The Karl Muck Scandal: Classical Music and Xenophobia in World War I America'

H-TGS DeWitt on Burrage, 'The Karl Muck Scandal: Classical Music and Xenophobia in World War I America'

Review published on Friday, September 11, 2020

Melissa D. Burrage. The Karl Muck Scandal: Classical Music and Xenophobia in World War I America. Rochester: University of Rochester Press, 2019. 445 pp. $34.95 (cloth), ISBN 978-1-58046-950-0.

Reviewed by Petra DeWitt (Missouri University of Science and Technology)Published on H-TGS (September, 2020) Commissioned by Alison C. Efford (Marquette University)

Printable Version: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showpdf.php?id=55432

Untitled [The Karl Muck Scandal: Classical Music and Xenophobia in World War I America]

Over the past century, a number of historians have written about the maltreatment of German immigrants and Americans of German heritage during World War I. Their interpretations have ranged from characterizing the anti-German campaign as nationwide government oppression to identifying various degrees of harassment based on regional circumstances. Melissa D. Burrage’s focus on the city of Boston, competition between two rival orchestras, and events surrounding Swiss conductor Karl Muck’s internment and deportation has added to this ever-growing historiography. The author argues that Muck’s celebrated status in Boston prior to the war reflected American acceptance of German-speaking immigrants as talented and hard-working people. Yet his treatment during the war demonstrated how easily the national government, as well as private individuals, could use the pretext of the country’s national security to limit the rights of human beings. As Burrage argues, Muck’s promiscuous behavior was the real reason for his removal.

Burrage begins her chronological study with Muck’s formative years, his rise to fame in Wilhelmine Germany, and his indoctrination to anti-Semitic beliefs through interactions with Kaiser Wilhelm II and German composer Richard Wagner. Interestingly, the German-born Muck had become a Swiss citizen in 1881, not because of family connections, but after having lived there for a number of months. This decision did not impact his career but would influence his choices in 1918. Muck’s appointment as the conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra in 1906 occurred within the context of the city’s thriving German American community. Like many cities in the United States, Boston still had German-language newspapers, churches where ministers preached sermons in German, restaurants that offered German food, and organizations that met the cultural desires of German Americans. Karl Muck and his wife, Anita, were welcomed into this community, established friendships with American upper-class musicians, toured uninhibited throughout the United States, and lived a privileged life as famous Germans in America.

That changed when Congress declared war on Germany in April 1917. Boston, owing to its location on the East Coast, transformed into a major military manufacturing, training, and shipping center. Posters, murals, and speakers appealed to Bostonians to support the war effort out of a sense of patriotism, duty, or guilt. Within this context of coming together for a higher purpose, Karl Muck had

Citation: H-Net Reviews. DeWitt on Burrage, 'The Karl Muck Scandal: Classical Music and Xenophobia in World War I America'. H-TGS. 09-11-2020. https://networks.h-net.org/node/11761/reviews/6424377/dewitt-burrage-karl-muck-scandal-classical-music-and-xenophobia-world Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. 1 H-TGS to keep any feelings for Germany to himself.

What complicated the conductor’s situation was the degree to which government-sanctioned advertisements and legislation villainized Germany, and by default any person associated with that enemy. According to Burrage, the Committee on Public Information used speakers and publications not just to instill patriotism but also to distract Americans from food and fuel shortages, thus redirecting distrust in government into hatred for anything German. This interpretation of a conscious attempt by government officials to create an anti-German frenzy updates the traditional scholarship that argues that hyperpatriotism gradually transitioned into anti-Germanism on the American home front. Burrage’s interpretation seems to support regional studies like Christopher C. Gibbs’s much-critiqued The Great Silent Majority: Missouri’s Resistance to World War I (1988), that argue that a majority of Americans opposed the country’s war effort.The Karl Muck Scandal thus makes an important contribution to the scholarly debate over the degree of patriotism in the US during World War I.

While growing anti-German sentiment made life difficult for Karl Muck, he also became a pawn in the competition between the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the New York Philharmonic, with the latter attempting to eclipse the former in prominence. One person in particular, Lucie Jay, a member of the Philharmonic’s board of directors, used the anti-German sentiment to establish the Anti-German Music League in March 1917 and began a campaign to discredit Boston and its orchestra as a center of German influence. As Burrage suggests, Mrs. Jay may have focused on Muck’s Germanness not just to improve the standing of the Philharmonic, but to also distract from her own German ancestry and her family’s involvement with the North German Lloyd Steamship Line.

When Muck did not include the “Star Spangled Banner” at a scheduled concert in Providence, Rhode Island, because he had not received notification of its request, ardent anti-German journalists and editors interpreted the omission as evidence of the conductor’s loyalty to Germany. At this point, others, including influential New Yorkers and members of the Boston Musical Union, joined in the growing anti-Muck frenzy. Allegations that he spied for Germany and sent messages to German submarines garnered the attentions of government officials, but no evidence of illegal behavior was found and since he was a Swiss national little could be done.

But it was a report on the married conductor’s sexual encounters with a violinist and a mezzo- soprano based on evidence gained through questionable means by members of the Bureau of Investigation that ended Muck’s American career. Government officials gave him the choice between being charged with a sex crime or being identified as a threatening enemy alien with internment as punishment. As Burrage expertly explains, the social and sexual climate in America, especially the shame associated with publicized deviant behavior, assured that the accused selected internment for the remainder of the war. Karl and Anita Muck were deported in August 1919.

The author concludes her study with an evaluation of Muck’s life in a then different Germany where after his wife’s death he rekindled his friendship with Richard Wagner’s extended family, embraced anti-Semitic and Nazi ideology, and supported Adolf Hitler, activities that further complicate his legacy. While it is important to know about Muck’s ideologies to realize who he was, anti-Semitism did not really play a role in his treatment in Boston.

Burrage conducted extensive research in archives, conservatory collections, newspapers, the papers of persons involved in the events, and the appropriate secondary sources. Consequently, the author has created a work that is much more than an examination of the unfair treatment of German- speakers during World War I. It is a history of music at the turn of the twentieth century; it is a study of competing interpretations of the American way of life; it is an indictment of government overreach; and it is a story about intrigue and sexual misconduct during a time of social change. As such, it is a worthwhile read for anyone interested in American society during the World War I era, including undergraduates studying the early twentieth century.

Burrage begins her chronological study with Muck’s formative years, his rise to fame in Wilhelmine Germany, and his indoctrination to anti-Semitic beliefs through interactions with Kaiser Wilhelm II and German composer Richard Wagner. Interestingly, the German-born Muck had become a Swiss citizen in 1881, not because of family connections, but after having lived there for a number of months. This decision did not impact his career but would influence his choices in 1918. Muck’s appointment as the conductor of the Boston Symphony Orchestra in 1906 occurred within the context of the city’s thriving German American community. Like many cities in the United States, Boston still had German-language newspapers, churches where ministers preached sermons in German, restaurants that offered German food, and organizations that met the cultural desires of German Americans. Karl Muck and his wife Anita were welcomed into this community, established friendships with American upper-class musicians, toured uninhibited throughout the United States, and lived a privileged life as famous Germans in America.

What complicated the conductor’s situation was the degree to which government sanctioned advertisements and legislation villainized Germany, and by default any person associated with that enemy. According to Burrage, the Committee on Public Information used speakers and publications not just to instill patriotism but also to distract Americans from food and fuel shortages, thus redirecting distrust in government into hatred for anything German. This interpretation of a conscious attempt by government officials to create an anti-German frenzy updates the traditional scholarship that argues that hyper-patriotism gradually transitioned into anti-Germanism on the American home front. Burrage’s interpretation seems to support regional studies like Christopher C. Gibbs’s much critiqued The Great Silent Majority: Missouri’s Resistance to World War I (1988), that argue that a majority of Americans opposed the country’s war effort.The Karl Muck Scandal thus makes an important contribution to the scholarly debate over the degree of patriotism in the US during World War I.

While growing anti-German sentiment made life difficult for Karl Muck, he also became a pawn in the competition between the Boston Symphony Orchestra and the New York Philharmonic, with the latter attempting to eclipse the former in prominence. One person in particular, Lucie Jay, a member of the Philharmonic’s board of directors, used the anti-German sentiment to establish the Anti- German Music League in March 1917 and began a campaign to discredit Boston and its orchestra as a center of German influence. As Burrage suggests, Mrs. Jay may have focused on Muck’s Germanness not just to improve the standing of the Philharmonic, but to also distract from her own German ancestry and her family’s involvement with the North German Lloyd Steamship Line.

When Muck did not include the “Star Spangled Banner” at a scheduled concert in Providence, Rhode Island because he did not receive notification of its request, ardent anti-German journalists and editors interpreted the omission as evidence of the conductor’s loyalty to Germany. At this point others, including influential New Yorkers and members of the Boston Musical Union, joined in the growing anti-Muck frenzy. Allegations he spied for Germany and sent messages to German submarines garnered the attentions of government officials but no evidence of illegal behavior was found and since he was a Swiss national little could be done.

Burrage conducted extensive research in archives, conservatory collections, newspapers, the papers of persons involved in the events, and the appropriate secondary sources. Consequently, the author created a work that is much more than just an examination of the unfair treatment of German speakers during World War I. It is a history of music at the turn of the twentieth century; it is a study of competing interpretations of the American way of life; it is an indictment of government overreach; and it is a story about intrigue and sexual misconduct during a time of social change. As such, it is a worthwhile read for anyone interested in American society during the World War I era, including undergraduates studying the early twentieth century.

Citation: Petra DeWitt. Review of Burrage, Melissa D., The Karl Muck Scandal: Classical Music and Xenophobia in World War I America. H-TGS, H-Net Reviews. September, 2020.URL: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=55432

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.