Dear Colleagues,
Many interesting points have been raised in response to my presentation and comments – points that have made me reflect on a number of issues.
At the end of my précis regarding my research concerning Sibelius and Nazism, I observed that “the hagiographical picture has been painted over and touched up to conform to post-war mores, and the fallacious belief that great artists - who are also national heroes - must also be decent people. Nor are such issues irrelevant to the interpretation of the music itself. The situation is, of course, special for Sibelius who - fortunately - composed his music before the Nazis assumed power. Nevertheless, it is my contention in my study of ‘Sibelius and the SS’ that there was a convergence of ideologies that allowed for a kind of ‘interpenetration’ between his music and their ideology, the significance of which was never lost on either party.”
To be sure, whether Sibelius or Hartmann were decent people is irrelevant to their significance and impact as artists. My point is that so-called music historians want them to be “humanists” and “paint over” or “suppress” those aspects of their biographies that do not conform to their, i.e., the historians’, own morality: the result is that hagiography and myth-making substitute for biography. But this is an ancillary point; crucial is the central point: the composer’s presentation of his music as a political statement. In Sibelius’s case, it is clear that Sibelius participated in the exploitation of his music and its concomitant ideology to promote the Nazi cause. Let us consider the historical record, which, for the reasons just given, has been completely ignored by Sibelius scholarship for the past sixty years.
In 1935, Helmuth Thierfelder conducted Sibelius’s Second Symphony with the Frankfurt Radio Orchestra to celebrate the composer’s seventieth birthday, which coincided with Hitler presenting Sibelius with the Goethe Medal. At the same time, in the Allgemeine Musikzeitung, Thierfelder published an open letter to Sibelius. I present the German original first; there is at least one sentence that is difficult to translate and interpret, which I have placed in bold type.
An Jean Sibelius
Finnlands großem Sohne zum 70. Geburtstag
Verehrter Meister!
Das junge Deutschland gratuliert! Und zwar von ganzen Herzen! Es verspricht alles das gut zu machen, was eine frühere Zeit an Ihnen, lieber siebzigjähriger Meister, versäumte.
Die angelsächsischen Länder, als Siegerstaaten nach dem Weltkriege weniger zersetzenden Mächten ausgeliefert, haben Sie schon eher in Ihrer ganzen Bedeutung zu erfassen versucht, während man sich bei uns nach dem Kriege jahrelang einer ebenso unfruchtbaren wie volksfremden Kunstrichtung hingab. Sie aber, allein Volk und Heimat verbunden, schufen inzwischen ein herrliches Orchesterwerk nach dem anderen. Und so bezwang in jener unseligen Zeit die Urkraft Ihrer Tonsprache alle die deutschen Menschen, für welche völkische Begriffe immer schon Ewigkeitswert besessen haben.
Was ist nun näturlichler, als daß Ihnen dafür besonders das erwachte, junge Deutschland aus ehrlichem Herzen danken möchte! Sie haben in einer Zeit gefährlichster Umwertung fast aller uns heiligen Begriffe in der kleinen Front der wenigen Großen gestanden, die uns Jüngeren den Glauben an den Endsieg des Guten erhielten und die Kräfte zum Kampfe erneuern halfen.
Sie, verehrter Meister, haben uns den herrlichen Beweis erbracht, daß die einzige international Tonsprache nur jene ist, die in ihrem charakteristischen Ausdruck nicht einen Augenblick das Temperament der eigenen Rasse verleugnet. Das Gedankengut Ihrer großen musikalischen Tonschöpfungen entstammt dem Boden Ihrer an schönen Volksliedern so reichen finnischen Heimat, ist also volksliedhaft im höchsten Sinne – und doch wüßte ich nicht ein Volkslied, das Ihnen irgendwo zur bequemen Unterlage für eines Ihrer Meisterwerke gedient hätte.
Das Ausdrucksweise Ihres Orchesters, die geradezu revolutionär zu nennende klangliche Erweiterung ganzer Instrumentalgruppen, dann aber auch wieder die alles bezwingende Zartheit impressionistischer Tonmalerei, benützten gewisse Kunstrichter gern zu der Feststellung, “daß gegen die Instrumentation allerdings nichts einzuwenden sei,” ohne dabei zu ahnen, wie fremd gerade Ihnen die sogenannte “Kunst des Instrumentierens” ist. Für Sie ist in der Tat der glänzendste äußere Rahmen nie Selbstzweck, sondern das kostbare Gefäß eines noch kostbaren Inhalts. Natur! Natur! Nichts als Natur! Da scheint mir der Hauptschlüssel für Verständnis Ihres gesamten musikalischen Schaffens zu liegen.
Der Weg zu Ihnen sollte angesichts so erd- und natur-gebundener Haltung kaum besonderen Schwierigkeiten unterliegen. Und doch! Wer Sie besitzen will, muß Sie erwerben, denn wie alles Charaktervolle und Kompromißlose in der Welt Ecken und Kanten aufweist, so ist auch Ihre herrliche Musik alles andere als gefällig. Das nordisch-grüblerische, aber auch das dämonische Zauberwesen finnischer Herkunft rührt an die letzten Gründe der Menschlichkeit, und will nicht nur gehört, sondern auch erkämpft werden.
So wie die Helden der Kalevala, an ihrer Spitze der von Ihnen so meisterhaft besungene strahlende Lemminkainen, siegreich streitend Pohjolas Reich durchzogen, so müssen wir uns zum geistigen Kampfe rüsten, um der ewig geltenden Werte Ihrer künstlerischen Lebensarbeit ganz teilhaftig zu werden.
Deutschland fühlt heute mehr denn je die Pflicht in sich, den Meistern der nordischen, uns verwandten Musik eine Heimat in seinem Herzen zu bereiten; bei Ihnen hochgeehrter Meister, dürfen wir noch dazu den unschätzbaren künstlerischen Gewinn in den Vordergrund rücken, den das hörende wie schaffende Deutschland aus Ihren Tonschöpfungen ziehen wird.
Helmuth Thierfelder
I have translated this letter as follows:
To Jean Sibelius
Finland’s great son on his 70th birthday
Honored Master!
The new Germany congratulates you! And from the bottom of [its] heart! It promises to make good for all that an earlier period, dear seventy-year-old Master, ignored. The Anglo-Saxon countries, [who] as victorious states after the world war [were] less at the mercy of subversive elements, for some time already have attempted to comprehend your complete meaning [Ihre ganze Bedeutung], while in our case after the war for years one was devoted to an artistic direction that was as unfruitful as it was foreign to the people [Volksfremd]. But you, bound only to people and homeland, in the meantime created one wonderful orchestral work after the other. And thus, in that unholy time, all of the German people for whom national [völkisch] concepts still had an eternal value were captivated.
What is now more natural than that the aroused, New Germany [erwachte Deutschland] should want to thank you from the bottom of its heart! In a time of the most dangerous revaluation of almost all of our most holy concepts, you stood in the small front [Front] of the few greats who preserved the hope of final victory [Endsieg] of the good and helped to renew the power for battle [Kampf].
You, honored Master, have provided us with the wonderful evidence that only international musical language is that which in its characteristic expression never denies even for a moment the temperament of its own race [Rasse]. The body of thought of your great musical creations stems from the soil [Boden] of your Finnish homeland, so rich in beautiful folksongs, and is therefore folksonglike in the highest sense – and yet I am unaware of a folksong that anywhere served as a comfortable basis for one of your masterworks.
The manner of expression of your orchestration, the frankly revolutionary sonic expansion of whole instrumental groups, but then also by contrast everything compelling delicateness of impressionistic tone painting, led certain critics to conclude “that there is nothing to object to in the instrumentation,” without suspecting how foreign to you is the so-called “art of instrumentation.” For you, in fact, the most glittering outer framework is never a goal in itself, but rather the precious container for even more precious contents. Nature! Nature! Nothing but Nature! This appears to me to be the key to understanding all of your music.
The path to you, in view of your earth- and nature-bound orientation should hardly present special difficulties. And yet! He who would possess your music must earn it, since everything full of character and without compromise in this world presents twists and turns, so in your wonderful music everything is other than obliging. The Nordic-brooding, but also the demonic magical being of Finnish provenance resides in the last boundaries of humanity and does not only want to be heard but earned through struggle.
Thus, like the heroes of the Kalevala, at the head of them, the glorious Lemminkainen so masterly sung of striding victoriously [siegreich] through Pojohla’s kingdom we must arm ourselves for spiritual battles [Kampfe] so as to be able to participate in the eternally valid values of your artistic life’s work.
Today, Germany feels more than ever the duty to prepare a home in its breast for you, the Master of a Nordic, related music; further, with you, highly honored Master, we may move into the foreground the incalculable artistic benefit that the listening as well as creative Germany may draw from your sonic creations.
Helmuth Thierfelder
My colleague, Prof. Dr. Gerhard Splitt (an expert on music in the Third Reich, and especially Richard Strauss), agrees with my explanation that Thierfelder subscribes to Nazi conspiracy theory, namely that everybody and everything is controlled by “International Jewry,” “the Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” the Communists – the phrase “ebenso unfruchtbare wie volksfremde Kunstrichtung” refers to the atonalists, Jews, Bolsheviks, in short, the cultural and music-Bolsheviks [“Das sind die Atonalen, Juden, Bolschewisten, kurz: die Kultur- bzw. Musikbolschewisten”]. Splitt clarifies the sentence as follows:
“Die angelsächsischen Länder, [die] als Siegerstaaten nach dem Weltkriege weniger zersetzenden Mächten ausgeliefert [waren als Deutschland], haben Sie [deshalb] schon eher in Ihrer ganzen Bedeutung zu erfassen versucht, während man sich bei uns nach dem Kriege jahrelang einer ebenso unfruchtbaren wie volksfremden Kunstrichtung hingab.”
He writes that what Thierfelder means to say is this: “The Anglo-Saxons could try earlier to understand Sibelius ‘in his complete meaning,’ because after WW I they were less at the mercy of the music-Bolsheviks than the Germans. The music-Bolsheviks are guilty. It is also clear that the Anglo-Saxons are somewhat unsuccessful; they have ATTEMPTED to understand Sibelius. What is implied: those who really understand Sibelius are in fact the Germans [“Was er sagen will, ist: Die Angelsächsen konnten früher versuchen, Sibelius in seiner ganzen Bedeutung zu verstehen, weil sie nach WW I den Musikbolschewisten weniger ausgesetzt waren als Deutschland. Die Musikbolschewisten sind schuld. Klar aber auch, dass die angelsächsischen Länder etwas abbekommen: sie haben immerhin VERSUCHT, den Sibelius zu verstehen. Was implizit meint: Die wirklichen Sibelius-Versteher sind wohl doch die Deutschen].
It is noteworthy - and significant - that Thierfelder employs the enigmatic phrase “in Ihrer ganzen Bedeutung zu erfassen” in this open letter from 1935 and again in 1942 in a private letter to Sibelius (this letter accompanied Nazi newspaper reports on the “Finlandkonzert” Thierfelder organized in Hanover and his guest-conducting and interviews with Sibelius in Finland). The 1942 letter reads:
May 19, 1942
Deeply honored, dear Master,
As a small thank-you for the pleasant hours that I was again able to spend with you, I can report today of a new, wonderful success of your works in Germany. I hope that I am able to make you happy with this. If I do not find myself applauding everything that the newspapers write, nevertheless most if it is good and correct and will show you with what open-mindedness your wonderful works are received in Germany, and how one is concerned to perceive your complete meaning [Sie in Ihrer ganzen Bedeutung zu erfassen].
With many warm and respectful greetings to you, also from my wife,
Your truly beholden
Helmuth Thierfelder
Enclosures: interviews and reviews
[Hochverehrter, lieber Meister!
Als kleinen Dank für die schönen Stunden, die ich wieder bei Ihnen verlaben durfte, kann ich Ihnen heute von einem neuen schönen Erfolg Ihrer Werke in Deutschland berichten. Ich hoffe, dass ich Ihnen damit eine Freude machen kann. Wenn auch nicht alles, was die Zeitungen schreiben, meinen Beifall findet, so ist aber doch das meiste gut und richtig und wird Ihnen zeigen, mit welchem aufgeschlossenen Sinn Ihre herlichen Werke in Deutschland aufgenommen werden, und wie man sich bemüht, Sie in Ihrer ganzen Bedeutung zu erfassen.
Mit vielen herzlichen Grüssen an die verehrten Ihrigen, auch von meiner Frau,
Ihr Ihnen stets true ergebener
Helmuth Thierfelder]
Anl. Interviews und Kritiken
The topic of Sibelius reception in the Anglo-Saxon lands came up in a discussion between Prof. Dr. Tomi Mäkelä and myself concerning his article for our book, and also with Dr. Antti Vihinen. In his article, Mäkelä observes regarding early Anglo-Saxon Sibelius reception: “Although North-American and British societies and identities are in many respects fundamentally multicultural, regional enthusiasm and local patriotism did become important aspects in both cultures in the 20th Century. Similar to the German ‘Heimatkultur’ - movements around 1900 – particularly in the North of Germany - an intellectual reaction to colonialism, internationalism and exoticism, as well as to urbanity and industrialization eventually culminating in the concept of “national revolution” (as understood in Germany today, the term ‘national revolution’ signifies the ‘revolutions’ – to date and projected into the future – of the ultra-right wing nationalist fascists; the fascists also apply this term to themselves) – this trend in the English-speaking realms encouraged radically ‘right-wing’ attitudes and even well-organized movements. In my view, a thorough analysis of English and North-American style fascism, pseudo-fascism, and pro-Nordic conservatism (often linked with anti-Semitism and chauvinism) before and after 1945, should be undertaken in music; only in light of such scholarly study of English and North American fascism can its impact first upon early Sibelius reception (above all Olin Downes and Lucien Price, to start with) and then later reception, as in Wendy Hall’s interpretation, be fully evaluated. A thorough analysis of English and North-American style fascism, pseudo-fascism, and pro-Nordic conservatism (often linked with anti-Semitism and chauvinism) before and after 1945, should be undertaken in music; only in light of such scholarly study of English and North American fascism can its impact first upon early Sibelius reception (above all Olin Downes and Lucien Price, to start with) and then later reception, as in Wendy Hall’s interpretation, be fully evaluated.”
In the context of this discussion in 2007, I pointed out the importance of Harvard-trained Lothrop Stoddard, especially his 1922 pamphlet The Revolt Against Civilization: The Menace of the Under Man and that “it is in Stoddard’s work - that is, in an ENGLISH-SPEAKING AMERICAN pseudo-scientist of the inter-war period - that you find the original sources of the notions that make Hall’s work possible - as well as that of Downes and Price…..These white supremacy theories are deeply rooted in the Ivy Leagues up through the 1920s. Don’t forget Sibelius’s connection with Yale….There were signs in the US that read ‘No dogs or Jews allowed’ in this period. Only in the later 1930s as people began to see the consequences of this way of thinking, was there a backlash; and the decisive blow was struck only with the actual opening up of the [concentration] camps and Nuremburg.” As Stephen Norwood has shown in his study The Third Reich in the Ivory Tower: Complicity and Conflict on American Campuses (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009), the upper administrations of these Ivy League schools were rife with polite – and sometimes not-so-polite - anti-Semitism and racial bigotry.
To return to Thierfelder’s argument in light of these observations, we now may better grasp Thierfelder’s point; what he is saying is the following: in the post-WW I period, the Americans and British were “less at the mercy of subversive elements,” that is, they did not almost have a Communist take-over, and also, their music was not infiltrated by atonalists, Jews, and Communists, and so they would be better positioned to “attempt” to understand Sibelius’s “complete meaning,” namely, that only by rejecting an international modernism of Communists and Jews in favor of an art rooted in people and soil could there be a “fruitful” artistic direction. That the Anglo-Saxon lands should ultimately fail to comprehend Sibelius’s “complete meaning” is presumably because they are too broad-minded, i.e., and more specifically because they have permitted themselves to be infiltrated by “subversive elements” (Jewish, left-leaning atonalist émigrés and the like). The “New Germany” (i.e., Nazi Germany), by contrast, alone grasps Sibelius’s “complete meaning” and possesses the necessary firmness and willpower to permit and encourage only a “völkisch” music like Sibelius’s.
Thierfelder never would have dared publish this open letter in the Allgemeine Musikzeitung without having discussed it first with Sibelius and receiving his approval. Nor would Sibelius’s publisher Helmuth von Hase, the director of Breitkopf und Härtel and also the publisher of the Allgemeine Musikzeitung, have allowed Thierfelder’s letter to be printed if he had believed it to run contrary to Sibelius’s wishes. Furthermore, if Sibelius had objected, we would not expect to see this letter published in the Finnish musicology journal a month after its publication in Germany. The great preponderance of evidence is that Sibelius endorsed Thierfelder, and helped him to “spread the gospel,” so to speak. Post-1938, Sibelius never would have intervened in the internal affairs of the Reich to help Thierfelder if he were put off by Thierfelder’s Nazi orientation and interpretation of his music.
The audience for the original letter would be German rather than Finnish. The original German wording makes it look like Sibelius is a Nazi sympathiser. So, the point would be made to the German public: “Sibelius is one of us, i.e., Sibelius is a Nazi like us.” It would not surprise me if it was the German version of the open letter - in combination with other indications - that led Adorno to react as he did in his “Glossen,” although he does not cite the letter. In an article in the Munich edition of Der volkische Beobachter by Heinrich Stahl (1940), that I have never seen cited in any Sibelius bibliography, the author claims: “In mehrfacher Beziehung darf man Sibelius in die Bezirke deutscher Musik einbeziehen….” [“In many respects, one can draw Sibelius into the realm of German music”]. In other words, the intention is to appropriate Sibelius to German, i.e., Nazi-German music, a process that is now well underway if not complete. Now, the argument has been made that the one being appropriated - namely, Sibelius – was “passive,” having nothing to with those “actively” doing the appropriating - namely, the Nazis - for their own purposes. But I believe that this open letter, which Thierfelder could not have published without Sibelius’s approval and remained intimate with him, let alone have it translated and published in Finland - in conjunction with a host of other indicators - shows that Sibelius approved of this appropriation and encouraged it. And this approval is for me - and for Adorno as well - the threshold for involvement: the doorway from passive observer to active participant, from disengagement to engagement. Given Sibelius’s enormous prestige, this act was tremendously significant, both for our understanding of the man and his music.
The related question now arises as to whether Hartmann became engaged in a similar way on behalf of the Apartheid regime in South Africa; i.e., whether he used his music to further the political goals of the Nationalists. My future research will focus – in part – in trying to find an answer. Preliminary indications are that Hartmann never felt himself to be part of the Afrikaner establishment, nor did that party have any allegiance to him, regarding him unfavorably if at all. He did compose a “Symphonic Fanfare” for the Van Riebeck Festival of apparently four minutes duration in 1952; does this show any commitment to the Apartheid regime? My guess is that Hartmann’s main political preoccupation was survival, especially since during the war he was suspected – like many German-speaking émigrés, both Gentile and Jewish - of being a “Fifth Columnist.”
Timothy Jackson
