May we separate the music from the musician?

By David Amos

SAN DIEGO — Over a decade ago I received the following letter: “My opinion of our local classical music radio station would be a lot higher if they didn’t play music involving (Conductor) Herbert Von Karajan. This man was a prominent Nazi during World War II. They shouldn’t honor this man by playing his music since he was part of one of the biggest murder gangs of all time. Martin Bernheimer, former music critic of the Los Angeles Times did a good documentary on Von Karajan several years ago. I also heard about him from people who fled Germany. These type of individuals shouldn’t be helped to profit from their past”. (Herb Lipsky, La Jolla).

With the recent rash of anti-Semitism, Israel bashing, and Yom Hashoah of two months ago, this may be a good time to re-address this letter and its implications.

This gentleman is right. Von Karajan (1908-1989) was a Nazi. With two distinct membership cards. Even though he later said that he did it only in order to keep working in Germany during the Third Reich, this was not true; many other musicians who refused to join the party were allowed to work, as long as they were not Jewish. At the end of the war, during the war criminal trials and the “de-Nazification” carried out by the Allies, Von Karajan came out fairly unscathed. In contrast, Wilhelm Furtwangler, who was never a party member and was renowned for helping many Jewish musicians escape Germany, was raked through the coals. Even though he was cleared of any wrongdoings, his standing in the world of music, especially the U.S. was never the same.

At the end of World War II, Walter Legge, the British record producer (who later married soprano Elisabeth Schwarzkopf) was searching for a dashing, fresh face with which to launch a series of orchestral recordings for EMI in England.
The Philharmonia Orchestra was founded just for that purpose. (I have had the pleasure of conducting that orchestra in two CD albums). Furtwangler was Legge’s first choice. But because of inside politics and other questionable circumstances, Von Karajan was selected for this project. I personally know some of the musicians who played in those recording sessions and resented his past, his arrogance and his detached attitude. They were far from being complimentary, but let us not forget that the British people suffered direct attacks from Germany, and were more affected in their home territory than we were in the U.S.

We pretty much know the rest of the story. Von Karajan was propelled into a superstar jetsetter career which made him one of the greatest conductors on the Twentieth Century. He was certainly lucky enough to be at the right place at the right time, but his talent was never in doubt. He was not known to be directly anti-Semitic, in word or deed.

Leaving aside Von Karajan’s Nazi past, personally, I have never been a fan of his music-making. He was an opportunist and an autocrat on and off the podium. I can hear this reflected in the music he conducted. He himself said in Salzburg
in 1955, “I shall be a dictator”. Zubin Mehta is quoted as saying, “The trouble with Karajan is that music was never enough for him”.

Curiously, Von Karajan said of himself, “The problem with so many colleagues is that they have nothing else but music. I have the world”.

British critic David Cairns summarized it well: “Beauty without form, sound without meaning, power without reason, reason without soul, is the deadly logic of Hi-Fi. Machines, we are told, will someday compose symphonies. At present, they merely perform them”. Norman Lebrecht wrote: “Like Alfred Hitchcock, he was a master of tension and incapable of passion. Karajan knowingly pursued uniformity in music, and uniform is, by definition, a token of totalitarian authority”.

Although it is undisputable that the recordings and concerts conducted by Von Karajan in his early and middle years bear the stamp of genius, his later output became pathetically sloppy and uninspiring. He left his mark in orchestral music, opera, and technological advancements in recorded music, but in my eyes, there are at least two dozen conductors of his
generation whom I feel made far greater artistic contributions to the profession. Give credit where it’s due, but let us not get carried away.

But, there is another side to this puzzling coin. There is something inherently wrong when we start censoring the arts because of the artists’ behavior, political leanings, and/or personal habits. Sure, we should never force Jews, Israelis, and especially Holocaust survivors and their families to listen to the music of Wagner, (as I have commented more than once
on this column), but this is where moderation and a sense of proportion come in.

If we start to censor the music of composers and performers who were either anti-Semitic or even made an occasional slur against the Jews, the list might surprise you. You might as well keep away from about 50% of all music on radio, recordings, the concert and opera stages, to say nothing of people associated with film and theatre. Many of our current living artists are
no angels either. What about refusing to listen to music by artists who were spouse abusers, philanderers, or may have belonged to political parties of which you disapprove? Where do we stop? It does not mean that I would condone a
synagogue or JCC sponsoring an art exhibition of Hitler’s works; by no means. But,  judgment should be duly exercised.

We should not fall into the trap of doing what others have done to us. When I conducted the music of Ernest Bloch in Lithuania in 1992, the musicians told me that during the Soviet occupation years, music by Jewish composers was not allowed. When the New York Philharmonic scheduled a concert in Malaysia, as part of its Asian tour in 1984, its minister of information requested that the orchestra remove any music by Jewish composers from their programs, as this
was part of a clear government policy. The Philharmonic did just that and more, by canceling their visit to Malaysia.

Personally, I do not go out of my way to program the music of Wagner, but I do not refuse if asked to conduct it. I would simply rather do other composers. In the same spirit, when I hear music on the radio conducted by Von Karajan or others, who to my knowledge and opinion were morally challenged, I listen to it if it happens to be music that I feel like hearing.

No human is faultless or guiltless, but also, very few would meet our individual standards of decency if we knew the personal nitty-gritty details and choose to be judgmental about it. It is best to be aware of radical deviations from established moral practices, but cautious in our castigations.

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Amos is conductor of the Tifereth Israel Community Orchestra in San Diego,
and has guest conducted professional orchestras around the world.  He may
be contacted at david.amos@sdjewishworld.com