two listen. Deep in thought, the conductor paces slowly back and forth, reflecting, one imagines, upon the grave challenges brought on by war.149
As the story unfolds, the narrator observes that every week, radio brings Toscanini’s music into the homes of millions of Americans, rather like the scene viewers are watching at that moment. Melding the nobility and heroism of the conductor to the implicit virtue of the United States, the narrator claims that America had “taken Toscanini to its heart, not only as a musician of unmatchable talent, but also as a champion of democracy.” As overseas viewers will learn, in the conductor’s American home he has “found a haven of freedom for his children and grandchildren,” though his thoughts never stray far from his “beloved Italy.” In his past, this “son of a soldier of Garibaldi” had never allowed “his music to become the servant of tyrants,” and for two decades, he had confronted fascism in his homeland. Later, he did the same elsewhere, refusing to truckle to the fascists in Germany and Austria. Indeed, when the “night of fascism darkened” the European continent, Toscanini brought to the New World “his music and his democratic faith.” Nor was he alone, the narrator asserts, a point illustrated by the appearance of numerous leading Italians—academics, journalists, a soldier, and even a priest—who likewise opposed the malevolent force that had washed over their homeland. Preferring “exile to slavery,” they have continued their struggle in America, which has provided a sanctuary, a place where they “waited, fought, and hoped.”150
From images of heroic Italian refugees, the scene shifts to a broadcasting center, where a sonorous voice, the kind one encounters on a radio news bulletin, speaks forcefully about the removal of Mussolini. “Italy has thrown off the fascist yoke and is free at last of the tyranny which has betrayed and enslaved her.” At last, the day for which countless Americans of Italian heritage had waited was here, the announcer declares. And then the narrator’s voice returns, drawing Toscanini back into the center of the story. “This was the day. Arturo Toscanini had his answer ready. And his answer was music.” Toscanini fills the screen, seated at his piano, making his way through Verdi’s “Hymn of the Nations,” playing and reworking the score in deliberate fashion. Viewers learn the music is intended not just for Italy, “but for all the nations united in freedom.” Finally, the conductor and his assembled forces prepare to play Verdi’s “Hymn.” Composed in the last century to celebrate Italy’s liberation effort, it is a piece Toscanini had not conducted since a 1915 performance in his homeland during the First World War, a conflict Germany had also “forced on civilization.” The performance would be presented to viewers overseas, who could watch American musicians accompany an American tenor, directed by an Italian conductor, who wished to “celebrate Italy’s new renaissance in freedom.” With that, the baton comes down and the “Hymn of the Nations” begins.151
Press coverage of the film was effusive, with one columnist going so far as to declare (perhaps half-jokingly) that this “white-haired patriot,” who had played the twin roles of “world’s top batonist” and “foe of tyranny,” deserved an Academy Award. “Every crescendo seem[ed] a punch at Fascism,” as the “marble-visaged” conductor whipped his forces into a fervor.152 While an Academy Award seemed unlikely (viewers never heard the conductor’s voice), journalists and NBC officials gushed, believing the film could shape the way people overseas understood the nature of America’s struggle against fascism. According to The Etude, the film would surely “arouse” in Italian hearts enormous appreciation for America’s role in freeing Italy from the “deadly swastika.” Labeling it a “piece of musical diplomacy,” the monthly contended it would do more than a million words.153 The trade journal, NBC Transmitter, called the film a “Sound Track to Victory,” proclaiming it a “musical indictment of despots.”154
A thoughtful assessment of the government’s rationale for making the documentary was offered in the New York Times Magazine in January 1944 by music critic Howard Taubman, who explored the notion that music was well-suited for making “direct contact with people who do not speak our language.” Taubman reflected upon an idea that would become increasingly important to the United States government, especially after the war, when music would be viewed as an effective form of “propaganda,” though the reporter noted he meant that in a constructive sense. According to Taubman, music accomplished its goals “beneficently,” as demonstrated by the activities of the music division of the overseas branch of the US Office of War Information, which was devoting an increasing amount of time to music broadcasts in Allied and neutral countries. The result would be to create and reinforce friendships for the United States.155 Taubman noted the Toscanini film would be shown in numerous countries, Allied and neutral, where it would help the United States “win friends and influence people for our cause.” Nothing was more important to the Italian maestro than using music as a “weapon” to help “win the war and secure the peace.”156
Soon after the war, the film’s power was assessed by American composer Marc Blitzstein, who encountered the documentary in March 1944 in a theater in London, where he was working as music director for the American Broadcasting Station in Europe, which he called the “invasion radio station.” As Blitzstein recalled, he was so moved by the film that he quickly obtained a recording of the Hymn of the Nations soundtrack, which was beamed repeatedly into France, Holland, Norway, Denmark, and Germany, along with instructions concerning the coming invasion and what Europe’s people should do once it occurred. Among Europeans, he said, the response to the music was “electric.” The recording was later obtained by an envious BBC, which broadcast it to a still greater number of listeners. Considering the impact of the music, Blitzstein claimed the “Toscanini sound track provided the most potent single musical weapon of World War II.”157
In the spring and summer of 1945, America achieved its goal of helping to vanquish Germany and Japan. Music accompanied the triumph, providing a salve as the American people moved from the sorrow of war to the exhilaration of peace. But just before the war’s end, the death of Franklin Roosevelt on April 12 was marked by a solemn evening at Carnegie Hall, which saw Serge Koussevitzky lead his Boston ensemble in a concert that Olin Downes said exemplified the place “artists should take in the life of the world.”158
Black cloth and an American flag hung at the rear of the stage, and Maestro Koussevitzky announced that the music would be played to mark the president’s passing. The program comprised the first movement of Shostakovich’s Eighth Symphony, which, the conductor told the audience, had been composed to express the “tragedy and pain” humanity had just experienced. After that, the orchestra played the first two movements of Beethoven’s Eroica, which included the somber Funeral March. Koussevitzky reminded the audience that Beethoven had dedicated the symphony to a “great man” (Napoleon), and that his ensemble was today playing it “in memory of the greatest man in the world.” The final composition that afternoon was the New York premiere of “The Testament of Freedom,” a setting of Thomas Jefferson’s words, which Randall Thompson had written to observe the two hundredth anniversary of that president’s birth. The orchestra then performed “The Star-Spangled Banner,” placed, this day, at the end of the program. Before the concert began, the conductor asked for a moment of silence, and throughout the performance there would be no applause, lending the event, Olin Downes wrote, “the atmosphere . . . of a religious observance.”159
Across the country, the president’s passing was mourned with music, too, as radio networks cancelled their commercial selections to play Beethoven, Mozart, and Bach. American offerings were included, with a broadcast by air corps trainees from the California desert who sang “Home on the Range,” one of the late president’s favorites. According to the Musical Courier, “the voice of music . . . took up where words failed.”160
A few months later, joy resounded on stages across the nation, as Japan surrendered and audiences celebrated the war’s end. In Los Angeles, Leopold Stokowski conducted an all-Wagner program on August 14 at the Hollywood Bowl, where listeners heard the Prelude to Lohengrin and excerpts from the Ring. That Wagner’s music could be offered on a concert proclaiming peace illustrates how differently Americans now thought about music. This sensibility was captured by the local music critic, who said the Wagner Prelude was altogether appropriate for the occasion. As for the Ring excerpts, those were especially fitting as “twilight finally descended upon the war gods of the world.” Maestro Stokowski’s programming was a “deft fitting of score to circumstances.”161 Such words would not have been uttered in 1918.
In Chicago, a vast crowd celebrated the war’s end at Soldier Field, where “reverent relief and a buoyant gayety” marked the proceedings. Mezzo-soprano Gladys Swarthout and baritone Lawrence Tibbett touched the hearts of ninety thousand men, women, and children with a mix of operatic excerpts and popular tunes. From 9:00 P.M. on, the concert was broadcast across the nation, the joyous evening concluding with the “Hallelujah Chorus” from Handel’s Messiah, a performance made still more memorable by a chorus of four thousand.162 Boston witnessed something similar on the banks of the Charles River, where the Esplanade Concerts, a summer favorite, were especially jubilant in this season of peace. On August 15, forty thousand Bostonians attended the “Victory Program,” which included the national anthem, Sousa’s “The Stars and Stripes Forever,” “Old Hundred,” and “God Bless America,” which was led by the former mayor, eighty-five-year-old John F. Fitzgerald.163
A couple of hundred miles south, the nation’s largest city experienced a less momentous musical salute to the war’s end, which is not to say there was no jubilation at the conclusion of the greatest cataclysm in human history. The celebration of Japan’s defeat and the end of the summer season of the Lewisohn Stadium concerts coincided on August 14. The soprano Grace Moore offered arias from Tosca and, of all things, Madame Butterfly, along with some lighter pieces. Especially memorable was the contribution of Mayor La Guardia, who ascended the conductor’s platform and led the orchestra in a selection of patriotic pieces and marches. The mayor acquitted himself well, using the baton to maintain a “firm rhythm” and to give “correct cues.”164
A few weeks later, on September 1, Arturo Toscanini marked the end of the Second World War via national broadcast, conducting the NBC Symphony in a performance of Beethoven’s Eroica. The concert, dubbed “Victory, Act III,” signaled the joyful culmination of Toscanini’s three celebratory concerts, his two earlier efforts dedicated to the defeat of Italy and Germany.165 With the war over, the United States would emerge as the world’s most powerful country, a status that presented the nation with responsibilities it had long been reluctant to assume. The country would embrace this new station, with momentous consequences for America and the world. As the postwar period unfolded, it would become clear that the war’s triumphant conclusion had done little to enhance America’s sense of safety, for both its leaders and its people would soon believe they were more vulnerable than ever. The threat of overseas peril, whether real or imagined, would spill over into the classical-music domain, demonstrating yet again that it was impossible to separate art from world politics. If, by war’s end, classical music had assumed an inspirational quality, which helped celebrate a great victory, the postwar years would witness the return of the enemy artist, an idea that would once more haunt the cultural landscape.